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Placing a hand to my chest, I felt for the sensation of breathlessness that should have come with being underwater. But my lungs didn’t burn or struggle the way they should have.
A fluttering on either side of my neck had me running my fingers up my throat to investigate. A few slits, too large to be scratches, ran up the sides of my neck. Yet, they didn’t hurt.
My stomach lurched. What the hell had happened to me?
I was dreaming. I had to be.
Whatever this weird dream was, I wanted out of it. People didn’t die in dreams. I just had to wake up.
I tried to kick my legs, but a powerful force launched me into a somersault. As my lower half twisted around into my line of sight, my eyes widened further still.
A long, sleek, mermaid tail glinted purple in slivers of moonlight… and it was attached to me. My trousers were gone.
This was one weird dream, but I’d be damned if I didn’t dream of mermaid life before now. Whatever hyper-realistic illusion this was, it was just that—an illusion.
The moonlight caught my eye, and I followed it, beating my tail until my face broke the surface.
I inhaled a ragged breath, but the relief I had expected never came. I ran my hand over my neck again. Did I have gills?
The silhouette of the cliffs rose high above me into the sky, and my cheeks stung with the cut of the night winds.
A flood of adrenaline rushed through my limbs as a large wave lifted me up. I rode it and beat my tail in rhythm with the ocean to keep myself upright.
I exhaled a breath tinged with ecstasy. Had I ever felt so in sync with the ocean before? Every time I slipped into the water decked in gear, I felt like a visitor—welcome, but misplaced.
How long had I yearned for true alignment with the sea that had always seemed out of reach?
“This isn’t possible,” I whispered. “This is… just a dream. Just a dream.”
Out of the gloom, behind the spurts of sea spray, a cliff emerged. The cliff I had fallen off? But if I had fallen off that cliff, then that meant…
I took a deep breath and dipped beneath the water, running my hands down my hips. Smooth scales slipped under my fingers, and I beat my tail again, rocketing back to the surface.
“Holy marscapone,” I whispered.
Was this real? Was I a mermaid?
No, I couldn’t be. I was dead, probably, suffering the same fate as Tyler and my soul was stuck in some weird limbo where I lived out my more obscure dreams.
I steeled myself and searched for shore. Whether I was dead or a mermaid, I had to get back to land to make sense of this.
I ducked under the water and swam at lightning speed around the island’s cliffs. I couldn’t help but grin. Powering through the water with a little more than the flick of a tail gifted me an effortless speed. Adrenaline surged through me as the water rushed over my skin.
Plunging deeper, I rolled around in a series of somersaults. If this was the afterlife, I could cope.
But a thought struck me as I speared through the sea.
My mother’s origins were unknown. Nobody knew where she came from or who she was. Allegedly, not even her. What if…?
No, it wasn’t possible. My mother wouldn’t have kept something like this from Dad, would she?
An icy feeling settled in my stomach. I didn’t know.
The feeling followed me up onto the beach, and I dragged myself up the sand with my arms.
For a second, I stared at my tail and flopped it a few times just to make sure it really was mine.
This was insane. Truly insane.
