Chapter 3

I thrashed about, trying to get Garrett’s attention. I was sure he would save me! I started panicking. I tried to scream but got a mouthful of disgusting salt water. I started choking and I felt like I was going to die. Just as I was about to just give up two strong arms pulled me up out of the water. I took a deep, life-giving breath in the air. I started coughing and almost choking. I looked to see my hero. It was Garrett.

“Hey, Zoë, you okay?” he asked.

I tried to stand but found out I couldn’t. We must have been out enough that we couldn’t touch.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Where were you?” I replied.

Garrett shrugged and said, “I just thought you could handle it on your own. Guess I was wrong. But, now that you’ve found out you can breathe, I suggest you follow me.” I looked around in alarm. We were underwater! And I was breathing just fine!

I started stuttering. “How…why…what…”

He rolled his eyes and said, “Just follow me.” He let go of me and started swimming in a weird way. I realized I could see perfectly. Then something occurred to me. I slowly looked down. I screamed and put my hands over my mouth.

Where my legs should have been, there was a tail. Not a cat’s tail, but a mermaid’s tail. It was pink, with sparkles, and a hot pink fins at the bottom. It looked a little like Ariel’s. My eyes moved up my body and a string of horror came up from my gut. I cried out and quickly put my arms over my bare stomach. Instead of my bathing suit I was wearing what looked like hot pink shells, also like Ariel’s. EWWWW!!!!!!

Garrett came back and I stared at him with a strange mixture of relief and terror. He looked back at me with confusion.

“What?” I looked down at my stomach with ‘really?’ on my face. “Oh, you’re a Mormon, aren’t you?” he groaned. “Chill. There are many Mormon mermaids and they wear the shells. You’re fine. Come on. I need to show you around. Oh, stop whimpering about the shells. It’s fine. Let’s go.” He started swimming in the direction he was before.

I followed but didn’t let my hands leave my stomach. I got the knack of swimming with a tail after a while. I looked up at Garrett. His tail was blue. The bottom fin was one large flipper. He had a dorsal fin on the back of his tail. I swam up to him so we could talk.

“So, mermaids, huh?”

“Yeah, I could tell you were one the moment I saw you in the hotel. You just had that look of one. I haven’t met another one. The way this happens is that your real mom or dad was a mermaid and the other was human. You got stuck in human form. You were put up for adoption because your human parent didn’t want to be stuck with you or because the Surface Force of the Pacific Military killed them. Either that or they were turned into a mermaid by their spouse. If that happened, they couldn’t take you because they weren’t a mermaid when you were born so the government would be able to tell. You probably have a few totally-mer siblings by now.”

“What?” I asked, totally bewildered. I wasn’t following anything.

“You’ll find out. Maybe.”

I looked around and noticed the scene was totally different from where we used to be. And I could still see, though it should have been too dark to see. Instead of murky, shore water was totally clear. I looked down and saw coral: thousands of different colors. Fish were swimming everywhere, some seemed to be staring at us. I suddenly spotted some pink seaweed and dived immediately to pick it. I did so and somehow made it so my stomach was covered. Then I looked at Garrett. “Why are those fish staring at us?”

He looked down and said, “Beats me. They see mer-folk all the time. We’re close now.”

I still had one more question. “How can we see? And why isn’t the pressure killing us?”

“Look, Zoë, I don’t have time to explain everything to you. You can see because your eyes are made for dark water. The pressure isn’t killing you because there isn’t any pressure. It’s just something the Dark Military do to freak out the humans. Now just keep moving.”

I pulled my chin back. I thought this guy was nice. And cute, but obviously he wasn’t.  Anymore, at least. I took in my surroundings once more and practically ran into Garrett after we’d been swimming in silence for four or five minutes. I looked ahead of the boy to see what made him stop. There was a rock wall. A solid, sharp, black rock wall. “So, Gar, now what?”

He glared at me then said, “See that hole? We have to go through it. You’re going first. You’ll have to use your hands to pull yourself along. Chill about the shells”-he looked down at my new modest top-“Oh, you made it modest. Joy, okay, so you’ll be fine. I was just going to say that the mermen have seen so many more mermaids a lot hotter than you, so you shouldn’t be worried about anyone staring at you.”

I moved toward the hole and started in. Before I totally stuck my head in I replied to Garrett, “I’m not worried about mermen seeing me. I’m worried about you seeing me.” I smirked and ducked inside. The tunnel was exactly what it looked like: sharp. My tail was getting scratched. My stomach was too, and it was a weird feeling because I actually have never shown my bare belly to anyone. Anyone. I sighed and kept going. I decided that the moment we found something I’d make a better modest top. I pulled myself along, hoping the end would get here quickly. I called back from where I’d come, “Hey, Garrett, how long is this tunnel?”

“We’re close now, just keep swimming.”

I couldn’t see his face so I couldn’t tell if it was sarcasm or not…I kept swimming.

Eventually I could see a small light up ahead and started to get excited. I hit the light and was amazed into dumbness (for those who don’t know what that means, it means I couldn’t speak). There was what looked like a neighborhood, but in mermaid-form. Mer-folk were swimming around on sidewalk-like things. The houses looked like they were made of coral. I whistled under my breath, and then felt a push on the end of my tail.

“Dude, get a move on! I get claustrophobic!” Garrett cried from behind me.

I resisted the urge to just keep him back there and not move and got out of the tunnel. He followed, somewhat disgruntled.

“Welcome to Mertopia, the capital of the Pacific Ocean. Come, I need to introduce you to someone.” He rushed out toward one of the streets. I followed him awkwardly.

Regrettably, he was right about all the girls wearing the shells. It really grossed me out. I tried to ignore them and keep up with Garrett.