Mermaids of Kokololio (#JustWriteit 2016)

Chapter 1: The Key and the Chest.

I clawed at the water trying to reach the surface, my lungs burning for air. I twisted and kicked harder, reaching my arms toward the light I knew lead to the surface, where air would save my lungs from the burning they suffered. I looked back down aware that my captor would be behind me any second with it's long tentacles. I held back a shriek as a tentacle reaches forth and grabs onto my legs, stopping me from making any more kicks toward the surface. How did I ever get into this situation?

1 day ago~

"Hannah hurry up darling, we just have one more box to get from the car!"

"Coming mom! I'm almost done setting up these photos!" I yelled back.

I was in my grandmother's house, we had just moved in yesterday, but we still had a lot to get done. A week ago I was at my grandmother's funeral, and now I was here, moving into her pretty little house, which wasn't so little, and arranging old photos above the fireplace.

I squeezed a photo of me, mom, and grandmother into a silver frame and placed it next to the ten other photos in frames.

I closed the box below and run over to the door. It was an elegant old door, carved with pretty patterns around the round window in the top middle. The window was as clear as day, and the door was the perfect shade between chocolate brown and chestnut.

I pass the door and jump down the marble steps and run over to the car on the concrete path that led to the driveway. Our car was a red convertible with 2 seats in the front and a booth in the back that could fit three. There was one last box in the booth and my mom was no where in sight.

I shrugged and open the car door to lean over the booth and pick up the heavy box.

"Jeez, what's in here?" I mumbled to myself when the weight of the box hit me.

I retake the path from the house to the car back from the car to the house caring the heavy cardboard box.

"Mom! where you want this one?!" I called into the entryway from the doorstep.

The box wasn't the biggest, nor the smallest, but it sure was the heaviest.

"Umm. Just put it over by my room and i'll take a look!" She called back.

I blew a piece of hair out of my face as I continue my walk with the heavy box across the living room and into a hallway that led to my mom's bedroom door. It was a simple brown door with a gold door knob.

'How da heck am i going to open that with my hands full?'

I groaned in exasperation and lifted the box higher until it's over my head. I then placed the box on top of my hand and feel the weight dive in. I groaned again and let my right hand fall as my left hand stays to balance the box, reach with my now free hand to open the door, and quickly go back to the box and hold it the right way, away from my head. I go ahead and walk in the room and drop the box atop my mom's mattress that was clothed in my grandmother's old sheets yet to be changed into my mom's new ones. I wiped a drop of sweat from my forehead and looked around. Grandmother had an ocean themed wallpaper on all the walls, featuring dolphins playing and fish swimming around. A manta ray was flying effortlessly above the mattress headed for a mermaid.

I looked at the mermaid with her black hair floating around her shoulders and above her head, her blue eyes dazzling with delight and her chest clothed in seaweed and sea shells, a necklace with a ladder horn snail shell attached floated lazily around her neck, her tail a beautiful shade of violet and decorated with pearls and shells as it moved her body through the water towards the manta ray.

The mermaid kinda reminded me of a picture of grandmother when she was younger, black wavy hair and pretty blue eyes. My mother had taken after her beautiful eyes and wavy hair but took grandfather's gold color of hair instead of the black hair from my grandmother. I wish my mother had, then I would have been like her too. but I had golden hair instead.