The Water Lilie's

The sun was shining and my skin was absorbing the heat as I laid back on the boat and watched the sun glisten off the dark blue water. It was a gorgeous day, mid-August and my four friends and I decided it would be a wonderful idea to take the boat out and do some sun tanning and fishing. We took out my dads Gold Coast Charter Boat that we have at our cottage and took off to enjoy the day. This boat was technically inherited as mine since he left us a couple years back and left everything but a suitcase full of clothes. I was laying on the boat on top of my towel listening to my music through my earbuds. "Hey, Emzy come look at this!" My friend Jackson called out as he waved me over. I got up quickly pulling out my earbuds and tossing them to the side, I saw all my friends looking over the edge of the boat. There was a something in the water, it's scales glistening, reflecting the sun, it was large... Larger than most fish we have ever seen in these waters before and it was fast. "It must be a fish!" Jackson said matter of factly " A huge one! Let's go see, I haven't seen one this huge before guys!" He yelled in excitement. For a soon to be 18-year-old boy he sure enjoyed all the little things in life. "I'm going in!" I called out as I pulled on my goggles and stood at the edge of the boat. "Hey bring down the water camera, I want to see this fish too!" My friend Eliza called out as she handed me the waterproof camera. I turned it on and tied it around my wrist. I was the adventurous one out of the group and was always full of curiosity. Curiosity killed the cat they'd always say. Well, I guess I liked taking the risk. I climbed down the side of the boat carefully plunging into the water this way I would not scare the fish. I held my breath as I sank lower, I held the camera in my right hand and used my left to move me around. Minnows were swimming all around me, tons of fish swimming by but still no big fish. I wonder if I scared it away. I slowly spin myself around swimming deeper down looking for the creature we saw when I noticed something sparkling in the distance that caught my eye. I turned around quickly and swam towards the area where I saw it. I held the camera out in front of me hoping to catch whatever it was on the camera when I suddenly saw a large fishtail zoom by. I quickly swam up above the water to catch my breath I took in a couple deep breaths and yelled: " I think I saw it!" Up to my friends and lunged back down into the dark blue waters beneath me. Suddenly I gasped taking in a ton of water that began seeping into my lungs. Sharp claws grabbed onto my leg pulling me down deeper into the water. I kicked and I kicked and flailed my body around hoping to get out of this grasp. But whatever was attached to me had no intentions of letting go. I aimed the camera down and quickly hit the button to turn on the light. What I saw before me I could never explain. I looked down, my vision was becoming blurry, I saw my leg had been cut open with gashes all down the side, this creature reached towards my throat, now staring me in the eyes I realized it was human. Almost. Its tail was just like a fish, full of scales but its torso was scrawny with little skin to them, I could see their bones sticking out as if they have not eaten for weeks. I could see its ribs, it's spine it's dark black eyes and the boney hands now wrapped around my neck her long point fingers were webbed together. A mermaid? It couldn't be. She had long black hair that was floating above her and I couldn't seem to take my vision of her dark beading eyes. Which weren't really eyes, but hallow holes that were so dark I could feel them burning into my soul. And they say redheads steal souls. Not true, in my case. I started to black out and I could no longer stay under the water, I was running out of oxygen. Blood from my leg was rising to the surface and I hoped to God my friends would notice I haven't come back up for a while... I reached out towards the creature and ripped the chain necklace off of its neck which is what I saw glistening in the distance before; but as I ripped it off the creature loosened its grip and I swam to the surface using all my might left in me as I watched it fade into the darkness of the water. I felt a warm hand grab my arms as I tried to keep my eyes open. I could hear yelling and screaming but I couldn't stay focused on what was going on. I was on the boat, I felt my leg stinging, blood now oozing everywhere, I could feel it. I held my hand above my face, I opened my eyes as much as I could, the chain was still wrapped around my palm, it had a charm in the shape of a white water lily hanging off of it. The camera was still tied around my other wrist and I wanted them to play back the video so bad but I couldn't form the words to speak. My arm fell to the ground as I was coughing out water. My lungs felt like they were about to cave in and suddenly I felt as if I couldn't breath- the last thing I saw were chocolate colored eyes staring back at me and the sounds of voices ringing in my ears.