Infatuation of a Merman

Chapter 5-What Goes Around part 1

It was worse than fire. It was worse than drowning in ice cold water. And I had no idea what it was.

It was like a shard of glass slipping beneath my skin. I couldn't scream as it happened. I couldn't see while this happened. All I could do was feel.

So when the pain faded into oblivion, I allowed myself a moment of bliss. The worry, problems and fear could bother me another time. But not right now.

Right now I just wanted to sleep.

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I didn't need to open my eyes to know where I was. My hands fisted around the small grains of sand beneath me. Perhaps if I didn't look, I could imagine that I had actually succeeded in escaping.

It would be a pleasant lie. But my life had always been filled with harsh truths, so why bother fighting for otherwise?

I opened my eyes, blinking away the blurry tears that had somehow gathered around them, and began thinking that I had somehow tricked myself into hallucinating. I saw the sea, sand and most importantly I saw the sun.

There were no imposing cave walls surrounding me, just the warm sun shining down on my cold skin.

My arms and legs were shaking as I stood up, but I wasn't sure if it was because of the cold or the excitement of possibly being free.

"Whisperer, you've returned," the fish called to me.

"I'm home?" My eyes were tearing up again.

I paced the sand. "I'm back on land. I'm not in that cave." I stopped pacing. "I can go home."

I laughed. The sound came out cracked and hoarse as I twirled around in circles. I laughed with tears streaming down my smiling face. I was free. I was on land. And I was no longer under the threat of becoming fish food.

I flopped down onto the sand. My cheeks hurt from smiling so much, and my stomach hurt from all the laugher. But I didn't care.

I rolled around. My hands clutched my stomach, fingers brushing against metal.

Wait. Metal?

I pulled up the hem of my shirt, wondering why my skin had grown a metal layer. My happiness dissolved into dread as I gulped. Above my hip, near where my ribs were, was not skin.

There were white scales.

I immediately checked the rest of my body for traces of the foreign scales, but discovered it was just on that patch of skin above my ribs. The rest of my body skin was normal, with a human skin tone and fleshy texture.

My gag reflex struggled to react as my eyes studied the new covering to my body. It seemed to be in the shape of a crescent moon, one of those waning crescents. The shape oddly fit with the pure white color, like it were a pale moon shining down on glistening waves.

My fingers brushed the smooth covering, feeling how perfectly the individual scales fit snuggly together. I shivered and pushed the hem of my shirt back over the scales, as if by removing it from sight I could remove it from existence.

Suddenly, the ocean seemed too close for comfort. The waves rocked back and forth, like a gentle lure toward death. I needed to go inland. I needed to go home.

So I ran from the ocean and to the edge of civilization, a place that was more deadly looking than an endless span of saltwater water.

Decaying bones hung from solitary poles, like items warding off evil. The abhorrent smell pervaded my senses, causing me to breath through my mouth.