Girl Underwater

The Trip Home Part One

I woke up to the feeling of being moved. I could hear the water passing my ears. When I opened my eyes everything was in fact moving. Kierra and my mom were holding my wrist and taking me to who knows where.

"Wha? Where are you taking me?" I asked in a tired voice.

"We're taking you home. Which I must say would go a lot faster if you were swimming yourself." Kierra said with a small tug to bring me closer to her.

"I don't know how to swim with my tail." I told her honestly.

"Yeah that may be a problem. Mom dad were gonna have to stop and teach her. There is no way we will be home in five days at this rate." Kierra said.

"Your right, Mira we have to stop." Mitch said to my mom. She shrugged and said she was off to scavenger for food Mitch decided he'd go with her leaving me with Kierra.

I thought it would be weird between us. But somehow with this weird connection it all just felt right. Kierra grabbed both my hands pulling me along. "Okay I want you to start moving your tail it'll probably feel really weird at first. I know when Liam comes back he always says it feels weird transitioning back and forth."

I gasped, "Liam as in my dad Liam?"

"Oh, uh yeah your dad Liam I forgot you call him dad. Wow I thought I was prepared for that but that is really weird." Kierra said looking puzzled.

"Yeah, imagine waking up and finding out your really a mermaid and your dad isn't your dad but your guard and you have a merman father and your mother who took off five years ago is actually a freaking mermaid who took off and left you." I said slowly at first before it all just kind of blurted out. I hadn't realized it till my rant was over but Kierra had let my hands go and I was swimming on my own. "Holy cow, I'm doing it!" I squealed.

"What in the ocean is a cow?" Kierra asked.

"Oh, umm well it's a black and white for legged animal that goes moo and humans drink it's milk." I said not really knowing how to explain considering I had never had to tell anyone what a cow was.

Kierra mad an 'o' shape with her mouth and said, "Well I must say you are picking this up fairly quick but your gonna have to start swimming faster much faster."

"How fast can you swim?" I asked her.

"Well the average mermaid can swim as fast as a dolphin you will be able to soon too. But I can swim faster. That takes a lot of training though." She said and I looked at her shocked. Thinking about what I read about dolphins I remember that the average dolphin would swim three to seven miles per hour but could reach speeds of nearly forty miles per hour when they need to.

"Are you saying you can swim over forty miles per hour?" I asked completely shocked.

"Uh.... Yeah it's not easy though by any means and not something you'll be able to do anytime soon but you should be able to swim about their average well probably a little more than average I'd say ten miles per hour. Your strokes seem strong enough." She stated. It was my turn to make the 'o' shape with my mouth.

"Won't it hurt my eyes to swim that fast?" I asked.

"Nah we're mermaids are eyes have adapted to see while we swim fast but at first it could make you sick to your stomach so don't push yourself to go to fast to quickly," she said.

We practiced for a while longer before our parents came back with sea weed oysters and some small fish.

"Here is your food girls," my mom said handing us a little if each. "It's still early I figure we can scavenge more while we move."

I looked at the food a little awkwardly. Loving fish and eating it like this was a bit different. Watching everyone else just eat without a though I held my breath and took a bite finding I liked it. "What is this?" I asked. I looked at the fish I was holding it was grey with what looked like tiger stripes on its top side I knew I had seen them before but never had learned their name.

"It's mackerel, we honestly eat a lot of the same things dolphins do." Mitch said. I nodded and finished eating.

It wasn't long before we took off. Kierra kept hold of my hand and when I would grow tired which was often mom and Kierra would pull me along. It didn't take long for me to grow bored of traveling silently but I wasn't sure I wanted to talk. There were definitely things that needed to be discussed.

With a deep breath I decided there was no better time than the present. "Mom I need to ask you a question and I need you to answer honestly." I said quickly before I could change my mind my mom nodded and said she would. "Why did you leave?" There I had asked it! I felt proud that I even asked I typically would just stay in the background. Never really would ask anything just observe and figure it out but I needed to know!

"I had to." she said looking sad and all I could say was why? She looked at me now and Kierra pulled me closer to her. I could see the redness of her eyes and knew if she could cry she would be. "I was going through sea withdrawals and the medicine wasn't working." she said.

"What medicine?" I asked.

"The vitamin we insisted you'd take twice a day. A sea witch crafted that for when we would go on land. It works for most merpeople but for some like me it doesn't work. I stayed until I nearly died and Liam your dad he brought me to Mitch. I was going to come back I promised myself I would!" she stopped for a second letting me absorb her words and emotions.

I could feel from Kierra it was the truth and then she continued. "A sea witch came to check me out and she told me I couldn't go back. I can only be on land for a few days tops or I'll die. I knew if I went back I wouldn't be able to leave you again and it was to dangerous to tell you. I wanted to tell you so bad," she began sobbing out loud and curled up Mitch grabbed her and soothed her.

"I'm sorry momma..." I said and Kierra squeezed my hand. Then without thought me and Kierra swam to our mother and held her and we all silently sobbed. We could feel each others pains but understood it wasn't anyone's fault.

When we had all finally settled down Mitch decided we should try to find something to eat and a cave to sleep in. I just kind of followed along I had never had to hunt for food or anything like that. I watched as they'd sneak unto a school of fish and snag as many fish as they could carry. They had little net like bags around their torsos that I hadn't noticed before.

It was neat to watch them take the things out of the nets and use them to catch fish. I had asked why the couldn't just carry the fish with them as they went. I was told they'd go bad to quickly which I supposed was true it would be kind of hard to preserve anything in the ocean. That didn't matter though when there was food readily available for the taking.

"Ummm random question but I just realized we are really deep in the water how the heck can we see down here?" I asked. Kierra giggled and I stuck my tongue out at her.

"Our eyes adjust and use a night vision to let us see but with our merpeople eyes we still see like you would as a human there is still some light down here it doesn't take much for us to see." Mitch explained to me.

"That doesn't really make sense but okay," I said. Kierra handed me a fish I now knew was a mullet and I dug in. I accidentally nicked my finger and that's when I reached my tooth and felt it was pointed like a sharks. "Hey mom can you smile for me?" I asked. As she did I nearly screamed. "Okay that is creepy looking. They all started laughing at me! It's not my fault none of them had smiled with teeth or shown their teeth since I got down here!

"How in the world did you think you were eating fish with scales with human teeth?" Kierra asked still giggling.

"I don't know I guess I wasnt thinking about it!" I yelled before starting to pout.

"As fun as watching you pout is we really need to find a cave," Mitch said. "It won't be long before the sun is gone and then we won't be able to see unless we find some bioluminescent plankton or some ribbon worms. Maybe a jellyfish Kierra is pretty good at catching them."

Kierra zoomed off I barely could see her as she went to find a glowing jelly fish. Mitch started leading me and my mom torwards a rocky area that looked like it may have a cave. "How is Kierra going to find us?" I asked.

"Oh, that's easy she can use her ability it similar to how dolphins use echo location. Actually you have the ability to do it to but you just haven't learned how yet. I can do it to. But your dad can't it's an ability remember the story? Well it's part of out water control." my mom said then did some sort of hum thing and pointed off to her left and said, "Kierra is right over there headed this way with the glowing jellyfish."

Seconds later Kierra popped up and sure enough she had a jellyfish. "Holy cow that's awesome I definitely need to learn that!" I yelled excited. How exactly had she done that I hummed and nothing happened. With a sour look on my face Kierra hummed and held my hand. It was like a light bulb went off. I hummed and I could see in my minds eye a bunch of jelly fish. A school of fish passed by and I could sense them this is AWESOME!

"Wait if we can do that then can't we?" and I hummed torwards Mitch then said, "Found one!" and excitedly started heading to the cave.

Kierra hummed when we reached it and told us we were safe to go in. We all curled up into each other for the night. I thought I wouldn't like sleeping like this but honestly it felt right. Kierra said back at home they'd have nights were the whole clan would gather and sleep together. I honestly couldn't wait to see it all.

Just in today's travel I had seen more colors than I had ever seen and so many amazing sea creatures. With the thought of all the things I had seen I finally fell asleep.

It felt like I had only been asleep an hour when I felt like something was off. I woke up nearly slamming my tail down in the rocks of the cave floor.

"What is it?" my mom asked.

Kierra grabbed my hand already feeling what I could feel through the connection. "Shhh someones here dad wake up," Kierra whispered poking our dad.

Kierra grabbed a few rocks handing them to me and my mom then taking some for herself. I looked at Mitch and he too had rocks. Slowly Kierra hummed to find the person and they shot towards us. Kierra already seeing them smashed the rock into the merpersons head. The merperson looked weird instead if having a tail like ours his tail looked like and eels long and slimy.

Kierra reached down to grab his hands and tie them as Mitch yelled. "Don't touch him!" But it was to late a shock went through Kierra and I could feel it she fell fainting. I fought against it barely being able to keep from fainting. What the heck was that. Before I could ask anyone the eel guy lashed out again grabbing my hand. I smashed my other hand with the rock into his face trying to get him to let go. Mitch was hitting him to and my mom was taking care of Kierra.

Suddenly I felt the shock go through me and it was a million times worse happening to me. I couldn't help the black that came over my vision and suddenly I was out. In my sleep I started seeing someone attack a village of caves. I seen merpeople everywhere frantically swimming away. The images were to jumbled though and I couldn't make anything out. Then I felt another shock go through me and I everything stopped.