Two
It was night out, the moon was casting a silver shine over the water and I was sitting perched on the pier, a hundred meters away from the deckhouse, my feet dipped in the water. In my hand was a coral blue shell necklace, a pearl on either side of it. I was in blue and pink swim shorts, my mop top hair covering my eyebrows while the sounds of the party remained ever muffled by distance and I was out of reach. It was a party in my honor. I had won the prize, but I hadn't wanted to stay and celebrate.
I sighed as I turned the trinket over in my palm, wondering what had made me keep it all that time. That's when I felt the disturbance in the water, subtle ripples on the surface that encroached my dipped legs. There was something else submerged in the water with me.
I raised my eyes and used the moonlight to help me study the water surface a dozen meters ahead. The water rippled like something wanted to break out to the surface. It became colder, the ripples got closer. I noticed a certain glow looming under the surface and I somehow knew that that was no pack of jellyfish.
The ripples eventually stopped, the glow vanishing right at my feet. Of course I was concerned. There's a lot of dangerous creatures out there in the ocean, yet there I was with my feet dipped in right where the glow vanished. I should've taken my feet out of the water.
But the glow came back. Bubbles floated to the surface and popped. I sat and watched as the surface finally broke and a headful of pink hair popped up. A face followed, followed by the emergence of scaled shoulders, a torso and the abdomen. This… person came face-to-face with me. He had dust pink skin with a fading seafoam blue shade at the back, the same way dolphins were colored on the back and underside. Shimmering yellow orbs were his eyes, he had long pecked fins with black leopard print spots for ears, an athletic build, blue scales covering the lower part of his body and I immediately knew there was no way on this mother Earth that this thing was remotely human.
He looked at me with his oily yellow eyes, regarding my slouched form sitting on the side of the pier with curiosity. Yeah, I was just sitting like a statue, staring back at this thing with the same blank expression it had. I'd made up my mind the second I saw his head pop up that it was too late for me.
I saw him smile, a sinister thing revealing his razor blades that stood in for teeth. He was probably amused by my boldness as much as I hated myself for it.
"A little human perched far from where you belong… what an interesting sight for my eyes," he moved his lips and these words came out, my eyes catching the ripples that shot out from his abdomen and across the waters as he spoke. "What brings you to my domain?"
Holy crap! I was in his domain. I hadn't meant to sit this far off from the deckhouse but the noises those people were making were messing with my nerves. I couldn't party with them so I came to this far off spot on the pier where the lights from the shore couldn't reach. So when this creature who seemed exactly my age asked me what I was doing here, I felt myself questioning my entire day's choices.
I opened my mouth and answered honestly, "I came to get some peace and quiet." I shrugged lightly while my right hand clenched around the cockleshell piece tied to the string I called a necklace.
"Peace and quiet?" The creature said, revealing his razor sharp teeth once more as he spoke. "That's funny, I came here looking for the same agenda,"
"Ah," I nodded, despicably calm despite the situation. I was sitting alone on the pier with a merman or a male siren floating just a meter from my submerged feet! A lot of strange things I had seen a million times on the internet like cats dancing or saying random words but this was next level.
The merman siren creature swam closer to my feet, his abdomen inches away from my knees. I should've ran away by now but what was the point now? I sent a thoughtful goodbye to all my friends and colleagues as the creature in front of me tilted his head. I'm not going to lie, he was way more handsome than me.
"They call me Apthos, human, and what do they call you?" He asked, swishing his tail under the surface behind himself to cast ripples across the water and against my legs, a tail I hadn't seen yet.
I tilted my head. "I'm Toby."
"Toby…" he rolled my name on his crimson tongue before he smirked at me. "That trinket in your hand, Toby, a gift to the sea?"
We both glanced at the cockleshell necklace in my left hand. I looked back at his eeriely handsome profile.
"No. A gift from my grandmother," I replied. "It's merely of sentimental value."
Apthos nodded. "May I see?" His webbed hand rose from the water and trickled droplets of cold water onto my knees.
I looked at the object in my hand and made a decision. There was no point in refusing. I was way too close to him to upset him. So I opened my palm and he immediately took the piece from my hands, his claws brushing over my palm. I pulled my hand away deliberately, brushing my fingers against his skin. He was cold and slimy.
Apthos raised the cockleshell necklace over his eyes to study it, and while he did, I swept my eyes over his chiseled figure. He had the upper figure of a toned swimmer, the same way my body was toned but much… much… much better. By the time he finished studying the shell necklace, my eyes were calmly back on his face.
"You know, Toby," he said as he placed the necklace back in my hand. "Most humans would be panicking or trying to get away by now."
He was right. My sense of danger was not working, hadn't worked ever since I was a kid. I had no fight-or-flight instincts. But I couldn't tell him that!
"Well, what's the point of panicking when I see that what I'm looking at is what it is?" I asked, looping the necklace over my head and wearing it.
Apthos suddenly laughed, a cold reverberating sound that sent ripples across the water. "Brilliant logic." He nodded and moved his hand underwater.
I shrugged, feeling his clawed hand brushing against my ankle underwater. By my observations, he was testing boundaries and I just took it! Like a whimp!
"What do you do up here on the waters, Toby?" Apthos asked, his hand getting bolder, long and slim fingers caressing my ankle underwater.
I lifted my left foot out of the water and perched my heel on the edge of the pier, bringing my arms to cup around my knee. "I'm a professional surfer."
"Ah, so you were the one who was causing that raucous during the daylight?" Apthos inevitably concluded.
"Well, not me exactly. There was a surfing competition."
"And I'm guessing you won, and that excitement behind you is your celebration."
He couldn't have just pieced two and two together so quickly like that. This freak had been watching me the whole day.
My shoulders slumped. "Okay, let's be clear here, you're a merman, you live in the sea and there's a lot of crackpots out there who claim to have seen your kind. Now, I'm not assuming your intentions but something tells me this isn't a social call and mother nature isn't gracing me with a visit from one of the sea's legendary creatures as a congratulatory gift. To put it bluntly, am I your prey?"
I honestly had to put it out there.
I expected Apthos to get insulted or throw a fit over that. I didn't, however, expect him to laugh at me. His yellow eyes narrowed to slits as he laughed his head off, his clawed and webbed hand letting go of my ankle underwater.
"My, Toby, you are by far the most intriguing creature I have met on this big blue Earth,"
I shrugged lightly. I was doomed.
"For some time now, you absolutely seemed like a quiet individual, one that only stands out when it matters." He stated his observations.
He was right, though. I was kind of a recluse among my kind, staying only around a select few whom I was acquainted with for years. I wasn't a people's person, albeit being a professional surfer, swimmer and a "total catch" as my brother Christian used to put it.
I was just not ready to hear a merman say it, though.
"Tell you what, Toby?" Apthos said as both webbed hands rose from the water, my other foot still perched on the edge of the pier. "You're right. You're absolutely right. I am a merman, I have seen you before during the last days of the frivolous competition. Congratulations, mind you."
He paused and stared at me while I stared back, my expression neutral despite the racing of my heart. The water got colder around my one submerged leg, Apthos swam a bit closer, his face coming inches near mine. I could smell the salt and oceanic scent mixed with a fishy vibe coming from him as he observed my facial features. I think he was trying to gauge my expressions.
"You asked me if you were my prey," he whispered, his voice low, a damp breath washing over my face. "My answer to that is… well." He smirked.
"Oh…" My shoulders slumped as I felt his slimy, wet and webbed hands gripping my elbows firmly. "Crap."
Apthos let out a short scoffing laugh, pulling me back aggressively. I was violently jerked off the pier and crashed into the cold water face first, the world around me getting swallowed by the dark waters.
I really should have ran.