The Queen of Atlantis

Chapter one "Who am I" ?

The air is cool and crisp, filled with the salty scent of the water. The earth beneath me is sandy and rough, decorated by the bright alluring colors of the rocks and shells. The sea is...so clear...so fresh...so seductive...it calls to me. But I can't go. I can't follow. Because if I do I won't be coming out back. I'm am not suppose to be here. The sky becomes dark and gloomy for the clouds have swallowed the sun. Even on a good day, though, they'd never let me come here. It's raining,but that's okay I like the rain. I love how the water feels across my skin as it falls on top of me. It refreshes me, rejuvenates me. It's the only thing that makes me happy about being on land. Each drop massages my dark brown skin making it look clearer, brighter, more alive as if I'm being revived. I love it. But I must go. My clothes are drenched and so is my hair. If she were here today she'd scold me about being out of the house with only a tank top and shorts on while allowing myself to get drenched in water in the middle of January where the temperature is 43 degrees. She'd go on and on about pneumonia and the plague. They both would if they were here...but they're not...they're gone...so it doesn't matter what they'd might say because they will never say it or anything else again because they our gone. And I am here. And I am alone. And the cold does not affect me nor does the rain. But still I must go for the longer I stay the more I'll never want to leave the presence of the sea.
"I'm home," I yell out as I enter the house only to remember that I am alone for no but me lives here anymore. With a heavy sigh I walk around looking for a match. It's dark but I can see clearly as one wood in the sunlight.  I light the fire place for warmth and strip myself naked setting my clothes in front of the fire to dry and wrap a blanket around myself. I curl up on the couch only to look up at old portraits sitting on top of the mantle covered in dust. I see them in the portraits along with myself. The pictures start from when I was a baby and end when I turned sixteen because he wasn't here to take anymore. Their names were Katherine and Joseph Fisher but I knew them as mom and dad because I was their daughter Natalia Fisher. At first it was only me and dad who lived in this house, but around the time i was 5 he met Katherine who showed up in our lives and ever since then I knew her as mom. But she's wasn't my mom. My mom, my real mom disappeared when I was only a baby and my dad never knew why. I remember in my head the story he would tell me every night before I went to sleep. It was the story on how they first met.
"Years ago," he'd start off " I went out unto the sea to catch me some fish for dinner when all of a sudden a terrible storm swept me out farther out to sea beyond the shore. I thought that if I could wait it out the storm would eventually calm and I'd be able to find my way back, but it didn't let up. The wind kept blowing and the water kept thrusting me back and forth tearing my little fishing boat apart. I knew for sure that I was a goner and closed my eyes to say my last good byes to this world." I remembered gasping every time he came to this part huddle in my sheets always asking him " What happened next dad? Did you drown? Did you die? Did you meet grandma and grandpa in heaven?" Only stopping myself to let him finish the story. I remember him laughing and telling me "Natalia, my child, you know that none of those things happened. Otherwise how would I be here with you. Now be quite and listen. Now when I closed my eyes believing I would never open them again I felt the boat all of a sudden stop. I heard no more rushing wind or clashing water for there was silence. Fearing that i had died I refused to open my eyes and face my own demise but that was until I heard voice. The voice of an angel I thought and out of curiosity I opened my eyes to find myself back on the shore safe and sound and in the presence of--" "AN ANGEL!" I would always shout and he would laugh. " No Natalia," he said, "Not exactly, but it sure was close enough. When I opened my eyes what I saw was your mother and she was indeed a beauty. I knew from then on that I was in love and it turned out that she loved me and nothing else mattered. 5 years later we had you and everything was perfect. But then one day your mother had to leave because of something very important and been gone ever since ." When he said those words I could see the pain and sadness in his eyes that he's tried to hide from me for years but couldn't . I never understood why my mother left us but I did know that she broke my dads heart. When Katherine first enter into our lives I was so happy that my dad had finally found someone who could ease the pain in his heart. I tried to forget about my mother and put Katherine in her place because she was always there to help me with anything , but she couldn't help me with everything.  I was different from my dad, different from Katherine, different from the entire human race, and I knew it.   Unlike my parents I didn't have teeth I had daggers.  Every bone in my mouth was as sharp as a blade and long as my middle finger.  On top of that I had 74 of them.  But that's not all. Instead of finger nails I had claws. My eyes were a mushy seaweed green and my pupils were enormous. But most shockingly of all... Is that I had gills. 
I remember my father as a paled skin, blue eyed, dirty blond, 6 foot man.  We looked absolutely nothing alike, but I knew he was my father because the blood in vains told me so.  But now that he's gone I don't know if that's really true.  If what they been telling all these years was really.   I never had the guts to confront him and now I never will.  If only she was still here,  my mother.   If only she had come back to us come back to me and show me that I'm not a monster...That I'm not a freak...that I'm not alone and there are others out there just like me...just like us.  Depending on whether or not she's real and not a silly fable made up by my dad to hide the truth of who my real mom is and why she really left.  I just want to know the truth.  I just want to know her; and more importantly. I want know what am I. Who am I.