*(Probably) Somewhere off the coast of England, 1797*
The hem of her dress shifted across the wooden floor as she fell to her knees. She tugged at its collar and breathed heavily. Sweat slipped down her face. It was an odd feeling. The weather was cool and the skies were dark but her insides were burning faster than the sun.
Alone. She was all alone. For kilometres and kilometres, there was only her, the wooden panels of her boat and whatever mysteries the oceans surrounding her hid inside. It wasn't what she had intended. She had simply wanted to escape from her suffocating life for a moment — just a moment. Whether it was her tears which blinded her or the darkness, she knew not, but the end result was that she had drifted out too far in an unknown sea and suddenly, that moment had stretched out longer than the waters before her.
Her hand wrapped around her throat in desperation. The abundance of water around her did nothing to quench her thirst. The air felt too heavy to breathe.
A few minutes passed as she struggled to regain her senses. The only thing she was aware of was the ringing in her ears and the sliver of light that came from the moon. It would be alright, it would be alright. She simply had to focus on something — anything. Anything at all that would distract her. The water's gentle movement, the moon's reflection on it dancing gently, the near-eerie shape of one oar in the darkness and the more recognisable shape of the other in the light, the webbed hand reaching towards her, the stars watching her from the night sky—
Her eyes widened and ceased their frantic movement. The webbed hand reaching towards her? In a sudden moment of clarity it dawned upon her that the inevitable must have happened: she had finally lost her sanity. So naturally, the sanity required to ignore the horror-film-esque appendage and focus on getting home was a bit much to muster. Instead, she rubbed her eyes and then squinted them. Nope. Still there.
"Crazy, crazy," she muttered as she hit herself softly on the side of her head. But try as she might, she simply couldn't unsee the hand. Rather, she began to see even more of the body it was attached to.
First an arm, a chest, a face, some hair. The skin was of a normal colour one moment and near invisible the next. The hair was dark and plastered to its head with water but the face shone like the moon above them. She wasn't sure if the creature swam closer or her boat drifted near, but the next thing she knew, she was close enough to it to make out distinct features on its face.
It was an odd being. One moment, it looked like an ordinary human male and the next, its nose turned into slits and its skin melted into their surroundings. Only its eyes remained unchanged throughout. Two sapphire eyes stared back at her. Try as she might, she couldn't look away. Whirlpools. That was the only way to describe them.
It was only then that she realised that the creature's hand was still extended. Up-close, it looked more like a human hand than she had realised. Five fingers, a palm with creases on it. The only differences were the lack of fingernails and more strikingly, the webbing between the fingers.
The creature's skin turned dark once more. She held onto the edge of the boat and peered at it closely. It was as if it was wearing some kind of camouflage suit. In place of the human-like skin was something vaguely scaly and barely visible. Her eyes trailed down its face and chest and landed where its waist met the water. Underneath, blurry and shimmery and hardly distinguishable, was a tail.
Her nails dug into the wood of the boat. "What on… A merman?" she murmured. "Is this the thirst? Like seeing an oasis? Why would I want to see a merman though? What… A different kind of thirst perhaps?" Her eyes widened the moment the words left her lips. She slapped her reddened cheek, rubbed her eyes, and looked back at the creature. Still there. It stared at her unblinkingly. Or perhaps it didn't have eyelids? She wasn't sure. Either way, its eyes were drilling holes into her own.
The moment their gazes clashed, she was gone. 'Whirlpool' was the right word to describe those blues. They just kept drawing her in. It was like looking into a clear ocean. Sparkly, mesmerising. Her thoughts drifted into background noise. Before she even knew it, she had lifted her hand and placed it on the creature's palm.
Big mistake.
In just a moment, she had dwelled on the fact that this being was real, that it may have been a merman after all, and then finally that mermaids were decidedly much less friendly in person. For in that moment, her hand had not only touched its palm, but it had wrapped its hand around her own and yanked. Hard. And then into the water they went.
Her face stung and her lungs felt like they were on fire the moment they entered the water. The ocean's surface had slapped her hard. There had been no chance to breathe before she was dragged in — as much as she hated to say it, that thing had quite literally taken her breath away. The bit of cool water which she unintentionally inhaled somehow burned.
This creature was no merman. It was a siren. An evil beast, no doubt. Its pretty features were simply bait to catch its prey.
But siren or not, she wasn't about to die without a fight. She flailed her arms and kicked her legs. One strong hit — one hit would be enough. But alas! Brave and determined to save her life, she might have been but smart, at that moment, she was not. The water dragged against her and slowed her movements. Why, she may as well have been a sloth! But more importantly, she had forgotten one important factor: the fish-man dragging her was not a human male. And unfortunately, having a giant fish tail as a lower body meant that unlike a human male, this beast was missing a certain weaker body part which may have otherwise made for an easy target.
As they went deeper into the waters, the light from the surface became dimmer. Her head began pounding. There weren't many fish at these depths. There wasn't much of anything at all. It was then that she realised how frightful the ocean was. It wasn't simply vast and unknown, it was truly dangerous. The waters pressed on her like all the world's cement. At some point, her ears began to ring. There was pain too, but she could barely register it. The little breath that she had left was gone now. This was it. She really was going to die. She squinted her eyes as her vision blurred. Before her, the monster kept swimming. It wouldn't stop. This was it. Her body went lax and her thoughts faded into nothingness.
And then all went black.