Swimming With The Current (Wattys2015)

Chapter 12

      I flail my arms as I fall into the ocean. The moment my toes hit the surface of the blue liquid, my legs start to agonizingly burn like a million flames and I can feel the scales pushing out. Transforming in the bath at home was easy, but now? The power of the ocean instead of Epsom salt was coursing through my veins, and with that power came a whole lot of pain.

"No!" I scream, and then my head goes underwater. Gills open up in my hands and neck. Looking down, I can see my dark purple to white tail. I'm about to swim up when I remember: my friends will be looking.

"Olivia!" I hear Kelly scream, and I can hear her, Mitchell, and Dustin scrabbling up the rock where Erika stands victorious. I can hear Kelly pick up my dropped phone. "What the..."

"I told you she's a mermaid." Erika says. "Just look down there. There's her tail, and there's her hair."

I can hear gasps from above. I consciously twirl a strand of my blond hair, looking down at the shallow ocean floor. I look up, and see them hunched over the edge of the rock in awe.

"You might as well come out, now that they know." I can hear Erika singsong. I slowly swim up and peek out with my head.

"Why would you do this?" I cry, my voice wobbling.

"I have my reasons." She smirks. "Guys, don't you just hate Olivia for not telling us this? I thought friends told each other all their secrets."

"How did you know, Erika?" I scream, and when she doesn't answer, I scream again, "Why?"

"It's easy to detect your kind." She says. "So, how does everyone feel about this?"

Everyone looks down there for a second, and then Kelly smiles a bit. "I... I think it's pretty cool."

Erika huffs and rolls her eyes, as I sigh a breath of relief. At least I wouldn't lose Kelly. "Dustin, what about you?"

Dustin glances down at me and back up at Erika. "I... I think it's awesome."

"Mitchell, what about you?" Erika demands.

"I thought we were the only ones." Mitchell whispers.

"Excuse me?" Erika shrieks like a banshee. "Mitchell," She suddenly becomes nervous. "um, what are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about that me and Erika are both mermaids too." He states.

"Mitchell, sweety, that's so funny. "

"No, really." He says, looking down at me. Nervous, I look down at a tiny minnow swimming around. "Erika, why would you do this to someone like us?"

"Okay, fine." Erika starts to smile wickedly. For the first time I notice.

Her teeth.

All of them were sharp and pointed, like a shark. "Okay, Mitchell is a merman, but me..... I'm a siren."

The water around me starts to bubble, and I look around, then up at her. "You're the siren Colette is looking for!"

"Was, actually." Erika says, and my eyes bulge. "I killed her this morning. She made a tasty meal. In fact, would you like to see her body?"

"No!" I scream, but something splashes next to me as I jump away. A large lump floats in the water. Almost all of her skin is torn off, the scales were peeled away, and her forehead is cut open, surrounded by dried blood. Most of her looks like muscle which has been bitten into and torn away. I clamp my hand over my mouth, in surprise but also to keep from throwing up as a blond strand of hair floats toward me.

Everyone looks down, disgusting and tears dripping down from their eyes. Kelly takes huge breaths, trying to comprehend what is happening. Dustin runs to other side of the rock to throw up. Mitchell looks over at Erika, and he gulps.

"Why would you do this?" He shudders. "Who is that? W ... why did you kill her?"

"It's the circle of life, sweety." She smiles. "She was looking for me. She was going to kill me. So I killed her first. Olivia, would you like to elaborate on who this filthy corpse was?"

I gulp back tears and vomit rising up my throat. "S...she was my great grandmother. She came here from France a long time ago, and was the first mermaid in my family. All of her family died of disease. She helped me become a mermaid. I...." I sucked in tears and took in long, shallow breathes, the kind when you cry. You just barely can get any air in your lungs because you're crying so hard. "Her name was C...C... Co....lette. Her tail was blue. It was so beautiful. And she had blond hair like me... and b... blue eyes." I realized I was rambling about her. I was in so much shock. I couldn't believe it. I can't believe it. That Erika could do something so extreme. I didn't know she was such a horrible person.

As the body starts to sink, I look up at Erika. I was so distracted by Colette's body, I didn't see the water trailing up from the ocean to make a tornado around her. She was smirking, glad to have made me so begrieved.

"I'm not going to kill you now." She says. "It's not a favor. I just want to see you live like this for awhile. Then, I'll kill you. It'll be so easy, you can't even control your power."

Anger flares up in my eyes. "How could you do this?" I scream, and raise up my hand, electricity shooting out of it. Erika teleports away quickly, and the bolt of electricity shoots up into the sky. The water tornado disappears, and I take a huge breath, trying to stop the buckets of tears coming out of my eyes.