The Girl and the Shark

Six - Blade

Six

Blade

She was back there today. On that same little wooden pier I always see her sitting at. The same one she, well, fell off of into the water.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not being a creep, or stalking her. She's just...interesting to me. The way she doesn't fear the place she almost died, the way she sits so close to the water when reading or drawing something in her spiral bound sketch book.

Once again, I'm not watching this human every second of every day. Even though I've seen her enough to pick up on small details in her behaviour, habits and general appearance, I'm not a creep.
Not a creep.

She's just interesting.

I sighed as I slumped forward on the small rocky island which jutted from the calm waves a fair distance away from the spot the human girl always sat. The boulders were smooth and worn by the sun as well as the sea beating against them relentlessly. Rough yet round above the surface, and sleek, green with algae below the water. Their stone surface was adorned in barnacles, sea weeds that flowed like hair in the gentle current, and all manner of other underwater crap I'm used to and bored of, but which humans on the other hand, find fascinating.
My tail was submerged, my upper half lazily sprawled over the sloping boulder, my vantage point. Next to it was a much higher, bigger rock which acted as a pretty neat hiding spot should anyone turn their heads in my direction.
I know what you must be thinking. I can watch this girl all I want, enough to know she likes to put the pencil behind her right ear when she takes a break from sketching, but if she looks my way, I duck and hide?
The simple answer is, I have a little more to lose if a human sees me. Our kind isn't...exactly the norm for humans. I've heard enough scary stories from other sharks, even others like us, to know there's as much of a chance of me getting taken to some sci-fi laboratory and being prodded by 'experts', as there is me living happy among the land dwellers.

I learned her name was Ember. Or at least thats how it sounded whenever her blonde friend would call her from the other end of the jetty.
I always thought it was an unusual name to say the least. But pretty. I'm the last person to tell anyone they're unusual, anyway. I mean... I'm not even the same species as her. I have the tail of a Black fin reef shark, I have fins, stupidly long hair which I never bother with, and one earring which my little brother talked me into letting him do when he was going through a 'phase'.

Yeah, I'm not exactly in a position to tell anyone they're unusual.
Though being weird isn't a bad thing in most cases.

I was lost on following this strange tangent my train of thought had run off on, when I realised I had zoned out long enough to let Ember look in my direction and...

"Shit" I hissed to myself as I ducked quickly behind the larger rock, and hopefully out of sight. It was only now, as I slowly sank myself back down under the waves, that I realised my heart was beating in my throat.

"Shit shit shit. She saw me. She had to. She was looking right at me."

I muttered to myself. I slammed my head against the hard surface behind me a few times.

"You stupid stupid idiot."

After a few seconds, I wasn't sure if my heart was still pounding thanks to being seen, or thanks to being seen by her. The girl I hadn't stopped thinking about since I pulled her away from my kind, and left her on that beach to be found by her's.
Did I...feel something for this Ember, this stranger I had never even seen conscious until she was well out of reach, or contact of any sort.
I almost brought a hand up to hit myself in the forehead for having such a stupid idea cross my mind.
There's no way I'm going to let myself end up being something straight out of a cheesy romance and make myself think I'm in love with some girl whom I helped escape death and a watery grave.
You have to meet and talk to the person you're in love with. That's how you know you're feeling anything in the first place...right?