Ocean Mutation (COMPLETED!)

Chapter 1

The sun baked down. My hands were spread in the white sand, toes buried, back dripping in sweat as I allowed as much sun as possible to deepen my once been pale skin, tan. The smell of the salt air something short of an aphrodisiac to me. I took a deep breath and sighed as I flipped back over.

"You alright over there? You sound too happy." My best friend, Serene Joslyn, turned on her side to face me with a dark arched brow, also getting even darker than her natural olive skin tone. Her medium brown hair now light brown from two weeks' worth of sunlight and sea salt.

I smirked and lifted up on my forearms.

"I don't know what to tell you. Being here makes me so happy." I looked over the top of my sunglasses out to the slowly lapping ocean. The tide was low this afternoon, and gulf waters calm. Not a breath of air seemed to ripple over the waves.

"It always does." She notes. I gave her a small smile and laid back down. She did the same. Every year mom took us from the mountains to our Florida beach house for the summer. Serene's parents weren't really around so no one cared if she was missing. She spent ninety percent of the year in Tennessee with us anyways. Mom always said no matter what she needed to come to Florida. Said it was a work thing. Not that I knew much about her work, she was gone a lot. All I knew was she had a degree in Marine Biology and worked for the Government and couldn't tell me much about it. So yes Florida was a vacation but yet never quite seemed like it. Mom was gone most of the time. Giving Serene and I the run of the place. Not that she needed to worry. She knew we were either on the beach or at a local tiki bar drinking sodas. Though not this year. We both had just turned 21 and looked forward to our Mango Daiquiris. We were instructed to get short term jobs here this summer but mom said she got a large pay raise and said for us to hold off till we were back home. Last real summer before permeate adulating for both of us.

At some point I had dosed off till something hard hit me on the head. I mumbled and blinked my eyes open as a teenage boy ran over dusting sand over both of us.

"Hey!" Serene exclaimed with irritation.

"Sorry girls." He mumbled blushing as he scooped up the soccer ball that had hit me in the head and ran off.

"Teenage boys." She shook her head and mumbled before trying to dust the sand off. I chuckled and did the same.

"Well hi ladys." Two swaggering jocks wondered up to us. We exchanged annoyed looks. "You two look great! I'm Matt, and this is Anthony." He jabbed a thumb to his bulky friend.

"And we don't care." Serene arched that pretty brow of hers and pursed her lips. "Bye bye." She waved them off. They both scoffed as I laughed watching them basically trip over themselves away from us. "Seriously do men ever think with anything other than their penises?"

"Serene!" I gape at her and brush sand on her towel.

"What?!" She holds her hands up. "I'm just sayin, don't they see we just want to relax and not be bothered?"

"No they see your boobs and nothing else." I give her a gentle poke to her swim top.

"Like you have room to talk." She waved a hand up and down. "Like, do you eat at all?"

"You know my eating habits Serene." My smile fell some and so did hers.

"Right. Sorry."

Silence fell between us as we stared out at the sun just hovering over the horizon. This sad longing tightened my chest every time I looked out at the water this time of day. It was something so strong it almost brought tears to my eyes. Or maybe it did. I blinked them back, clearing my throat and standing.