A Mermaid's Tail

Ambushed

By the end of the week, I had become fluent in English as I had hoped, another perk to being a mermaid, was that being able to learn another language quick was not an impossible task. Being able to communicate with Aaron was a relief. I explained to him that I was new to the area, and thought the house was abandoned originally. Offering me a place to stay while I get on my feet, he said was the least he could do. I had always heard humans were never welcoming to people outside of their species. Through talking with Aaron, I had found out that people held these things called jobs down for a source of income. They traded either goods or services in exchange for money. I needed to figure out what I was good at to provide an income for myself to get out of his family’s home.

I was right about the pictures hanging on the wall, they were pictures of his grandparents, parents, and on back through the generations. Come to find out they had lived along the beach for fifty years. He had also told me that once his great-great-great grandfather had thought he seen mermaids swimming along the coast. I had to laugh at the absurd notion that this could be a possibility. We remained hidden from humans, even walking among them they wouldn’t be able to tell we were different. This made my kind a mystery for them and had several devoting their lives to proving we existed, while their colleagues called them crazy or thought they had mental problems.

I stayed in the far room in the back of the second floor, the room Aaron had found me in the morning he showed up expecting his home to be empty. Sitting on the edge of the bed, getting ready to lay down and tuck the covers around myself. I hear a creak coming from the stairs, it couldn’t have been Aaron as he had gone to bed before me. I lay still and silent listening to the steps being taken. Whoever it was, it was not a human. The footsteps were too heavy, as if they were learning how to walk still. Slipping from the bed, I had mastered walking lightly to not be heard, hiding in the closet amongst the clothes holding my breath waiting for whatever was coming.

I don’t see how the noise did not wake Aaron in the room across from me. This thing was bumping into everything in the hallway including the table with a prized vase full of plastic flowers. Hearing the vase crash to the ground I immediately knew they were right outside my room. This table could easily be run into exiting my room if I weren’t paying attention. The dragging of nails across the door, had the door been a chalkboard, the screeching sound coming from them would have made the hair on my neck stand on end. Whoever this was they were here for me. This had been made clear.

Peering out from my hiding spot, I see the moonlight streaming through the window, bouncing off the silver in my attacker’s right hand. They had brought a small silver dagger with them, something that looked like it had been taken from one of the ships that had sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Barnacles were attached to the handle, while rust was starting to form on the blade. The blade came to a broken point, this had once been a sword. This much was clear. Most items we found on the ocean floor always got trapped under other items aboard the ships. It was common for swords to be broken in the process of removing them.

Quietly slipping my hand through the clothes trying not to rattle the metal pieces holding the clothes, directing my hand toward the attacker now standing above my bed. I start to close my hand into a fist, pumping my hand several times by extending my fingers and recreating the fist. The air in the room starts to move and bend towards my will. Sucking all the air I could from the room into my lungs. I had the power to manipulate air and water. I could drain all from a small space with enough concentration. Right now, my only survival was on this power. Watching my attacker drop to their knees gasping for air. I stepped from the closet making my way closer to them. I needed to know who was sent this time to succeed. Staring into the face of my own cousin whose eyes had gone wide in fear. Only high-ranking officials within the clan knew of my powers, they were hidden from everyone else. I was the first mermaid in over a thousand years to be born with any kind of magic.

All mermaids prior to the last thousand years were born with magic. We only lost our magic due to the fact we had enraged the sea god. Poseidon had become restless with us killing innocent sailors and luring them to their death with our voice. The magic that gave mermaids the ability to serenade sailors, was the same magic that gave us our powers. When we enraged Poseidon, we lost all of it. I was the hope that we could do something right to regain our magic. You now see why I was contracted to marry the king’s son.

“Why?” was the only response I had to my cousin. I had to know why he was attempting to end my life for simply wanting to live freely.

“Because you were our hope. You were the one everyone whispered about behind closed doors. I didn’t figure it out until the prince put the hit on your life for rejecting the marriage. You could have given us all our magic back so that we no longer lived like the scum on the bottom of the sea floor!” He shouted in our native tongue.

“I wanted my own life! Not to be the hope and savior of our kind! To lure sailors to their deaths just so we could eat and survive! There is more to life than surviving!” I cried. No one understood that life wasn’t always about surviving. There were good things in life that needed to be celebrated and enjoyed as well. I closed my fist fully sucking the remaining air from the room watching my cousin slump to the floor lifeless. Mermaids needed air to breathe both under water and on land. Without it we died like every other creature. I now needed to dispose of the body on my floor before Aaron woke in the morning to find a corpse in his home.

Dragging a body is harder than I had expected. I would need to remind myself to ask Aaron about this thing he called a gym. If I was going to have to defend my life, I needed to be in shape to remove the waste coming after me. I made it back before dawn after tossing the corpse into the ocean, being able to suffocate people without touching them, or the bloodied mess made clean up that much easier. I wouldn’t have to worry about bleach or any other chemical to remove stains. I had just figured out the good I could provide to people. I was sure there were powerful people who wanted to keep people quiet, while I searched for those hunting me. I would not be ambushed again or taken by surprise. I had gotten lucky, and my cousin was sloppy, the next person to come after me would not be as sloppy as he was. This I was sure of, those coming after me were some of the prince’s guard. They had been trained to neutralize threats to the crown, which is what I now classified as.

Sitting on the couch I hear Aaron stirring upstairs. It was now 9am, this was the usual time he woke me up. Turning to look at the stairs as he came running down. I smile softly nodding my head good morning. Following him to the kitchen for breakfast. I sat at the bar watching him remove items from the refrigerator such as eggs, bacon, sausage, and butter for toast.

“I need to find a gym around the area.” I start the conversation gauging his reactions to my words.

“There are no gyms in the area, but if you are looking for self-defense classes, I would be happy to train you.” Aaron replied while cracking eggs into a bowl using a fork to scramble them.

“I only need hand to hand combat in case things get out of hand.” I state.

“Ok, well I can train you with that too. I worked for the sheriff’s department back home. I can also train you with combat weaponry if needed.” Aaron grins, overly confident about the fact that would give him an excuse to keep me around longer.

“Combat weaponry?” I ask genuinely curious as to what he was talking about.

“Yea, you know cross-bows, bow and arrow, guns. Anything that fires any kind of ammunition that is required for long distance self-defense.” Aaron replied forgetting she had extraordinarily little experience in the human world.

“That would be much appreciated, I am sure this training would come in handy.” I reply shaking my head. How had I not thought of weapons if I were to sign my services out. I could do things quicker if I didn’t have to be up close with my targets. The next thing on my list was to create an advertisement for my services. All I needed now was a name.