Under a Wishing Moon
Added 2019-12-17 07:55:43 +0000 UTCHow long had it been? She had started to doubt her count after 17 days, but she knew it'd been months. Months since she'd been terrified of water. Since she'd had legs. Since starting on the path to thinking of herself as anything but...this.
She'd grown considerably fit and lithe, mastered swimming and consumed what felt like a billion raw fish. That was the worst part of it: She hated fish. Or rather, she had hated fish and now tolerated them, versus the alternative of starving as a half-fish; of letting her aggressor, her maker, win. Yet with every bite, she felt her dignity—her humanity—slipping away. Or maybe she just felt like it was...and, in the end, was that any different?
Months of aimless swimming, and she'd found no sign of any others. No boats, no messages, no wayward souls. Not even a single piece of flotsam or a single inch rock above the water's surface. The ocean couldn't be that big, right? Yet all signs pointed to the notion: Yes, it was. She'd spoken to people of consequence only in dreams: Sometimes dreams of her old life, but also frighteningly increasingly frequently as the mermaid. Her grip on reality—her old one—was slipping.
But she was not devoid of hope. Hope that whatever lesson she was meant to learn would run its course. Hope that this was all some sick magical prank, or better yet, a twisted, feeling nightmare she could someday wake from. And with every full moon, she rose to the surface and spoke. Not to humor herself or yell in pain, but to make a sincere wish, a forgotten tradition from years past. For mercy, for home, for some return to normality.
At this point, she almost didn't care which end the normal leaned toward.
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Just an introspective, brooding followup to an older piece.
