Under The Water: Chapter 1

Your name is Dave Strider and you've always loved the ocean. Sky-blue waters, crashing waves, and the salty sea spray. It's relaxing and it takes you far away from any of your day-to-day problems that weigh on your mind. You love the shallows and you're fine with water up to your waist, but not higher than that, because you can't swim. For some reason, you just never learned. So here you are, seventeen years old, and spending your summer vacation at the beach, on a remote island with no lifeguards and few people at all. If you get caught in a riptide, there's nothing to keep your from drowning. But hey, it's summer vacation. What could go wrong?

(Everything, obviously. What else?)

For the first week, you're fine. You chill in the warm shallows and go tide pooling to see some ocean fauna without actually getting into the water. You build sandcastles and get ice cream, acting very much like a five-year-old. You have a grand old time until Day 9, when your brother who's taken you here tells you that there's going to be a fireworks display that night.  Knowing about your hydrophobia, he suggests that the two of you watch from a pier that juts out over the water, giving you a perfect vantage point to watch from.

The beach is on an island somewhere is the tropics, you're not exactly sure where. Your older brother, who's taken care of you since your parents died, is sitting on millions. Since he never spends a penny more than he has to, he insisted on taking you out here as an early 18th birthday present. The sky and water aren't polluted and there's a wonderful lack of tourists to cramp your style as you roam the gorgeous white-sand beaches. Accursed style-cramping tourists.

So you're free to explore and stare out at the endless expanse of sea, so long as you're back at the pier by sundown for fireworks. Your brother told you it was to mark the beginning of a summer festival or something. You just shrugged and told him you'd make sure you were back before the festivities began.

One of your favorite things to do is wade into the waist-deep water and just stand still, watching the water until a glimmer of scales appears. It's quite often that you see flashes of silver or yellow, and sometimes even pink or purple.  A couple times, though, you spot an unforgettably incredible shade of blue-green. It's always gone just a split-second after you see it, but you know you're not hallucinating. Determined to fid out what kind of fish it is that's eluding you, you make a mental note to ask your good friend the Internet to tell you what it is.




The sun is finally beginning to set around nine o'clock and you start making your way back to town where you promised your brother you'd meet him. He drags you out to the edge of the pier so that you're right above the water. He hands you a bottle of water and you take it with a silent nod of thanks. The sky is scattered with a myriad of brilliant, dazzling stars. You're torn between the velvet sky and the dark navy blue of the ocean. The waves are choppy and rough, like the sea itself is upset, confused, angry.

Then the fireworks start. Nothing elaborate, but the bursts of color is still amazing to watch. Flashes of pink, white, silver, red, blue- that blue was not fireworks. Glancing down, you see the familiar blue-green sparkle of fish scales and the owner of said scales doesn't seem to mind staying in place. You lean in, hoping to get a closer look, but then it's swimming away and you can't let that happen so you lurch and then…

Everything is dark. Your head's pounding and thudding and your whole world has become pitch-black save the lights that flash in front of your eyes, little warning signs that you need to get out, abort mission, stop whatever it is you're doing because your body does not like it. You're running out of air, and the only logical thing to do is suck in a deep breath. 'Breath', in this situation, meaning 'seawater' and your lungs are suddenly awash in the water and the ocean is filling you up, turning you to lead, dragging you down, down, d o w n…

Despite the water being warm, you're shivering, burning, freezing, and then melting all over again. You thrash and kick and flail your arms, struggling to breach the water's surface, but all you do is make yourself tired. So tired. Exhausted. No more energy. Maybe all you need is a nap. So you stop struggling. You let yourself go limp. The tide carries you away. The last thing you remember is something soft and warm. Maybe Heaven feels like you're being held close. Sounds like a heartbeat.

When you wake up, you know for a fact that wherever you are, it is most certainly not Heaven. Your whole body is sore. Every joint aches and every muscle is tense and stiff. It hurts to even be awake, so you make no attempt to move. Your lips are dry and cracked, your body baking in hot afternoon sun. A thick line of salt crusts over your eyes and keep your eyelids and lashes stuck to your cheeks. You don't actually mind. Eye-opening sounds pretty exhausting at the moment.

It only takes a few moments for you to access your vocal chords, and you immediately voice your pain with a soft moan. You hear a voice that's way too loud and much too chipper for the situation pipe up. "Oh! You're awake!" You huff, as if to say 'no duh'.  Words are still a little advanced for you right now. Baby steps. You're still not coherent enough to wonder about your mystery savior or even care, but thanks to basic instinct, you do know you need water. And the drinkable stuff, not the kind that nearly killed you. You make a dry sucking sound, trying to interpret that you need something not salty to drink, and now.

Then a water bottle is being pressed against your lips and thank god finally. You drink greedily, and soothing the fire in your throat with cool, clear, wonderful water.  After having enough, you pull away just a fraction of an inch and give a slight nod. The bottle is pulled away. You assume it was the same one your brother gave you last night; you had tucked it into your pocket before you fell.

Oh yeah. The fall. And now this whole being alive thing. Guess you should be gathering up enough cognitive ability to ponder that situation by now.  You assume a local jumped in to save you after seeing you nose-dive into the water.  You doubt your brother even knows what happened to you, you had wandered away from him and you have a habit of being gone for days at a time as long as you have food.

After another minute, you manage to peel open your eyes. Above you, (other than the bright harsh sun burning into your eyeballs owww) is a very tan boy with dark messy hair, matted from the sea water.  He's not wearing a shirt, so you can see the defined expanse of his broad chest, leading you to believe he's a regular swimmer. And when you go lower, expecting to see swim shorts… oh. Nope. Definitely not swim shorts.

That's a fish tail. That's a mermaid, well, merperson tail. He has a merman tail. And it's blue-green. The same blue-green you'd been seeing all over the island. Up close and under the sun, they look like glittering turquoise jewels. And it's all so beautiful and so surreal that you're not sure if you've even woken up yet. "I'm John." He says, and his voice is so calm, so smooth, so sweet, it's like honey. It's relaxing and you must be awake because you feel like you're being lulled back to sleep. "And I'm going to take good care of you."