Prologue.

3804 Words
BOOK 2 IS NOW AVAILABLE ON THE APP INKITT!!! Prologue. We had fallen asleep sometime later with Caleb having stripped out of most of his clothes, apart from his trousers and me still wearing the cream colored dress that he had bought me. We were curled in under the covers, my head resting on his chest with his arms wrapped protectively around me. I was awoken by the sound of thunder rumbling overhead along with the raging winds that caused the water to strike the side of the ship, rocking it and causing the wood to groan under the pressure. I sat up, the sheets falling to my lap as I looked to the stairs where the door that lead to the deck had been closed and locked. I could hear the sea weeping, sobbing as rain pelted down onto both it and the ship. Something was calling out to me, a desperate high pitched sound that resembled that of a whale’s cry. I threw my legs over the side of the bed and moved through the darkness to the door that was illuminated every now and then by the flash of lightning in the sky above. There was something so agonizing about the call, so tormented and broken. My hand reached out for the key to unlock the door, causing it to swing open, caught by the wind and banging against the side of the ship. I raised my arms to shield my eyes from the howling winds and pelting rain, peering out onto the deck with squinted eyes to try and find the source of the cry. A figure was stood in the center of the deck, facing me with skin as pale as milk, long blue hair that hung down over her nude breasts and to her rear. Her fingers were webbed and a shark’s tail swung back and forth behind her as her glowing blue eyes stared at me in desperation, her cold blue lips parting to reveal fangs as a screeching sound similar to that of metal groaning pierced my ears. My arms lowered back to my sides, the storm fading to the back of my mind, hardly bothering me as I began walking toward her, each step following another as if she was controlling me. Water flooded the deck, running over my bare feet as the sky drenched my hair and clothes in its endless downpour of tears. She looked so familiar, her hands clawing at something around her waist and throat that I couldn’t see until I was stood directly in front of her. She was covered in rusty chains that kept her rooted in place, unable to get to me even though she reached out her hand, desperate to touch me. I could feel her need, her fear, her pain radiating through me like a ripple in still water. She raised both of her hands, staring at her palms where the chains were wound around, hissing at them in distain, wanting them gone. She was panting, her chest rapidly rising and falling, her legs and arms covered in cuts and bruises as if she had fought a battle that had almost cost her life. I met her eyes, their orbs so recognizable to me when I peered into them. My breath caught when the realization washed over me. She was the nymph that had transformed me into a mermaid the night I had tried to drown myself ‘H-Help me!’ a voice yelled in my mind, a voice that didn’t belong to me but I knew was the same voice that had been yelling the same five words at me for days on end. I raised a hand, reaching out to touch her cheek, tracing the places where her percaline skin had been cut. At the contact of my skin against hers, the chains shattered into pieces, dissolving into the water at our feet as if they had been made from the liquid substance. She collapsed to her knees in front of me, hands clawing at the wood of the deck flooring as she gasped for air like a pressure had been lifted from her chest. Standing, she was taller than me, nearing Caleb’s height but in that moment I towered over her, watching her in both awe and fascination as the gills on the sides of her neck began to fade into her skin but the rest of her remained the same, the tail, the webbing and striking blue hair. The glow in her eyes began to dim as lightning illuminated her hunched, naked form, blue gaze looking up at me with parted lips, exposing her now normal teeth, free of any fangs “Tha-nk you” she said out loud, her voice raspy and almost incomprehensible as if it was her first time using it in decades. A loud rumble of thunder snapped me out of my daze to find that we were both soaked to the bone, the biting winds causing us to shiver despite our higher tolerance to the cold. My gaze landed onto the double doors that were rattling in the storm, doors that lead to the room above the Captain’s quarters where we had interrogated Al. I bent to grab onto each of her hands, causing her to look at me in confusion “We must hurry” I declared then pulled her onto her feet. She stumbled and struggled to walk properly, every step nearly resulting in her tumbling to the deck of the ship. I led her to the doors, opening them and hurrying inside only to quickly close them again behind us. The second the doors clicked shut, it was like the storm had been locked out, becoming more silent and fading into the background. I stood with my forehead pressed against the doors, hands still clutching the handles and panting. The nymph stood in the middle of the room, her eyes scanning the various maps, the furniture and the doorway that was off to the side, leading to the small kitchen area where Rebecca would prepare our food. I began lighting candles, using the matches that had been lying on top of the table in the center of the room close to where the woman was stood. An orange light welcomed us inside, giving off some warmth against the biting frost. I shook the last match, causing it to go out in the doorway of the kitchen then began opening cabinets in search of bandages or wine, anything that I could use to clean her wounds with. She watched me with curious, wide eyes while I searched but found nothing other than a knife and headed for the closet on the opposite side of the room, opening it to find a few coats and blankets. I grabbed the first things that I saw then returned to her “Sit” I instructed, having to tug on her arm to get her to have a seat in one of the chairs so that I could tug one of the coats onto her thin, lean form that was a stark contrast to my shorter, curvier shape. I had to help her stick her arms into either of the sleeves then wrapped a blanket around her for fear of her freezing to death. She looked at me like a fisherman would look at a newly discovered, rare fish they had just caught, the curiosity and bewilderment shining through. I stripped out of my dress, tossing it to the side as her eyes studied me then tugged a second coat onto my body, rolling up one of the sleeves before I reached for the knife I had placed on the table, pressing it to my palm then cutting it, the blade ripping through the bandages and stiches to create a new gash that instantly began bleeding. I then held my palm out to her and she examined it at first, unsure if it was alright until I nodded my head, giving my approval. She clamped onto my arm and hand with both of hers and pressed the palm to her lips, sucking on the wound, tongue lapping at it causing the crimson liquid to trickle down the sides of her mouth and throat. Her wounds instantly began closing, leaving her without so much as a single trace of a scar. I pulled my hand back and tore some of the fabric from the blanket that she was wrapped in to tie it around my palm. I abandoned the knife on the table and rolled the sleeve of my coat back down, making sure to button it up all the way instead of leaving it hanging open like I had ‘You remember’ her voice announced as she studied me, not moving beneath the blanket and coat. For a moment I wasn’t sure whether she was referring to my memories as Mary or me having remembered her from my dreams and experiences but then, looking at her I could tell that she wasn’t talking about herself “I do” I agreed, nodding my head as I tore my eyes away from her, gazing down to the floor with one hand rubbing the wrist of my newly injured one. Despite not being human, I knew that nymphs, much like mermaids couldn’t heal themselves from having seen her cuts lingering like they had. It was the only thing that I truly knew about her kind “Why are you here?” I questioned, my eyes turning to look at her, a serious expression written out across my features. If she was there, it could only mean that something bad was about to happen. Her big blue eyes blinked up at me as if she was trying to process my words only to reply through her thoughts ‘The sea is in discord-.’ my head shot up, eyes wide as I listened to the sound of the waves crashing against the side of the ship as rain drenched everything in its path. It had never crossed my mind that the ocean was weeping that night until she had spoken those very words to me ‘Neptune is enraged because of your memories having been restored’ his name sent chills down the back of my spine. He was the god of the seven seas, a being more powerful than any and I had angered him so much that the ocean had begun to wail in agony ‘I have been trying to get you to remember for some time now’ my mind raced back to Gigas who had spoken those same five words ‘A heart of the sea’, to the whale bull that had repeated them, to my dreams where the people in them had tried to convey those words, to her voice yelling them in the back of my mind. Had it been her all along? Had she been trying to get me to remember who I really was? And if so, why? ‘However, Neptune received word of this and imprisoned me, preventing me from seeking you out’ the chains that had been curled around her hands, wrists, arms, torso, neck and legs surfaced in my mind’s eye. Their rusty, old and worn texture made it seem like she had been locked away for years, only ever able to speak to me through others or telepathy ‘When your memories were restored, I saw my chance to escape but not without great difficulty’ she looked down to her hands that she once again held palm up, the webbing not bothered by the loss of water and moving with her fingers, claws sometimes cluttering together since they were so long and sharp ‘He will come for you, for us, his hearts of the sea’ her warning was pushed to the side by a question that had been consuming my thoughts for some time. I took a step in her direction, my hands balling at my sides from a mixture of frustration and desperation “What does that mean? A heart of the sea” her hands fell to her lap, the blanket bunching on the floor by her webbed feet, exposing her endless, cream legs that stretched on against the dark of the wooden floorboards. Her head tilted to the side as she watched me, the coat she wore having fallen slightly to one side, exposing the crevasse between her small breasts and one shoulder that was covered in a mess of knotted, wet blue hair ‘You do not know?’ the amazement in her tone took me as odd. Should I have known? Had I possibly missed something among the visions, dreams and memories? Her tail whipped behind her, lashing out like a predator, swinging this way then that from underneath the material of her coat, peeking through the opening in the back of the chair and dangling to the floor ‘All deities that reside in the water were once human, born with what is known as a heart of the sea that, only once they enter the ocean can be awakened-.’ she looked like she wanted to move, to stand, to walk or reach out for me but she also seemed uncomfortable, as if the clothing and the less dense air were irritating both her and her skin. She hadn’t been able to properly walk which meant that she hadn’t been able to walk on land for a number of years ‘It is then that Alessandria would seal off their human memories and replace them with a new identity’ Alessandria? The witch? The woman from my memory who had stood in front of me on the beach in Port Alice, offering me my anchor necklace appeared for a split second then was gone like the image had been snuffed out “But why seal their memories?” I found myself asking. If my memories had never been sealed, I would’ve gone to Caleb, I wouldn’t have been riddled with confusion and created something of a complex from thinking that Mary and Evangeline were two separate people. In my mind they still were to some extent, the mermaid and the noble girl ‘Human’s spend their lives living and creating memories on land, it is not within their nature to remain in the water, thus they would eventually return to the land, abandoning the sea’ the way she spoke was so formal, so up front and without fear of how I would react to anything she had to say. It was so, inhuman ‘Neptune desired to prevent this and found that by sealing away their memories from when they were human, they ultimately remained in the sea, until-.’ she paused, her eyes drooping as if she had been saddened by something. There was still emotion inside of her despite being further away from human than I could ever be ‘Until one of his hearts remembered their human self’ she wasn’t referring to me but instead of another ‘heart’ as she called it having regained their human memories some time before I had managed to restore mine ‘She had tried to return to the land where her family and loved ones mourned her drowning but-.’ The pain that radiated from her wasn’t normal for someone talking about another who they didn’t know. She was talking about herself, about her past and what she had done to bring us to where we were in that very moment ‘Neptune caught up with her and completely destroyed whatever memories she had left, destroying some of the humanity that had went along with them’ the breath had caught in my throat, the thought of my memories being completely stripped from my brain was enough to make my blood run cold. I had just found Caleb again, I had just regained everything I had lost and yet there was a chance that a god would come to try and destroy it all like he had done to her ‘I had sought out Alessandria shortly after that part of me had been destroyed-.’ she was no longer referring to herself in the third person but instead spoke openly about her story, her pain and grief. It told me that she wasn’t trying to hide her shame or her sadness anymore but took it as part of her, a part that she was trying to portray ‘She had been tricked into being his slave many centuries before and desired to be set free from his grasp’ the woman from my memories, the witch in the black cloak with black hair and empty white eyes was hundreds of years old, able to live forever because of the magic that ran through her veins, magic that dated back to the beginning of time when the gods had forged the earth from iron and mud ‘Together we planned to put an end to his cruel and careless ways through the help of one of his hearts’ when she locked eyes with me, her lips not having moved once through the course of her speaking, I knew that I was that heart, I knew that I played an important role in her tale ‘Alessandria would do her duty as Neptune’s sealer by sealing away their memories but she would gift them the ability to walk on land, a simple spell that would cut the barrier separating the hearts from the human world’ my hand shot up, grabbing hold of the anchor that dangled from my throat by a thin, silver chain that was cold against my skin and felt like it was biting into my flesh ‘And then when the time was right she would pass the book of treasures onto a fellow witch with a simple instruction to convey to one Caleb Campbell-.’ it felt like my heart was being forced out of my chest, like everything inside of me was being crushed by some unseen force as she spoke. The witch from the Pirate’s Nest came to mind, the one with green dreadlocks that lived in a purple tent ‘That his journey would begin in Port Alice where Alessandria compelled you to approach the sea on the night of you meeting with the hopes that you would one day regain your memories’ the color drained away from my face, what I had thought of as being fate was simply a witch’s spell that had dragged me to the water that night. It had all been part of some plan, as if I was a puppet on a string having my life ruled by the puppeteer. I was angry, enraged that someone would toy with me like they had done. My balled hands began to tremble and the nymph noticed this ‘You have every right to be furious, however all of this is much bigger than you or I. There are thousands of hearts who live with false identities, unable to remember who they love or who they were-.’ it was true, she could never regain her own memories but she could save the thoughts and emotions of thousands others and having to make a choice between toying with one person or letting hundreds other live in constant longing or pain wasn’t a difficult choice at all. I would’ve done the same if I had gone through what she had ‘Therefor I am here to ask for your help in putting an end to Neptune’s tyranny’ her request was formal, followed by her attempting to stand only to fall back into the chair, her feet still unable to hold her own weight. Her battered and bruised body, her agonizing cried for help, the chains that had confided her for so long, all of it came to the forefront of my thoughts ‘Please, Mary’ my name, my previous name coming from her was like the desperate plea of a small child that made my heart want to help, want to do anything I possibly could to give aid to her “My name is Evangeline” I corrected her, my words cold and deprived of all emotion. I wondered momentarily if it was something I had picked up from Caleb after having spent so much time with him. Her eyes lowered to the floor, sadness swirling in their striking blue depths ‘I had a name of my own once, although it could be any name for all I know’ her sentence cut deep, her suffering shining through. I moved toward her, causing her to look up at me, blue lips set in a thin line as her eyebrows began to furrow in something that resembled confusion “Blue, your name is Blue” I declared to which her eyes widened in both shock and awe. She was just a young woman who had once had a life of her own to live, one filled with love, hopes and dreams but all of that had been taken away from her, stolen by a righteous figure that dared called himself a god when a god was meant to be a symbol of love and compassion “I’ll help you, but I’m afraid I have no idea where to begin” there was gratitude and hope in her eyes for the first time in many years as she gazed up at me. A smile formed on her lips, one that didn’t quite reach her eyes, not because she wasn’t happy but because she was unable to smile, not aware of what happiness or joy felt like. I made a vow to myself that night, that I would help save as many memories as I possibly could regardless of myself. I had everything I could possibly want, friends, a man who loved me, a place to call home and parents that had long thought me dead but there were so many hearts within the waves of the sea that did not know of any of that, they didn’t know of love, of compassion, of kindness or joy. All they knew was to do the bidding of a being who sat at the core of their memories, keeping them locked away in a box that only he had the key to. 
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