Sea and the Stars

Hello everyone! I hope you're having an amazing week! This is a collab I did with B.W.! Check out her part (along with the rest of her stories) here!

B. W. – Reedsy Prompts

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I came up to the surface, and quickly sat myself down on a nearby rock. My tail had a shark bit. I was loosing blood quickly. Would I even survive?

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Would it sound crazy if I said I was a mermaid?

Yeah, a real, flippin' mermaid.

Bet you humans didn't know that.

We keep to ourselves. We try to not mix ourselves with entitled, selfish apes who think this whole Earth is owned by them. When it's shared by all living things. All living things need the others in order to survive.

I've always thought this about humans. They pollute our oceans we swim in. They start wars against each other. They treat others differently if they even look or act the slightest bit different.

They even took my mother.

Ten years ago, I was around eight. My mother and I decided to swim to the surface for her birthday. So, we swam up. We didn't notice that we were in sight for a small island. With humans living on it.

They came on these huge raft-like boxes. So elaborate and well made. It was bigger than my house.

They then set these nets, we didn't notice them. My mother swam right into one. They took her.

I don't even remember much besides that. Ever since that day, I've stayed away from the surface, including other mermaids. My father would always have someone with me to make sure I never got hurt.

We haven't been seen since.

~~~

The evening of my eighteenth birthday, I decided to swim into the deep sea caves. I looked in the mirror one last time before heading out. My long, black hair was hidden by a black hood, similar to a piece of attire humans would where. My tail was a deep navy, so I didn't need to do anything about that. I stared into my emerald eyes, and took a deep breath. I swam out of my sand house before my dad saw me, and started swimming east towards the caves.

~~~

As soon as I got into a cave, a shark started to chase me.

I must've taken a wrong turn, I thought to myself. I kept swimming away from the shark, until my fins grew even more tired. I started to swim towards the surface.

Darn, dad's going to be furious.

I started to reach the top. Almost there...

The shark bit into my tail, and swam away.

~~~

As I laid on the rock, I looked around to see an island. I looked closer to see a human swimming towards me.

Oh shoot-

My tail flooded with more pain, as I started to loose conscious.

~~~

I opened my eyes as I was on the ocean floor. Wait no, I was surrounded by air instead of water. I sat up to see I was on a beach, with shells and seaweed littered around it. In front of me was the human girl, with short brown hair, and sparkling grey eyes. She wore this top, cut short along with these tubes wrapping at most a fourth of her arm. She also wore these blue tube-like attire on her legs. She was definitely pretty. I hadn't been this close to a human for my whole life, so I quickly gripped a sharp shell close by and stuck it out.

"Don't move any closer!" I exclaimed. I didn't want to seem weak in front of a human.

Mermaids can communicate with other species. It's one of the many talents we have. This would also include humans, since they're still theoretically apart of the animal kingdom, no matter how much they act like they're not.

"I didn't mean any harm!" said the girl. I started to lower the shell, but still kept it in my hand, "I saw you hurt on the rock! I wrapped this cloth around your, um, tail. Are you a real mermaid?" Her eyes sparkled with delight.

"Yes, I am." I wasn't going to reveal any more then that.

"Whoa! When I was younger, my parents always told me mermaids weren't real. But I still believed. Hey, you want to meet my parents?" She was completely an opposite to me; I don't trust anyone, let alone introduce them to my parents.

"No, no one can know I'm here. Is that clear?" I ask her. She bit her lip at my tone.

"Ok then. Let me finish putting some anti-biotics on your tail real quick. Then you can leave."

I hesitated. Who knows how much humans had evolved in the past ten years? Plus, what were anti-biotics?

I slowly nodded, since I couldn't really move anyways. She moved closer and started to put this clear liquid on my tail.

"This may sting a little," she said. She put a tiny bit on my tail, as I felt a sting. She did warn me.

"Are there more mermaids out there? What do you eat? How do you sleep? Do you even sleep?" Man, this girl didn't stop talking. She didn't seem dangerous though, so I quickly answered each question.

Three questions turned into a few more, a few more turning into more, until I had answered them all. Eventually, she started telling me about the human world. There was this thing called a car, where they would control it and make it move at high speeds. Then there was this place called the Eiffle Tower, in a different country. Mable (the girl who saved me), showed me a photo. I craved to see this new world. It was kind of cliche; She also told me about this story of the Little Mermaid, that sounded pretty similar to my situation. Luckily, there isn't any shady sea-witch I can make a deal with.

We sat under the stars together, talking about both worlds. Maybe humans weren't the entitled, selfish apes I thought they were.