Shadow

Heart of the Sea

It takes a while for my eyes to adjust to the darkness and natural strobe light of the water. I swim towards the rock, blowing bubbles on the way. When I reach it I poke my head up. Jay now sports a look of boredom and Leo uses abstract hand movements to match his quick words. I hoist myself up onto the rock, my underwear snagging the rocks as I went.

I stand up and call towards them, "You boys done yet?"

Their heads snap towards me and panic overcomes Leo's face. Jay looks towards my clothes and then me, his face paled a bit. Don had no expression of course, but his eyes held disbelief.

"Kyra! What the hell are you doing?!" Leo walks to the edge of the water but stops.

"This thing kept flashing at me and I just wanted to check it out calm down" I speak.

"Holy shit"Jay's whisper carries.

"Ky, I need you to listen to me okay, that golden thing is supposed to taunt you it's the Heart of the Sea, it was made from a mermaids treasure and siren blood"

The panic in Leos' voice doesn't subside, it boils over.

"That singing you heard, mermaids" Don clarifies. A movement in the water causes me to stop. A golden moss of hair? I see a woman's face. I've seen her before, in a vision. She was white, blonde hair slick back and stringy from the water, yet still luscious enough to want to touch it. Her brown eyes look at me knowingly. She sits folds her arms under her chin like she's waiting. She's very pretty, but the tail floating underwater behind her threw me off.

Other woman floats to the surface gracefully and then another. They begin to speak in some language, sounding like a mix of languages, but it was a dialect all their own.

"Do you think she's one of us?" one asks.

The one next her gives me a once over murmuring, "She could be"

"She's got the look, but look in her eyes, she does not have the soul" says the one opposite.

"We did not sense her, so she must be"

Her brown eyes sparkle as she looks at me. Giving me a smile, friendly and taunting.

"I do have a soul" I speak.

The one in the middle her eyes sparkle as she perks up. "You understand us" she states. I nod silently taking a slow step back.

"Why are you here?" The woman to the right of her asks.

She raises an eyebrow waiting for a response, eyes staring into me. If anyone here doesn't have a soul it would be them.

"Ky-" Leo's voice echoes and the mermaids turn around and hissing noise reverberates from their chests.

"She's human!" The right one hisses. They all dip under water and swim quickly towards the boys.

"No stop!"

They all turn around eyes a pale moonlight grey and matching light grey scales appear in patches on their faces. The one on the right turns, throwing her hand forward causing a wave of water to splash on Leo taking him down and dragging him towards her quickly.

"Stop!" I yell again. My yells fall deaf to them as more begin to emerge the surface and Leo is dragged under water.

The medallion you idiot! That's what they want!

I grab a rock and place the medallion on another jagged rock raising my hand as if to break it.

"Hey! Bring him back up right now, or I destroy it" I say.