"Mom?" I hear, slipping from my parted lips. "Mom, where are you?"
"It is her child! Get her!"
God had forsaken our village. And I had to run. Gasping and panting, unknown to where I should go.
"Don't let her get to the water!"
Sometimes life is at the edge of the bridge. And so was I. Ready to leap… but-
"Are you gonna jump or what?" a voice brings me back to the present, as I almost swing forward, even if it were a familiar voice.
"Jesus Christ," I say, grabbing the grills. "You fucking scared me."
"Not like you'd fall in the ocean and die, Tail," Fin tells me.
"Ugh, with that boring name again. And wherever you feel entitled enough to not add respect in there," I groan and look to the ocean, while pushing his forehead away.
"Well, you can't just use your real name. You are a superhero now. WE are a superhero now. Finally. Just the three of us, becoming a superhero organization."
"Yes. Pretty great. Just brilliant how all your three generations had the same marvelous idea. Piquing indeed."
I don't hear anything, and I find him just trying to find some meaning on me.
"Aren't you happy? We are so close to getting funded by some richy richs, you know."
"Yeah… I am. I really am. Pretty great, and I KNOW that. But Bermuda…"
"Just some cruise ship, apparently ran out of fuel or something. It's not even… there."
"That is NOT what they said, Fin. Even without fuel… no ship just… stops in the ocean."
"You know how humans exaggerate. You are… a mermaid. You'll be fine."
"Mermaid? Is that what we are going with as the team name?"
"Well, I was thinking of 'The Three Mermaids'," Fin says, making me shake my head in disappointment. "Bailey… you are one of the best I know. And you are a very strong lady. So said grandpa, and mom. And I believe it."
"Song's faster. And you are stronger, and can traverse Bermuda better," I say. "Just like your granddad."
He frowns and stares at me. "You have something which neither of us have."
"Boobs?"
"Close. A heart," Fin strictly says. "Go talk to the captain. Guide their ship. Report back. You have known these waters very well."
I turn back, while holding the grills with both my hands. "You both take care. Don't have too much fun without me," I smirk.
"She is my girlfriend. You are… almost my grandmom," he says, raising his eyebrows.
"Yeah, I never mentioned sex, Gary. Jeez. Kids these days."
Funny how his granddad saved me from jumping onto the rocks, and almost became the love of my life. On the other hand…
Gary pushes my forehead with his index finger, and I bounce backwards in a reverse swan dive. As my fingertips are the ones which touch the water – I feel my consciousness grow to something greater than I was. As if I had become the ruler of these waters.
As I immerse my body into the water, I feel the ripples and sub ripples which my movement causes. My vision dies out – making me blind in a couple seconds. But internally I feel my vision also extend for kilometres, in the next dozen seconds. I feel all the movements in the ocean, as if they were goosebumps across my body. They overwhelm me, making me lower myself into the water – backwards. Even while feeling so much stronger, I couldn't take it in for while.
This was me. This was basically my team. We had around the same powers, one which was useless on land. And quite meaningless yet, even in the ocean. But for finding some ship, and navigation… that was with ease. And that is why we didn't have a big name, on the land. But soon… they would value us.
I inhale water, filling my body with more hydration in a long breathe through both my nose and my mouth. I feel water circle around my waist, making my legs quite numb – I was used to it. But my legs… it was weird but they weren't in legs – but around them.
Bashing my head forwards, I move like a bullet or something, through the waters. My speed was some two miles per minute, we had calculated it sometime. Feeling the water across my body, and feeling my blinded but extended vision change and let me know the later on distance… I manage to not hit anything on the way. As I feel myself getting faster, I remove my shirt – which slips from my grip and gets lost in the ocean.
I hated removing my shirt, I knew how sexualized we would be, when we got famous. Even between the people who knew us… I had seen the stuff on their social network. How much even Fin was sexualized. I hated it. But… in the ocean there were no one looking at me that way.
I feel my whole body vibrate, and let out a scream of a sonic boom – which blasts the water around me. But I reach the waters still, and feel myself reaching my maximum speed – a kilometre per second. That is how strong the waters made me. My consciousness felt to be in an ecstatic and awake state. I loved this feeling.
My vision had reached a couple hundred kilometres range, and I see the sea creatures… they swim in a… pattern. Away from a certain point which doesn't feel land, and was shallow waters even… but I don't feel my consciousness go beyond this one barrier – as if there was a god there, blocking my vision and claiming that section.
Bermuda.
I go deeper into the waters… a dozen seconds and my nimble and soft body feels an ache across it. But I knew my limits. Just a few more seconds. I reach to quite my limit on the depth I could go, but still keep going more… I needed the distance. I was strong enough to bear it.
Circling around to get some momentum, I shoot myself towards the surface again, at around forty-five degrees of an angle. If I'm feeling it right, I'd be falling right into the pool of that cruise ship in…
As my body tosses out the ocean, I feel my vision returning to me – as I fall forward. I still was soft skinned and powerful enough. I see the ship, the pool was exactly in my trajectory. It felt different from the water around the ship. This should be fine.
As I fall towards it in a dive, the fingertips which go first – bend and break. I lose the strength in my arms as they twist and scar. My head buzzes and my vision blurs down. I had hit a thick piece of glass and broken through it – to go and hit the bottom of the pool, where my neck snaps.
"Reel her out!" I hear.
I was alive… but I see my blood… I had never bled. Not in water. Not ever even… not this much. But my ears only hopefully hear some screams…
But I had seen such blood before. Mother…
They should know I was here to help… so I push myself and get out of the pool. As my vision clears, I see the people looking towards me, both worried and afraid. My head hurts to lift… it feels like it might… fall. I hate this ache.
"What is she doing?" somebody asks.
I look at myself – as my head aches when lifted. I smell something… rotting. And it seems to be coming out of my skin. Something… of a dark hue. It makes me tired, as if… those are my insides. I was… dying. It was nauseating… for it was familiar.
"FIN!" I scream up my lungs.
The ship and I… weren't supposed to be here. Perhaps that is why… my blood feels colder… colder than ice. My arms feel shrunken and dried out, my legs out of my body – I couldn't even see if they were still attached to me.
But my cheeks twitch, and I bawl in pain. "I don't want to die… please," I beg. And with that comes rage, "I WAS HERE TO HELP, YOU TRIED TO KILL ME! ALL YOU HUMANS, ALWAYS!"
Somebody rushes closer, and I see it is the captain.
"Please let us help you," he speaks, looking at me. "We apologise that we meant to preserve the water in the pool, so we put on a glass slab. Water which interacted with the atmosphere was getting… weird. Please let us…"
"GET AWAY FROM ME," I say, and he puts his hand away.
"They saw me and my friends as weak and useless… there is no… nothing, what you can do. Except… please put a shirt on me, I don't want to die like this."
The captain looks shook, but he removes his coat and, without touching me, puts it on me. I put my head to the floor, and sleep.
"Tell my friends… to tell you that all of you are beyond repair. You will die out here. When my mother died… there was a plague. That is now Bermuda. And now… And I think now I understand how."
"Everyone?"
"Your food will rot… and soon you will too. Don't bother escape." Only one had ever made it out… and I didn't know how.
My body burns… in some fever. The gas I inhale through my lungs… makes me quiver and choke. But I show no weakness. I don't scream any Lowly Screams. It was for the weak.
May mercy and death be upon the people around.
*
Drowning… was unfamiliar. But it takes my breath away. I gasp for air, and feel my chest burn in some kind of… I don't know.
"Hey, what happened?" I hear Song's voice, and jerk to my side. "Woah, hey, it's me, Sonya. It's okay. You're okay."
Song slowly brings her hand to my heaving chest, and places it there… rubbing down gently. I feel myself calm down and connect to reality.
"I think we should take the offer," I say, and Song freezes.
+
As the knock resounds from the door, I look away from Song.
"Who could that…"
"Get dressed up," I say, and push myself to the door while wearing my shirt.
I see an unfamiliar face through the peephole… and he waves at me, as if he could see me seeing through the peephole… from that far away from it.
"Who is it?" I ask, holding the knob of the door.
"Who I am… is unimportant," he smiles.
+
"To use us as a fucking radar to communicate with the damned ship? Yeah, no. They already messed up enough by trying to get closer to Bermuda. Bailey has warned them for AGES."
"I know, I know…" I say, and look towards the bed. Song finds my expression and lifts my chin to peck my lips and then look at me.
"Something up?"
"Could you try to feel Bailey?"
Song doesn't argues. She goes straight to the washroom. Not one sound, but I don't barge in. I felt more and more like drowning under the seas, and the ocean… under a pool. That was so unlikely… but… the thought just… was nauseating. A rotten thought.
I don't call for Song. She was better off doing it by herself. She… is who that person wanted to be the radar. Just in a minute she could… find so much. So much.
And she silently comes back, and I give up trying to get off the pool's floor.
"We should… take the offer."
But even then, I only nod. That's all I could do.
"You should probably try to go to the ship."
"That is…"
"Your mom returned."
"My mom was something else. Getting to Bermuda is…"
Song just nods. It was asking too much of me. So the one thing we could do was.
"This will sting," a person in a lab coat, tells Song – while holding two thin-metal rods.
"That'll probably fry my brains out. But I can bear it. Insert it after you put me in the tank."
"You won't feel any pain then?"
"If only it were that easy," Song smiles, and I see her lower lip twitch as she looks at me. I slightly shake my head.
Song gets to wear some kind of… straps of wires. Two in front of her waist, two on her forehead, two on her shoulders, two at her armpits, two on her wrist, and finally one upon her belly button.
"The voltage..." I hear a familiar voice… of that guy, who had come to our house.
"Just three kilovolts? Eh," Song shrugs.
The guy looks surprised, but just nods. "And two hundred. But yes. So you can take it."
"No she fucking can't!" I say.
"It is merely… one hundredth hertz."
"Meaning… I will only feel it for every hundred seconds."
"Oh… but that is still…"
"I'm sorry no…" the scientist interrupts. "You will feel it for fifty seconds. And it'll be off for the next fifty seconds. And so on… "
"Are you fucking crazy?" I ask. "That is bullshit."
"Well, fifty seconds is not a minute," Song says.
"And my palm is not a fist… but close. Both are."
"It is… doable for me. I can take it," Song says, as I shake my head. "I have to."
"Then I hope you don't mind filling out this consent form… just in case."
Song puts her hand on my shoulder, and smiles. "This is what we do. For the team."
+
"For the team," Fin says, but his eyes beg me to stop.
I couldn't… I knew this was… bad. But… I… we… had no choice. And if I did die… Fin would finally be recognised as a hero. All of us will be. So I had to die trying.
The wires submerse alongside me, in the tank – making me second guess, what if they short? But these people… they'd have thought it through.
"Insert the two antennas," I hear.
I close my eyes, bracing for what is to come. But my scalp tears to let the antennas in, making my whole body shudder in pain. I brace. The I feel it on my skull and try to control my breathing. This was it, the pressure stops.
As I open my eyes, I see the scientist move away from the tank. But my tongue sinks as the antennas seems to… move. A whirring noise makes me gasp and open both my eyes and mouth wide open. The pierce through my skull. I feel it. My death. But as the antenna slightly tips at my brain, I feel it all… All my nerve endings. All my sensations asking me one thing: to kill. To destroy.
My fist bangs at the tank, making a deep dent. I see Fin coming forward to try and say something. I look at him with my bloodshot eyes… standing there, trying to faintly smile and calm me.
His eyes wander away from my face, which makes me want to beg him to look back – or I'd go insane. But as I follow his gaze, I find a scientist bringing another one of those antennas. A smaller one but… I gasp, no, I couldn't let this. No please. I can't die.
Fin presses his palm to the tank, and I match it. I had to bear this. For him. But right as the scientist climbs the steps and goes to the top of my tank, I feel like crying. I jerk my body, to avoid from being struck.
"Song. It's ok."
"Yes ma'am, this will only-" the scientist tries to tell me.
Fin watches me, and holds the others back, as I bite into the neck of the scientist. I was just hungry… and their voice was annoying. As I tear their flesh to gush all their blood out into the tank, I feel better. Blood… was prettier to sing in.
"It's ok," Fin tells me.
I hold the antenna and strike it into my forehead. Blood was thicker. I myself could barely hear my own screams. My lungs fill with water and blood. But I concentrate. I had to… find her.
+
"Okay, we are getting something," the guy tells me. "Okay, set to the right… frequency…" the whole place echoes with the last word, and someone at the computer gives a thumbs up. "I hope… the voice is clear enough. "I… am unimportant of who I am."
"Hey… I know you," somebody says, and I gasp up from my glass and the face of the table. "You are… that mermaid group, right?" I blink while looking towards him. "Too drunk… celebrating?"
"Of course…" I say. "Putting all those… helping… out of… misery."
"Great job indeed. We need more heroes like you."
Like me? What a fucked up world that'd be.
My wobbly feet take me across the street. Nighttime was… cold. So I rip my shirt open and sit at the dock, while puking my heart out into the ocean.
If Tail could…
I speed out of the surface of the ocean and jump towards the ship. As I land at the deck, the floor below me cracks – prompting me to move ahead on time.
So all these people would be sleeping now. Or so they said. What a peasant way to die.
I go to the captain's room to find the guy having put a bullet into his own head. His revolver empty of bullets. All his booze… rotten. Fucking Bermuda.
I go to the pool to find a floating body there – as if kept for showcasing. The pool had… 'do not enter' tapes surrounding them. What a… thing to say and specify. Tail's neck broken and she smells rotten… and looks just like her mother.
"Hello?" I hear a voice, making me sober instantly. "Who are you?"
I look back and find… five people. Three guys and two girls. How the fuck…
"I thought everyone was asleep. How are you five..."
"We woke up," the tall guy strictly says. "Are you here to help?"
"Yes… like you helped her… just drown you in the pool with her."
I run forward, and they push each other to go inside and lock the door. I simply form my a fist and bang it to the door.
I see their faces again, while sitting down on the floor, holding my own fist.
"Fucking Bermuda," I groan.
"We did not harm her," they claim.
But I jump towards the brown guy to punch at him with my other fist. He puts his hand forward, but even when my superpowers were nothing here – I was a stronger human than a kid. But the taller guy pushes me by my shoulder.
The five of them hold me down, even while I land blows and bruise some of them.
"Huh… you humans… always hated your kind. So self destructive and… in over their heads."
"Says the so-called superhero who came here to kill survivors."
"I just came here to say goodbye… to all of you."
"Then you can be on your way now."
They let me go.
"No plans on surviving using me, considering all the rotten food?"
"We cannot stop your low."
That makes me… mad.
"We realise you do not wish to say us. Or anyone here. Just leave us be."
How could they… if they knew the truth about all the putting them in a dream state to pose as a virtual escape… how could they just… and not even…
They just go back in. And I just stand there.
They deserve to be put to an end.
I dive into the waters. The waters was my domain. I had to drink the ship by breaking it from outside. But my dive doesn't end… I never… reach the… no… it was cold… but I continue my dive, as if I'm still midair.
Drowning… was unfamiliar. Was this drowning? There is no suffocation. But I feel the pressure on my figure… trying to make me mix with my insides. But I only got deeper.
"Stop," I hear a whisper… and the pressure around me just… disappears. Yet I still dive down. Was I hallucinating? I wasn't that drunk.
But I see a neon glow… far below. I try to look back… but I don't see anything above me. So then… I was… around the deepest part of the ocean. Reaching towards it.
But only the glow gets bigger… and I realise that the dark blue around it… wasn't water. As the waves move like jellyfish… I realise they are more like huge tentacles, each a lot larger than I was.
This… in a place with humans so evil, and so many people as powerful as me… were these creatures. Mythical beings of fairytales. To many they were just a challenge in a bullshit tournament meant to showcase the 'talents' of superheroes. Where they killed these beautiful creatures. These… terrifying creatures. At least the lesser terrifying ones.
"Kill?" I hear, making my whole body vibrate. My body shakes and echoes the word back and forth, until the being's eyes turn deep-blue for a moment. "Apologies," it whispers.
"What are you?"
"The reaper of the depths," it whispers back.
I just continue to stare at it in confusion. Then its huge tentacles move to creature a void… some kind of vacuum… and it drags me towards me. All the pressure upon-