Blood Runs Thicker than Water (The Shape of Water Fanfic)

Gashes

I shut the journal, not caring to read any more. I knew the tragic story of my life. How not much later, in a wild act of sheer desperation, I gave myself away to Rick, only to have him find extreme disgust in the scales on my back. He dumped me then, saying he couldn't be with someone only partially human, and partially something, but I have always known he was looking for some excuse all along. He didn't exactly treat me well in the end, and left me behind with nightmares that haunt me to this day. Demon.

I shake the memory away, focusing on the now. I decided that I was hungry, at three in the morning, and went to the tiny kitchenette of my apartment and fixed myself a fine bowl of cereal. I sat myself down on the worn leather couch in front of the TV, and grabbed the notebook I had lying open on the coffee table. In it, was all of my recordings of my "mermaid".

Finding this being, I must admit, had become my life's obsession. Because of this I pursued marine biology, to perhaps find understanding of what was happening to both me and whatever this creature was, and to in the meantime find a purpose in life. Studying the mating habits of great white sharks was indeed fascinating, but tracking down the denizen that had watched over me since childbirth was more driving.

I flipped through the notebook, reminiscing over my experiences and findings. As much as this creature seemed to enjoy in delighting me with gifts and trinkets from the rivers and marshes, it never bothered to make itself known to me. This had nearly driven me mad, especially around the age of sixteen, when Rick dumped me and my scales had fully driven out of my skin. I remember sobbing in my cove, desperate for a sign that my mermaid I had believed in so fully had answers for me now. It answered me with silence.

But one day I did find something. Three glistening scales, marbled deep turquoise and forest green in an artistic swirl of iridescent glass. I had them taped in the pages of my notebook now, and I took them out to examine them.

They had the same shape and texture of my own, but despite no longer being attached to a living creature, as mine were, they still outmatched mine in brilliance and luster. Light seemed to shatter on them like a prism, dancing across their surface in flitting rivers of every color, washing over oceans of glittering teal and green. Mine were just a solid, matte shamrock green and specks of black.

Long ago, or perhaps not so long ago, I had come to accept that I was something other than human. This realization didn't hit home for a while, but when it did, I could barely breathe. Human was the only form of being that possessed true sentience in all of history. Hundreds of books, throughout all of history, recording and analyzing everything odd and spectacular. There were the myths of mermaids, of course, but those were all shown to be sea cows. Through the mist, sailors thought they saw humanlike figures lounging on rocks, but in reality they turned out to be a lumbering sea mammal nothing like a human.

The fact that I was possibly the only one of my kind just didn't settle with me. There had to be a scientific explanation for this. Scales that didn't quite resemble fish or reptilian scales, didn't show up embedded in the skin of a very mammalian human being for no reason. But the reason I was seeking escaped me. It just wasn't possible.

But the impossible screamed at me every time I looked in the mirror.

The longing to find this creature that had been so involved with me in my childhood completely consumed me from the moment I saw the scales. One time, as I sat crying in my cove, just wanting this being to show itself to me, I found a stick with some peculiar markings in it. Upon closer examination, I saw my name carved crudely into the softened wood. STORM.

Whatever this creature was, it knew my name, and it knew how to write.

There were many times I thought this was some massive, elaborate prank someone was playing on me. Trying to drive me crazy. Maybe what had started as a prank when I was younger, drove me to insanity and I hallucinated the scales on my shoulder blade. But when I tugged one of the scales, an intense pain shot through my body, and it was through tears and gritted teeth that I realized this was no hallucination.