The Mer King

Awakening

“Hello?” Silence, then: hello… hello… hello?

Nothing but an echo. Where the hell was I? I looked around, everything seemed… distorted, somehow unclear and bleary. Blue-ish with dark colors swirling in between.

Empty.

Looking further, still I found nothing but emptiness and space and silence. It scared me, to be honest. I was sure I had never been in this vast place of nothingness before, and I didn’t care for it one bit.

“Breathe,” I whispered to myself, as low as I could but still, there it was again: breathe… breathe… only this time, it got much louder than before. Maybe someone would hear it and get me out of this strange place?

Yet, the silence after was like a cage to me; I couldn’t bring myself to disrupt it again on the off chance that somebody was somewhere around here.

Shivering in fear, I scanned further, trying to find something, anything, to rest my gaze on. If only I could see clearly! I wiped my eyes, changing nothing but – “Hey! My glasses! Where are they? I’m nearly blind without them!”

This time, the echo was deafening. I tried to suppress the cry that I felt lodging in my throat but that only made me cough instead. Even pressing my hands over my ears did nothing to protect me from it. The void around me was a great funnel, echoing louder and louder until I could not take it any longer and passed out.

When I came to again, the scene hadn’t changed much. Still empty, still vast, still bleary. Bleary? I remembered; I must have lost my glasses somehow. Maybe they lay around here and would help ease my headache?

I knelt, feeling around for them but somehow… strange. This didn’t feel like I expected it to. What… I squeezed my eyes shut, silently counting to ten, carefully breathing because I could feel my nerves fraying. What the hell was going on? Was I going insane? I sniffed, but it couldn’t be helped so I finally forced my eyes open again.

Slowly, like it would change something, I looked down to where I thought I knelt on the floor. A gasp, my hand covered my mouth, don’t scream. Don’t! This must be a hallucination, yes! That’s it! Maybe I ate something bad and now I was having a nightmare as a result. How else could I literally be floating in a sea of nothingness, with no up and down, no visible beginning or ending, NO FEET?

Instead, where my sturdy, functional feet had been, I suddenly sported a tail. A fishtail, to be precise. And below this fishtail… I couldn’t believe it. This had to be a dream. I shook my head, completely mystified.

Under me, I saw a miracle wonderland full of strange-looking fish, colorful algae, corals, and sand and… The vastness down there was teeming with life so much that my eyes couldn’t take in everything. My headache intensified. I couldn’t fathom how on earth – or how in water! – this was possible. Closing my eyes again I tried to remember what had happened but my mind drew blank. Completely, utterly blank. I could not only not recall anything that would explain this but I couldn’t recall anything at all. Not even a picture of myself or my name.

I felt myself collapsing despite floating, and then the tears started. Devastated, I couldn’t hold it together. Everything came out of me in loud, ugly sobs and long, high-pitched wails. I drew myself in a tight little ball, trying to protect myself from the echo while mourning the loss of a life I couldn’t remember. When the onslaught of the echo picking up on my cries became too much to bear, I gratefully welcomed the darkness that followed.

Waking up this time felt even worse. If this had been a dream, opening my eyes would mean I would feel the sun on my face and the wind in my hair, somebody lying next to me, no? But what if… my goodness, what if this was real? What if I would find myself again in this strange environment, empty and all alone, not human anymore?

But wait, human? Surprised, I opened my eyes to the unchanging, ever blueish-grey waters of the sea. If I knew I had been human, before… this, maybe I remembered other stuff too? A sliver of hope ran through me, making me shiver excitedly, as I again delved into my mind. This time, it was not empty and blank but full of stories or part of them, a life, my life. It was still hazy in places, but at least, I remembered bits and pieces that seemed to form some kind of overarching story. I sighed. Still, no clear picture of myself or a name, but maybe that would return to me in time, too?

I uncurled and stood up. Or was it swam up now? A small smile touched my mouth, leaving as fast as it came. My surroundings had not changed and for the first time since being here - wherever here was - I was composed enough to face my new reality. I had regained some sense of self and this allowed me to start exploring.

The first thing I noticed was how quiet but not-quiet it was. I harrumphed at my own thoughts, but it was both at the same time. The absence of sounds and voices was disturbing in its absoluteness, similar to how the absence of light made darkness even more intense. Yet, at the same time, there was a hum in the water that faintly reminded me of static noise, but… flowing. Wavy.

Was this the wind of the water, I wondered? Would this buzz change with the weather, or the tides?

My musings were distracted when I saw my hair floating in time with this water-wind. It seemed to effortlessly waft around me, but funnily, it didn’t tug on my scalp while doing so. In fact, I didn’t really feel its weight although it easily reached my hips.

Come to think of, I was weightless, myself. No gravitational pull down towards the earth - it was exhilarating! Tentatively, I did a somersault - something I could never have done above ground - and I was thrilled when it just worked. There were definitely perks of being a mermaid!

I smiled, happily, eager to find out more about myself next. The fishtail had been kind of very hard to miss, even before, but what about the rest? I wanted to take stock of all the changes I could pinpoint, embracing the chance to loose myself in the wonder that seemed to be my current situation.

So I first raised my hands to check them out. They looked… different, from what I thought I remembered. Slimmer, with longer fingers and webbed, a bit like a frog’s feet, but not green. Come to think of, my whole body color had a strange tint, not quite flesh-colored, but lighter and with a gray splash. Human but not. Otherworldly, maybe, was a good description.

My arms were slimmer than I was used to, too, and my hair was red. It easily reached my hips where my beautiful tail started. Yes, it was beautiful, changing from green to blue with a bit of gold in it whenever it undulated. I had always wished for red hair… and a flat stomach, like I had now. I shook my head. If this was a dream I wasn’t sure if I wanted to wake up or not anymore. But if it was real… a picture flashed in front of me, of a tall, gangly guy, smiling happily down at me. “Aidan!” I whisper-breathed, shocked. My throat clogged, but my breathing remained unchanged. How could I even breath down here? And why did it feel so… peculiar, somewhat… compressed?

Alarmed, I patted down my torso. The front looked and felt somehow human, the back was a different matter entirely. Gills! There, on both sides of my back. But then, what did I think? Obviously, I was some kind of fish now… so how else would I breathe down here?

Shaking my head, slightly amused about my internal ramblings, I suddenly drowned in my memories. Aidan, how he had looked at me, with so much love in his eyes. The way he embraced me, whenever my insecurities surfaced. I could even feel his breath tickle my cheek before he kissed me tenderly.

Amusement was replaced by anxiety. It couldn’t be real… my boyfriend… my fiancé… we wanted to get married. Did he think I was dead? Had we been in an accident? Was he even alive? I felt blood-red tears rolling down my face. I needed to get back! How could I have started to be okay somehow, in this bubble of nothing?

Bursting into movement I swam up. It felt natural and exhilarating to swim, the pressure I had been feeling subconsciously lessened the farther I got until - Boom!

Stars danced in front of my eyes. What the heck?

I held my head, and groaned. Just as I had gotten used to my head not hurting anymore… another round of echos, groaning from all directions, multiplied the new pain tenfold. This time though, I was determined to get through the blaring noise without blacking out. I needed to at least explore what I banged into - maybe I could find where it… My thoughts were lost in the awful groans that continued echoing back at me. It felt like they somehow moved inside of me, like a living, breathing entity within, until I couldn’t distinguish anymore between the echo and myself. It felt like my ears were bleeding and my head would explode until - it stopped.

For a moment, or an eternity, I didn’t really know, I could only be. Breathe. Until, utterly exhausted, I fell asleep.