A Chest Full of White Pearls

On October 27, 1917, in the late afternoon, a fishing boat set out on a fishing expedition, but hours passed and no phone or trace of the boat was found. The crew was expecting sunny weather on the day of the expedition, but suddenly it started to rain and thunder.

After about a week and a half of investigations by the maritime police, the missing ship and the seven fishermen who disappeared with them were still being traced, and this case became quite interesting after the reports received. The police and a group of divers were heading further out into the ocean when they received a tip-off that the ship had sunk, but the fishermen were nowhere to be found. It was not surprising that the fishermen, who were thought to have drowned to death when the ship sank, were not on board, they had disappeared into the ocean. But what made it really interesting was that there was no trace of any of the teams that went to investigate. None of the police teams, afraid of what might happen to them, wanted to deal with this case after recent events.
So where were these missing people?

On the morning of October 27th, Thomas and his friends were preparing the boat for fishing, and at noon they set out in sunny weather. As they were fishing, something heavy caught on their line.
They started to pull the line as fast as they could to see what it was, as if someone was pulling the line from below in the same way, and the fisherman, unable to resist the fishing line, suddenly lost the line to the sea. At that moment, the sunny weather suddenly changed and the raindrops, and then a huge storm began.
Thomas called out to his friends;
"Hey you lazy drunk birds! This is not how you fly a ship! Let's get moving and save this ship from sinking to the bottom of the sea!''

The fishermen were already on their way back, but things didn't go as they wanted, the waves were making it difficult for the ship to move and almost pushing it under the sea.
Thomas and a few others ran into the control room, things were not looking good, the ship was going to collapse! He became angry, with piercing angry glares from his black pearly eyes. They frantically tried to call someone, but there was no way to do so. After a while they realized that the ship was damaged and leaking water, when suddenly a force pulled the ship up and then down into the sea. When they opened their eyes, they were under the water, and when they looked around, the crew, shocked, tried to struggle to the surface, but to no avail.
These creatures, whose hair reached down to their torsos, whose skin color was much lighter and cleaner than human beings, and who looked like fish from the torso down and human from the torso up, like a mermaid, were holding them by the scruff of their necks in a very creepy way and taking them somewhere.

When they realized that they couldn't stay underwater, a few of the creatures picked up shells the size of an inch from the surface and brought them to their noses and mouths to help them breathe.

They had finally arrived at the submarine center, which was large and spacious, just like on land, but covered with collapsed buildings. They forced themselves to swim into one of the collapsed buildings, and when they entered, they were confronted by a room full of merman-like creatures. Their supposed king, a fat giant looking old man with a very long red beard and hair, stood with his eyes closed as if meditating. The merpeople began to stare at each other in what sounded like a meaningless echo, like a spoken language between them.

The man, their king, opened his eyes with a slow shake of his head, while those holding the fishing crew pushed them towards him. He seemed to be saying with his hands that he wanted to be left alone, the others had come out from inside, leaving the ruler and the fishermen alone. His eyes seemed to want to say something but it was never understood, he put his hands together and bowed his head as if to greet the fishermen. The fishermen, frightened and confused, made a few gestures with their hands as if to say they wanted to leave, but they could not understand.

The king smiled as he held out his hand with the fishing line that was stuck in the seaweed behind him, as if to say that he wanted to give it back, then there was a strange echo again and a few merpeople came and grabbed the crew by the scruff of the neck again and swam upwards. The fishermen who finally made it to the surface looked very happy. One of them started talking;

''What the hell was that just now? Please wake me up if I'm dreaming!''
''We can't have had the same dream, my friend, I'm afraid what just happened was real in flesh and blood...''
''If I had known you would be so scared, I would have introduced myself to you beforehand.''
When they looked in the direction of the voice, they realized that it was a merman speaking.
''You... What are you...?
He answered with a smile
''I am the kind of creature that you humans will never know, and even if they did, they would never believe it existed!''
As the merman spoke, one of the fishermen replied with a laugh:
''Ahahah, that can't be true! Even if it is, how can a sea creature talk like humans! This must be a joke (!)''
"Dude, a sea creature is holding you by the scruff of your neck even as you say that, I don't know, but here you can only look at the sea and the creatures underneath, nothing else!
While they were bickering they had pulled someone else out from under the water behind them, it was Thomas!

His long black hair came down to her wet chin. It stuck to his earrings and some pieces of seaweed from the depths were mixed with his hair. Water droplets glistened on his beard and even more frightening was the shine in his eyes.
He looked quite surprised, but this time he looked happy, crazy happy! When his friends hurriedly asked him what had happened, he shouted back:
"We're rich! Can you believe it? We're rich!

Glancing anxiously among themselves, the crew began to whisper,
"Did he drink too much water? Maybe if we hit him on the head or something he'll come to his senses.''
"No, no, no, let's not interfere, he's not very smart anyway, this blow will only make him worse.''
As Thomas rejoiced to himself, the merman standing next to him began to speak:
"What you have experienced may be very surprising for you, this is normal, but you should know that we are not malicious creatures. My friend thought you were trying to hunt us by feeding us with your stick and damaged your boat, so your ship sank. When I found out about this, I asked our king to help you, we know that you only hunt fish to eat, but my friend hurt you without realizing it and we apologize on his behalf. As an apology we would like to give you some fish and some bags of white pearls that we have learned are valuable on land. Our king has just spoken to your friend and told him what happened and I think that is why he is happy. Please accept our apology''

The fishermen listened to him in amazement and with a vague smile, their mouths almost closed as they accepted the gifts, thanking him and saying that they had accepted his apologies many times over. Thomas asked a question as if remembering:
"Is this the first time for you? You must have experienced such events before, how come no one has ever mentioned your existence on earth?
The merman smiled, holding out his hand:
"Of course many people have met us, but it's not what you think, it was nice to meet you, goodbye!
''How...?''
When Thomas opened his eyes he was lying soaking wet on the shore of the ocean, the first thing he did was to cough up the water that had got into his throat.
There were a few other people just ahead, he was about to run towards them when he tripped over something, when he opened this box that looked like a treasure chest, he couldn't believe his eyes! There was a chest full of pearls and valuables that were at least 200 years old, and next to it was a bag of fish. He ran and shouted, waking everyone around him.

At the end of 1.5 weeks, the sailors who returned to their country said in their testimonies that after the ship sank, they drifted in the sea and somehow reached land, an event full of mysteries that never came to light, no matter how much investigation an questioning was done. Because, Thomas warned all of them one by one earlier.
''Don't say anything to anyone!''
But Thomas knew the truth. Some of them needed to be removed...
He used all his share of pearls and sailed his ship to the same spot. He even convinced some of his old friends. The interesting thing was that those who were not convinced disappeared. Before anyone had time to question it, Thomas had already boarded his ship and started his journey.

Again, he went to the place where their previous ship had sunk. Seeing the excitement and desire in his eyes, his friends could no longer recognize him. He woke up at night delirious and sleepless.
He searched for weeks.

But he finally found it. It took him months, but he was able to locate it, and Thomas dived there with a large team. Their swords were sharp and overwhelming. He was successful... He extracted every pearl there.
He didn't leave a single live mermaid, merman.
With the pearls and the jewels of riches, he bought new ships and expanded his fleet.
Thomas... He achieved his dream, but at what cost?