Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Vera
Iawaken soaking wet. I groan and flop my arm over my face, trying to shield myself from the droplets raining mercilessly down on my face. Did I leave my window open and now the rain is pouring into my apartment getting water damage everywhere?
Except… didn’t I fall asleep at my desk?
That is nowhere near my window. I lift my arm off my face, noting that my skin is bare.
I don’t know where my sweater went, but suddenly I’m cold.
I suppress I shudder and push myself up into a sitting position.
The first thing I notice besides how wet I am and the fact that I’m no longer wearing my shirt, is that I’m not in my apartment anymore.
I’m lying next to a great body of water—the ocean?
Wave after wave of greenish water laps up around me, moving somewhat turbulently in the wind and rain.
I tilt my head over to see that I’m not lying next to a body of water but rather in the middle of it. There is no land to be seen anywhere nearby. Just rolling waves and gray skies. I’m stranded on a rock.
How did I get here?
I groan and reach a hand up to clutch my head. Is someone trying to kill me?
Is this a prank?
Who do I have in my life who would even prank me?
I don’t know what to do, should I call the coast guard? What is their phone number? Wait, do I even have my phone on me?
I swing my legs around, but they move stiffly. I frown, glancing down to see that in the place of my two legs all I have is one long scaly tail.
I jump slightly, skidding back on my rear across the rock as if I can somehow escape the fins, but they follow me, flopping like a dead fish the whole way.
My screams mingle with the crashing surf of the ocean waves.
I shimmy backward until suddenly my hand meets empty air and I fall backward with a gasp into the water, having crawled right off the edge of the rock in my panic.
The fishtail, unfortunately, follows me.
I struggle as the waves envelop me, trying to get my legs underneath me when I haven’t any legs at all.
I’m floundering, no worse than that. I’m drowning.
My hands fly to my neck, but I freeze in my flailing as I realize one little important detail. I can breathe. I’m underwater and I’m breathing.
I freeze as I sink deeper into the waters, bubble rising up around me, as I struggle to take stock of my situation.
Okay so I have a scaly fishtail. It is red and orange with bits of green. It’s actually kind of spectacular and shimmery. In a completely freak out worthy way.
I’m wearing a wrap of fabric that is the same color as my tail, around my chest. My hands move up my arms, as I shudder. My hair is still red as it floats around me, but I don’t feel like myself.
For a second, I think I’m probably having a really weird dream, but as soon as that thought crosses my mind, I realize that probably isn’t the case.
My mind always saves its creativity for my screenplays.
My dreams are never this vivid, and the second I start to suspect myself of dreaming it fades away immediately so that I don’t ever remember my dreams upon waking.
I move my hand down to the tail, pressing my lips together as I study it. I grip the nearest scale and yank, hissing as sharp pain shoots down my legs—no not legs but where they would be. I quickly release the scale, rubbing my hand down it, trying to relieve some of the sting.
Now that I’m calming down a little bit, I’m starting to realize that the tail greatly resembles how I always imagined the hero of my screenplay, Moira, to look.
Straight down to the flecks of green in her sunset-colored scales.
I tilt my head as I once again consider the possibility of this being a dream, but then I remember the pain.
“No, not a dream,” I say to myself even though I should under no circumstances be able to speak under water.
My hand flies to my throat as panic wells up within me. I should be drowning right now, not talking and breathing like normal. This isn’t right. This isn’t right.
I struggle to find the calm that I had earlier although I’m beginning to think now that it was just numbness of shock. I clamp my hand over my mouth, trying not to scream or sob or possibly throw up. Because I feel dangerously close to doing all three.
Growing up, I always felt an emotional disconnect while surrounded by my passionate, fiery family.
I just was not moved by the same things that seemed to move everyone else.
My sister would call me a robot when faced with my stony expression while she sobbed her eyes out over some character’s death or sad movie plot.
I wonder what she would think to know that I’m having a panic attack undersea.
Not so emotionless after all…
I draw in a deep breath even though I am loathe to do it while underwater. It feels wrong, even if it doesn’t physically hurt.
I hold my hands out, trying to get my balance and ground myself. “It’s okay, I have probably not totally lost it and cracked under the stress. I’m sure I’m not hallucinating right now.”
My words do very little to calm me because if I’m not dreaming—and I suspect I’m not—and I’m not hallucinating like I just said… then that means that I really am a mermaid and I’m not entirely sure how to process that sort of information right now.
“Okay,” I say too loudly. I wince slightly, wondering how my voice carries in the water. It should be muffled but it isn’t. “I won’t process anything.”
First things first, I need to get to the surface. I think I’ll feel better if I am breathing air instead of water. And in the face of something as daunting as trying to figure out what is going on, I will take the little wins where I can get them.
I bite down on my lip, struggling to get my fin to work. I find that if I pretend I’m pressing my legs together and moving them in sync, I’m able to better control my movements instead of trying to yank my legs apart.
My head breaks the surface of the water and out of habit, I gasp for air. I reach my hand up to swipe the water and my trailing hair out of my face just as a ship comes into view, rocking on the waves and heading straight toward me.
My eyes widen, but before the ship bears down on me, its side swipes against some of the rocks. The rocks rip a jagged hole in the wood and water immediately rushes in.
My hand flies to my mouth as I hear men shout in panic overhead.
It’s as though the ship is disintegrating in the storm and chunks of wood and stuff from the top deck begin falling into the water. I’m so shocked and enthralled watching this that I don’t notice the chunk of wood plummeting toward me until it smacks me clean in the face.
My head whips back and faintly I taste blood. I think I bit my tongue, I process hazily as I sink to the depths of the sea.