Gone With The Tide

Chapter 1

Tears cascade down the plains of the girl's face as the salty wind whips her long hair. She stared out at the tossing waves over the cliffside, the turbulence of her heart in perfect synchrony with the white capped tides. The horrible feeling consumed her whole; she coughed violently as fresh sobs raked her frail body once more.
She lost everything. It wasn't right. It wasn't fair. It was all in vain.
At first, she felt anger and cursed her love, her luck and her life; but that feeling was swallowed by a black abyss of hopelessness. There was a huge hole in her heart and it hurt to breathe. It hurt to live on. This never ending void offered liberation and rest. She was too drained to think.
It whispered to her, luring her with a sweet cold embrace. The cold is foreign and unnatural. Something still vaguely human in her tried to reject it as it burned her throat and stole her tears. Her protests were gone before it was silenced with the gentle lull of the sea. Those feelings that were choking her... where did they come from? She couldn't recall. The sea is all there is. It's infinite and endless as is she. She calls to the girl singing a song so mesmerizing that the girl begins to sing it and hasn't stopped since.

CALLIE Moretti scrunched her nose as she read the introduction to the story she was writing. The girl described was experiencing a loss of love so great she chose not to feel at all; instead, she gave her soul to the ocean thus completing her metamorphosis into a mermaid. Callie had never been in love and so never experienced the pain of a true heartbreak. She was worried her inexperience would make the words seem hollow.

Then again, the story is about mermaids and she has never experienced swimming with a fin either. She tried to draw inspiration from the town she now called her home, a coastal town in Queensland, Australia called Royal Reef. Its white beaches, palm trees, and tropical weather made it a popular tourist spot. But she wasn't here for vacation. She was a college student attending the Barrier Reef Institute for Marine Science.

The piece was for her summer online literature class. It was supposed to be an easy project. She based it on one of her favorite pictures she took years ago of the mermaids of Daydream Island. That was her true passion: photography. The picture that became the subject was one of the first pictures she took that ignited her all-consuming hobby. Her and her dad stayed on the resort during one of his research expeditions when she was thirteen years old.

She remembered everything from the trip: the virgin pina coladas that her dad had her believe contained alcohol, the parasailing and scuba diving, the dolphins she got to swim with, the little pink camera her dad gave her to capture the memories, and the mermaids. They were three statues off the coast on the northeast tip of the island. She remembered a resort worker telling her their names were Serenity, Aphrodesia, and Infinity representing the mind, body, and spirit. They're not there anymore. Unfortunately, the cyclone in 2017 washed two of the mermaids out to sea and the third off her perch making the picture she had all the more special to her.

A loud crash grabbed her attention. The storm wrestled with the waves outside the beach house. She walked out of her bedroom to the main living space. An open floor plan greeted her, only an island counter and bar stools separated her oblong kitchen from the couch and wall-mounted HD smart TV. Beyond that was a clear view of the beach, literally. It was just a large glass wall and glass door to her back patio. On most days, it was breathtaking. But on a day like this, it was unsettling. She often dreamed of a strong hurricane shattering it.