down a precipitous path
It had happened again. It was happening much too often now. It shouldn’t bother her, there was no harm in it really other than pure annoyance, but no matter how hard she tried she just couldn’t stay awake. Once again she had been beached whilst sleeping. Her tail was half in the water, raising slightly as the waves rolled slowly in and then settling back down to the damp sand when it trickled out. Dry sand was caked into her hair and on the side of her face, and no amount of running her hand over would get it out. There was a brief stab of pain on her side, but she attributed it to sleeping awkwardly. That’s what happens when you don’t have a pod to help watch as you slept. There was always a few merms who would be awake while the rest were sleeping, making sure they didn’t drift off somewhere, and to keep any predators at bay.
Elena’s eyes fluttered open groggily but shut again instantly, it felt like there was sand in her eyes and it was cementing them shut. Then another sharp stab of pain in her side and she flicked her hand over. Maybe it was a crab nipping at her, so she rolled over onto her stomach and raised her head, eyes still shut. Another stab of pain. “Hey, stop it!” She waved her hand over her side, once again, feeling nothing was there, not even a crab. The ocean brought a wave high enough to wet her elbows and she used the water to splash her face before it was pulled away. Her eyes opened and she stared blankly in front of her. There was… a cloud? It was floating right in front of her, inches away from her face. She pulled herself back, pressing her hands into the wet sand to arch her back and look up around her. They were everywhere. These floating clouds were all over the beach! There was one directly over her and she watched curiously as the cloud changed color, turning gray and then black, and then a shot of electricity stabbed her in the side. She pushed back against the sand, transforming her tail into legs to jump out of the way of another electric shock. Now she was fully awake and aware, she realized they weren’t cloud at all, they were shapes. All of them were different shapes and sizes and looked more like shadows of some kind of beings than clouds. They were coming out from the water and terrorizing the beach. Were they… souls? All the souls of everyone and everything that had been lost at sea, materializing and coming back to land.
Elena ran. She didn’t want to go into the water where they were coming from, didn’t want to get hurt by one again. She forgot that surface folk wore clothes in her haste to distance herself from the beach, and so she was running through the streets completely nude, slightly damp, and covered in sand. Someone had to know about this. She had to tell someone about this. She needed to do something about this but she couldn’t do it on her own. She ran toward the first shop she laid her eyes on, tried the door, but it was locked so she moved on. The next door opened and she screamed out, not realizing until now that her voice had been stolen by her anguish, not realizing until now that she’d been crying. Her home was in danger. Her beach. Her ocean. Her waters. She’d been attacked in a place she thought was safe and she was all alone. There was no one here for her. There was no pod to protect her. She was alone. She was afraid.
@samuel-floros
