Rachael moaned softly and shifted as she started to wake up.
''The sound of her moan galvanized him. He pushed himself away from her and into the shadows in the far corner of the rock pool. Still, he couldn't take his eyes off her. He watched her closely, alert to every movement of her body.''
''He felt concerned. Was she damaged? She was starting to move a little but seemed awkward and uncoordinated. She had not been moving at all when he pulled her out of the water. He had been watching her approach the pool from the safety of the dark water, listening to the sound of her humming.''
'He heard the vibration of her voice in the distance. It was unmistakable… the same voice that came as a hushed whisper before he was chained and bound in this underground cave through the abyss of time.''
On the night he broke free from his eternal prison, he felt something calling out to him while his stony statue stood lifeless. It was as if something hot… sweet…. And alluring had pulled him out of this endless chasm.
Cracks began to form all around the stony figure. The lines ran haphazardly, covering every inch of it in seconds. A booming sound was heard as the statue exploded, covering the altar where he was chained in dusty mist.
Silence bathed the cave for a few minutes.
Then out of the palpitating mist, emerged a full-fleshed figure of a man.
The moment he opened his eyes, something in him snapped. Rage consumed him as he broke free from his chains. He let out a chilling scream as he descended from the altar. His eyes were pitch black. The same type of eyes he had developed during his final moment before he was captured. Anger. Hatred. Wrath and hunger flowed through his veins.
His dark vicious eyes scanned his surroundings, taking in the view before him. His gaze fell on a small fragile figure that was asleep on the ground of the cave.
HUMAN.
Torrents of rage rushed through him at the sight. The same humans who had once destroyed his home. The same race who were responsible for his centuries of captivity. He descended from the altar, while his white teeth shimmered as he walked towards the human with murderous intent.
When he stepped his foot into the pond, the only thing that separates the human from his grasp, something fell from his mouth and tickled into the pool.
He froze. He lifted his hands and brushed the tips of his mouth, only for his fingers to be smeared in blood.
Confusion etched on his face as he stared at the blood in his hands. Strange. He stuck out his tongue and tasted the blood on his hands. The taste of this blood was something different. For it was sweeter than heaven's ambrosia. He wondered where the blood came from. And when his gaze caught the human sleeping on the floor of the cave, he was stunned.
The realization hammered into his brain. It was the human all along. All those tingling sensations he felt… the call…. The soft texture on his lips… and the blood…
It was the human. The human had freed him without knowing the consequences of what it had done.
When he crossed the pool, he walked towards her and stopped where the human lay. The merman crouched down and inspected the human with a certain degree of carefulness.
The human was a FEMALE.
He watched as she slept carefully, fascinated by the way her chest rose and fell with each breath she took. She laid on her back, one arm laid haphazardly behind her head, and the other hanging loosely beside her. Her body gleamed with the hue of light casted from the plants on the walls of the cave.
Something about her felt familiar.
As the night wore on, he watched her sleep, captivated by her peacefulness. He had wondered what brought her here. It was as if she had stepped into the ocean as a refuge from the world above.
He continued to watch her as the night waned on, and as the dawn approached, he realized that he could not stay there any longer. He knew he must leave for his own safety.
With a heavy heart, he plunged himself into the pool, taking his full form as his legs transformed into a tail. This was one of the mysteries known only to their kind. They could assume the shape of a human in their own world, but they could not do so outside their world. For the laws that bind their world and that of the humans were different, and the only barrier that separated those two worlds was the sea.
But he had never seen anyone quite like her. He had seen her carelessly eating a mushroom out of hunger. He smiled when he saw the disgusting look on her face the moment she ate it. He adjusted himself inside the pool to get a better view of her, when he mistakenly drew her attention. He quickly submerged into the water when he noticed she was staring at the pool, dumbfounded at the reality that the stone statue was no longer there.
Beneath the water, he watched as fear enveloped her. She searched frantically around the cave for the stone figure but she couldn't find it.
''POOR LITTLE HUMAN," he thought under the water.
After her futile attempt, she walked towards the pool and drank water from it.
"YOU'RE A FEARLESS TYPE," he thought again.
He watched as she sat at the edge of the pool, her feet dangling in the water, her eyes staring out into the distance. She looked sad, lost, and alone. He could feel her aura, a sense of hopelessness and despair that had consumed her.
He wanted to reach out to her, to comfort her, to tell her that everything would be alright.
But he couldn't. He was a merman, and she was a human. They were from different worlds, different species, and different dimensions.
Yet, he found himself drawn to her. Something about her pulled him closer, like a magnet to a steel. She was unlike anything he had seen, her beauty captivating and her soul fragile. He watched her cry, tears rolling down her cheeks, shattering his heart into a million pieces.
The merman had never felt so helpless, so vulnerable, so human. He wanted to reach out to her, to hold her, to heal her wounds. But he knew that it was impossible. They were meant to be apart, to live a separate world filled with hatred for her kind… To never meet.
He swam to the surface of the pool and slowly hopped his head out of the water behind her. He drew closer to her intending to touch her hair. But it seems she noticed a movement around her and the merman quickly submerged into the water, creating a splash.
He had finally drawn out the suspicion in her. The human stood up and stared at the water as if one of her possessions had fallen to the bottom of the pool. She carefully tried to get a better view of what was under the water when she slipped and fell into the pool.
"He had watched her slip and fall. Had smelled her blood in the water as she sank unconscious to the bottom. That was not safe. Without hesitation, he had rushed to protect and aid a female. That was his nature, his primal instinct. But it confused him that he felt this instinct towards a female like this one.''
"He frowned."
"Why did he feel a sense of protectiveness about this awkward, unknown female? He should not feel anything for her. She was not of his people. He had seen others like her before, floating lifeless in the deep oceans in which he and his kind lived. He had felt nothing for them.
But for some reason, this was different. She was helpless, that much was evident. Her voice was intoxicating. Her skin was soft, so unexpectedly soft. The soft warmth of her flesh had taken him by surprise when he had taken her in his arms as she floated unconscious in the deep pool of water.
As she lay unmoving on the rocks, he had studied that soft flesh closely. His dark eyes had moved down her body. The lower half of her body was shocking. It split in two and ended in the bony feet.
Of course, he knew about the humans with the evolution of their bodies to walk upright on dry land and he had seen plenty of bodies in the ocean. But he had never in his existence encountered a female, alive. Her flesh was warm to the touch, and the legs and the feet made more sense on a living body.
He had watched the pulse moving in her throat and he listened to the sound of air moving in and out of her body. The urge to touch her was hard to resist. But increasingly, he found that he did want to touch her.
The warmth of her body radiated through his fingers. He could feel it even without touching her. He had lifted his fingers towards her mouth. He longed to touch her lips, to feel them. But he hesitated. She was not his to touch.
Just as he shifted to withdraw his hand, a soft moan escaped her breath. Without thought, his long slender finger lowered to touch those lips. He gasped aloud as her mouth opened slightly in response to his touch.
He had felt an unexpected and uncomfortable stirring in his being at her response to his touch.
He watched the way the water pooled into droplets on her pale skin. In the gloom of the cave, her skin seemed luminous. He was captured. He looked closely at her face. Her eyes were closed. He briefly wondered what they would look like when opened.
Were they green, dark, or blue just like his?
Her closed eyes were framed by long, dark lashes. His lip curled into a small smile as a droplet of water fell from her lashes and onto her cheek. She was fascinating.
He felt as if he could watch this helpless creature forever.