Kick.
Was I going up or down?
Kick, kick.
I wasn’t sure if Ben was still alive, or if I would make it. I just kept kicking hoping we’d reach the surface. Wishing my dad were here to pull me out of the water, like he had years ago when the waves swept me under.
My legs grew tired, I felt like I had been kicking for thirty minutes. And the wild man returned with four others. It was over, this was over.
Kick, kick.
I closed my eyes and gripped Ben as tight as I could, burying my head in his neck. I prayed.
I couldn’t hold my breath any longer. My head felt like it was going to explode, from the pressure. I released a little air out of my mouth, blowing bubbles into the water, trying not to breathe in any water, but it was impossible, I inhaled. Choking as water filtered through my lungs, and back out of my mouth.
I looked up from Ben’s neck. My mind was blank, slipping into shock. Sluggishly I blinked, the men were getting closer. I was defenseless, what could I do? I wouldn’t live long enough to fight, I thought. Hopefully we’d be dead by the time they reached us.
Each time I blinked they were an inch closer, eyes glowing beautifully, savagely. Evil water angels. They took me in with their eyes, I fell into purple oblivion.
I was no longer kicking. I was sinking slowly paralyzed in the beauty of death, in the beauty of their eyes. There would be no pain, no fear. It would be over soon.
I opened my eyes one last time and saw him. He swam down toward us—hope aroused my heart—save us please. The last of my confidence in God pressed on my mind. A bright light flashed throughout the water and then followed him. He had to be an angel the way he descended. His hair swirled around his head like a halo. Please hurry, I thought, using the last of my strength to hold onto Ben.
I blinked in and out of consciousness as the angel and his light grew closer, he was beautiful…I stretched my hand towards him. He was just as I imagined an angel would look. And when he came he touched me…and then everything went black.
Chapter 15
Hanan
When the light of Adonai comes, darkness hides.
They attacked me from all sides, but as the dark touched the light, their attempts were no more. They could not touch me, no matter if they were blessed by the dark god, Erebus. Their evil whispered to me, ill thoughts. The evil was so thick, I could smell it in the water. I didn’t have to listen to their hearts to know their purpose—they loved death.
I had no time to waste, surface creatures died quickly in the water and my priority was my future and the future of my people.
I thrust my triton, beheading the Mer who challenged me. Time was pressing. The surge of hot power left my hands, and struck another of the nishant. I pulled the blade from my covers and severed the heads of the three who surrounded me. I can’t lie. It felt good to kill, to be in battle, to watch heads roll at my command. It was my nature, my birthright. I was born to rule, born to defend all that was mine. I may be a king of peace but my nature has given me the desire for blood and with that, I grasped the head of the last mer who stood between me and Earth and twisted his head around until his body softened and I watched as he sank to rest.
And then I saw her, in the graces of darkness. Such beauty, such courage, yet fear…I sensed her fear, it touched my heart. She didn’t fear her death; she feared the death of her family, her friends. I knew why she was chosen.
As I filled my eyes with her beauty, I was reminded of the very first time I broke surface...invigorating, exciting and heart wrenching. Those same emotions filled me. My heart resounded in my ears, the same song it beat as when the heat of the surface touched my skin. My eyes were filled with pleasure, the same as the blue and white beauty I saw above water. And her voice, it was soft and whispered in my head the way the invisible force of the Surface Land whispered. Too I wondered if she smelled fragrant as the world above. That strange and wonderful scent…
She gazed at me with hope and her spirit drifted up to me and touched my inner being. I raised two fingers to her so that she knew that I was here with her, and I was true and then I went to her while she fell, falling to her death, slowly…deep. Her hand outstretched, she needed me and I her. We would save each other.
“Two creatures were not in the stone.” Aella said.
“I know, but she was attached to him and he was wounded by our kind. I couldn’t leave him.”
“Is he alive?”
“Yes, I had to breathe into him.”
“And her?”
“Yes. Take him.”
“What will we do next?”
“I don’t know, wait for her to wake.”
I sat beside her, “what do you think her name is?” I couldn’t help but stare at her, her lips…I ran my fingers across them, she was warm, like the bright heat that burned in the blue. I bent my head, and placed my cheek on her cheek—the warmth of her skin, made my body shake, as if I’d been touched by an eel. Her hair wound like the tentacles of a squid around my finger. I touched her nose, placed her hand in mine. Her legs, and her…flippers had separated bones. No flesh connecting them. Interesting.
“Aella…these creatures are like us. All except for their...” I jabbed a finger at her fins. “No scales.” I didn’t have any either.
“And their flesh is hot. This creature looks like a mer of the Medit.”
“Yes, warm flesh. How will she carry my seed?”
“I imagine she has the same inside as me.”
“What is this she wears? Their covers are…odd.” The material was rough and thick and yellow. The bone on her fin moved. “Aella, look.” I reached to touch her separated bones. I poked it with my finger and it moved again. “It moves.”
“She’s waking.”
My heart sped up, this was it, was the beginning.
“Move away, you don’t want to frighten her.” I did as Aella said and watched as her eyes opened.
“Where…?” She coughed and water spilled from her lips.
“Are you well?” I began to walk forward, but Aella gave me a warning glance.
“Where am I?” The surface creature watched me carefully.
“You are with me, in my home.”
“With you? Ben? Where is Ben?”
“I am Hanan.” I said gently.
“Hanan?” She sat up.
“Where am I, who are you? Where is Ben?” She stood, her eyes big and brown and beautiful—she stared around and quickly moved back into the wall. “What is this place?” A lost creature an unknown place, fear, I could smell it. Her eyes finally met mine and she stared at me. And her vision, filled with anger, I sensed it and stepped toward her, “stop.” She held her hand out. “Where is Ben?”
“The other, he is behind you.” I raised my finger. She turned to look and rushed to his side. Aella backed away and came to stand with me. I watched her as she laid her head on his chest. She spoke softly and kissed his lips. My hands curled in. My heart reacted in such away that I did not understand…She cared for the male creature.
“I mended his wound.” Aella said. Earth looked back at us, and then down at the creature, she called Ben. Lightly touching where he had bled. She spoke faintly in his ear and then touched his hair then his face. And I, I wanted to kill him. “Hanan, control yourself.” My teeth were clenched, and I turned from Aella, from the girl and left the quarters, for the water. This was not the way it was supposed to happen.
Chapter 16
Slowly, I glanced around taking in my surroundings, I didn’t understand, where was I? In a cave, I registered that thought in my mind. A cave with a high ceiling. But why was I here? How did I get here? I pressed my back and palms into the wall and stared at the two people in front of me. Where were their clothes?
“Where am I? Who are you? Where is Ben?” My hair dripped, my sneakers and clothes were soaked, I was shivering.
“The other creature?” I tuned out his voice and stared up at the sharp clouded crysta
ls that protruded from the ceiling, it was as if they were liquid and then froze right before they were about to drip down onto the floor—light seemed to shine through the crystals. The walls were gray and uneven, just like any stone or rock wall. The room was about 600 square feet with three large stone slabs counting the one in the center where Ben laid still...lifeless.
“Ben?” I quickly ran over to him, the woman spoke, but I didn’t respond, I just rested my head on his chest. His heart was still beating. “Ben…” I whispered in his ear. I watched him, and called his name again, kind of slapping his face. When he didn’t stir I turned to watch the woman who said she had mended his wound. I heard a splash of water and snapped my head around to see that the man had gone. I didn’t understand, I pushed my brain to make sense of this but came up blank each time. “Where did he go? Where is this place?”
I ran my finger over the wound on Ben’s chest, it was sticky with something. His flesh was red and swollen around the hole that was slowly closing.
This had to be some sort of dream. “Ben?” I called his name again and glanced around the cave again. Large shells were on the floor, lined along the walls. A pile of green plants, maybe seaweed in a pile on one of the slabs and on that same stone slab there was a cage made of bone filled with crabs, large red crabs with black beady eyes, long legs and large thick pinchers that lazily opened and closed. Dead fish hung from the crystal icicles…obviously this was where food was kept—then suddenly the odor of fish was so pungent, I found myself coughing the smell out of my lungs and then I just tried holding my breath.
Maybe this was some sort of dream or hallucination because, after being under water longer than a minute and a half, I thought for sure I should be dead. Maybe I was and this was some sort of stop, before actual death.
I only wished that were true. I was lost, unsure, confused and afraid. And mostly had no idea where I was or what was going on.
“Where…are we? Where is that man? That man…” I saw his face, he was the angel. Or so I thought.
The woman was little, shorter than me, maybe about 5’2 wearing green…seaweed? A thick piece of the plant was wrapped across her chest, with three strings of small white shells, attached to the plant that went over her shoulders. She also wore the plant fashioned into underwear to cover her private area—shells interwoven through the weed around her waist. Her body was toned, muscles in her arms and stomach flexed as she shifted her weight. Her hair was in long dreads—little shells at the tip of each dread, which stopped at her waist. Every time her head made the slightest movement the shells would rub together and make a sound similar to a wind chime. Her eyes were gold like dark honey, slightly glowing against her full brown face—she would have been beautiful, had it not been for the thick scar that crossed her eye, and curved over the left side of her face and across her lip, stopping at her chin. The scar was deep, branded to her skin.
“You are in Tahirah and Hanan has gone.” She said with a soft accent. It wasn’t as thick as the man who attacked us earlier. It was island with a hint of African “Please do not be frightened of me and Hanan. We saved your life and the life of this creature.” She looked at Ben? “We mean no harm.”
“Tahirah?” My heart stopped and then jerked violently, as if trying to shock me into reality. A reality that I was not going to accept. I didn’t know what was going on but I knew I wanted out of this place, this cave. My family…I closed my eyes, please God…
“Yes, the city of the Mer.” I’m in a nightmare, and this woman was a metaphor for insanity.
“We. Are in a cave.” I said slowly, maybe the woman was confused. I gazed around the cave, the beauty of the crystallized ceiling closing in on me, creating a sense of panic. I closed my eyes to catch my breath. “Tahirah? Mer? What is a Mer?” I opened my eyes to watch her with steady eyes. “Why have you brought us here? Where is my family?”
“Well, I am Aella, maid and Hanan, he is mer.” A maid and a mer? “We are people of the sea.” Call me delirious, but I had to laugh…
“Okay.” I was done talking crazy. I turned to Ben and called his name aloud. He needed to be awake and we needed to get out of this cave and back to reality, to my family. They had to be worried. Mom is probably freaking out. Dad wouldn’t sleep until he had me in his sight. They had to be alive. They were alive. Daddy is a survivor and he wouldn’t allow anything to happen to anyone else. I had to come after Ben, there was no way I would have let him be killed by some loony people. I glanced at the “maid.” “Ben…wake up.” I slapped his face harder. He groaned and his eyes, fluttered open. “Ben, wake up.”
“Huh? Ouch…” He reached up to touch his chest where the wound was. “What happened?”
“Wake up, look at me.” I held his face firmly, “how do you feel? Can you sit up?” He stared blankly for a moment.
“That thing stabbed me…where are we? Yeah, I think I can sit up.” He slowly sat up, laying his hand over the hole in his chest. “Oooww…ahh, damn.” He sucked his teeth.
“Thank God.” Careful, I wrapped my arms around his neck and closed my eyes, inhaling deep breaths, I whispered: “This woman is crazy. I think she thinks she is a mermaid, in some city called Tahirah?”
“We once were mermaids… But now we are mer and maid and I am maid and we are in Tahirah, in the Wasteland.” I stiffened up.
“There is no such thing as mermaids or whatever you think you are. You are human…” I made a big hand gesture, “we are human. And he needs a doctor.”
“Human? Doctor? What is human? I am not this…human.” She seemed sincerely confused, squinting her golden eyes and nodding her head softly.
“How do we get out of here?”
“You are far below. I cannot let you leave. Peril is high in the sea. If the nishant see you they will kill you. Your land is too far, and you cannot break surface.”
“What are you talking about? The nishant?” I asked helping Ben off the slab of stone. He kind of leaned into me, working to hold his own weight. “We…my family, we were attacked by pirates. I need to get back to them. They need to know that I’m alive.”
“You were attacked by mer, not…what you call pirates.” Just then, I heard another splash and then the man who Aella called Hanan walked around a rock wall. A white crown sat on top of his dripping wet hair. The crown was jagged and rose at a sharp high point like a mountain, with a purple stone in the middle. The stone seemed to twinkle at me and then just dull out. His hair was stringy and long, reaching to the peek of his toned and prominent chest. He was several inches taller than Ben. I guessed around 6’2. His stomach looked solid as a rock, with a small waist and he too wore sea weed around his lower region. Like green underwear. I looked up and caught him eyeing me and then his gaze shifted to Ben…his nose flared and his brow pressed down over his eyes and anger ignited in his eyes. I squeezed Ben’s arm.
“I don’t think he likes you.” I whispered. He pushed me behind him and he moved backwards and so I followed until I felt my back against the wall. He turned around to face me sitting me down on the ground. He sat down too, but cattycornered so that he could watch the weirdoes.
“I think she’s telling the truth. Did you see her legs and feet? She has patches of scales on her legs, but both their feet are webbed.” He whispered kind of glancing over his shoulder.
“So you believe this ridiculous story about mermaids and crap!” I whisper yelled. “This is bullshit! Ben...”
“Look.”
I slowly peeked around Ben and looked to see if it was true. It was and suddenly I felt like I couldn’t breathe. My chest contracted and a single tear squeezed from my eye.
Ben looked at me and raised his hand as to say wait and he said, “please…Eva, I need you to be calm.” He wiped my tears and held my face in his hands, “we will get home. We’ll figure this out, I promise.”
“Okay.” I inhaled through my nose and felt the welling of my eyes spill over again. My chest expanded as I inhaled the stench of fish and
fought the urge to panic and vomit at the same time.
“Just be calm, breathe, okay. Do you need your inhaler?” My face was still cupped in his hands and his thumbs continued to swipe at my streaming tears like windshield wipers.
“No. I’m breathing fine, just…I’m just…scared.” I couldn’t control the myriad of tears that poured out.
“It’s okay. You can be scared, but I need you to calm down, okay. I can’t have you having an episode right now.”
“Is she okay?” The mer asked.
“Yes.” Ben answered. “She’ll be fine. I just need to get her home. She has a breathing condition.” He reached in my fanny pack and shook my inhaler, but it was useless. “Just great.” He snapped and threw it down onto the ground. He closed his eyes and inhaled a deep breath. “Okay…okay.”
“It’s okay, I’m not having an attack.” I moved my face closer to his so that I could whisper. “But…how do you think we survived. She said we are too far away from…the surface. I can only hold my breath for a minute and a half and you were under longer than me. Maybe we’re not too far under.”
“Because.” Hanan’s deep voice echoed throughout the cave, and Ben and I both stood up. “I breathed into you life. I am mer, and King of Tahirah.” He seemed to grow in height as his chest protruded like some super hero. He threw his hair back, out of his face, and revealed a jagged shell that was pressed deep into his cheek. It was pearly white with traces of purple and gold in it, running from the top of his cheekbone to the corner of his mouth. I pressed my body further into Ben, staring cautiously at the king, thinking of the shell in my waist purse, coincidence I thought. I felt for the fanny pack around my waist, still in tact. He stared back at me and his face relaxed and softened. “I do not want to hurt you.” He was handsome in the strangest way. Maybe it was because of the shell pressed into his flesh, but even that made him seem…beautiful. The white, purple and gold of the shell seemed to make his brown skin glow. Or perhaps it was the soft honey that oozed from his eyes?
Deep Page 8