The Golden Mermaid

𝒕𝒉𝒓𝒆𝒆

I shiver from the cold. The air smells of swamp. I gulp down the acid making its way up my throat. I'm barefoot—completely naked—and my feet are covered in mud. My heart beat begins to quicken, dark clouds cast over head. The wind picks up. I'm all alone.

I grab at swaying branches, trying my best to keep myself from slipping in the slickery dirt. I'm uncomfortable: out in the cold with zero clothes and vines groping at bare skin.

Something screeches over head. I duck almost instantly, a small whimper escapes my lips as I cower in the mud. I look up to find a heron staring at me. It tilts its head at me curiously before flying off. I stand, shivering.

I continue walking, having no idea where but feeling drawn to... something. My heart flutters. My head pounds.

I'm scared—terrified. But I have no idea of what.

A feeling comes over me, like someone watching me. "Hello?"

No answer.

I walk further, finding myself at the marsh. I feel like I've been here before. I know exactly how to get home. But my feet don't budge even if I scream with my whole being to leave—to go home.

I see something in the water. "Hello?" I say again, my voice cracking. A hand floats on the surface, bloated and blue. My heart pounds. I want to run—run far away, but my feet must not hear my desperateness.

I step forward.

It's a body, I know that. Green tinted skin, bloated with pores full of water, and... and scales? I step closer, curiosity taking over. A huge fish tail, scales drained of color, floats limply in the water. My eyes make their way up, and I realize that it's a girl. Her breast are bare. My eyes don't linger for long. I look up and my breath catches. A crab eats away at her eye—my eye.

I fall back, gagging. I close my eyes, but the image is still there: me, dead and bloated with a fish tail hanging broken from my waist. My heart pounds as I try to comprehend what's going on—try to come up with a feasible conclusion.

But it is without a doubt me.

Something splashes in the water beside the body—my body. I reluctantly look up, expecting to find a crab or fish nibbling at dead flesh.

A woman stares back at me.

Her eyes are cat-like. A yellow color that glints with some sort of unnatural glow. The piercing look she gives me sends shivers down my spine.

She runs her fingers in my dead body's hair, smiling down at my bloated face momentarily before looking back up at the real me—the living me. Her hair is almost as white as her skin. Something black moves behind her in the water, what looks like an eel slithering behind her.

A small smile spreads across her lips, her eyes never leaving my own. I shiver. "Who..." my voice leaves me, flying away like the heron only moments ago.

"I," she moves closer, her voice and presence making me quiver. "I am your demise." I craw further away, only for her to pull herself closer in the mud. I realize the black thing is attached to her, just as the colorless tail is attached to my dead body. She laughs and I begin to quake with tears. "You should be scared." Long fingers dig into the mud as she makes her way to me, shimmying towards me like a poisonous snake. "I'm menacing." She stops to look back at my dead body.

"I-I..." I try to stand but I can't. My legs quiver and ache. It's like when I was 10 having growing pains, but a hundred times worse.

"I-I," she mocks me, laughing. Her face becomes serious once again. "You are nothing! You can't defeat me! Just a scared little girl. You're nothing like they said. Such a... disappointment really." She's inches from me. I dare not blink. Tears run out of my eyes. She runs a long finger across my cheek, clicking her tongue. "Yes, a disappointment. I was at least looking for some competition."