Some Thing Called Myself (Complete)

XXIV: some things won't change (part I)

Ch. 24: Some Things Won't Change (Part One)

Mara's fingers twitched as if she hadn't moved them in an eternity. When she came to her senses, she didn't need to open her eyes; they were already opened, focused on the big, black, beady irides before her.

The mermaid was frozen in place, staring at her with a type of horror Mara had never seen in real life. The only other place she remembered seeing that expression was in her favorite horror movies, right before someone died. Maybe the mermaid had never seen a human this close before. And maybe it had something to do with the fact Mara's hands were ironed around the mermaid's neck, and her teeth were centimeters away from sinking into his pretty face.

She stopped. Was she about to bite the mermaid's cheek? Sure, he was cute, but this was not what people usually meant when they said they wanted a piece of someone.

Mara shook her head and massaged her temples. There were so many things to process. First of all, how had she gotten in this position, straddling the mermaid's waist? The last thing she remembered was being underwater, looking up towards her friends' blurred silhouettes. She remembered not being able to breathe. She remembered drowning, losing her conscience, and after that, things got fuzzy.

What happened? Mara asked in thought. She looked at the mermaid, hoping he had heard those words.

Unlike moments before, the beyond-flesher seemed more human than monster, with his body free of the armor-like carapaces. Like in the books Kiki loved, the mermaid was a beautiful young man with sleek dark hair and warm brown skin from the waist up. From the waist down, it was a massive, maybe five meters long snowflake moray.

Curious. Mara thought morays lived in oceans.

There was still horror on the mermaid's face, so Mara leaned back and let him go. Underwater, her movements were slow and heavy, but as soon as she stroked backward to give him some space, the mermaid swam, quick and gracefully, away from her. The mermaid flattened his big body on the bottom of the river, his jaw trembling, his gills and mouth wide-opened, and his bare chest heaving.

"What happened?" Mara asked in her thoughts. This time, the words came as easily as if she was talking to Mirtes in the HQ lounge. "Can you still hear me?"

"You almost killed me, is what happened!" The mermaid's answer echoed in Mara's thoughts as loud and piercing as a shout. "You grabbed me, tugged at my scales so hard I had to retract them, and then you tried to bite my head off!"

Mara frowned. "I don't remember any of that." She tapped her chin. "But to be honest, the others in my squad seem to think I like biting people when I'm about to pass out."

"You didn't pass out." The mermaid sighed, letting out a long chain of bubbles through his lips. "You died, meat sack." He hid his pretty face in his hands. "And it's my fault. I killed you."

"Right," she answered. Mara tried to laugh, but her muscles couldn't squeeze any more air out of her lungs.

Wait, why was she not breathing?

"But life came back to your eyes," the mermaid continued, softer this time. "I don't know how that happened, but...something you did awoke something that barely survived inside you."

"Uh. Something that...what?" As her focus shifted to the mermaid's words, Mara forgot to swim; her feet touched the bottom of the river, right between the lush-black curves of the mermaid's tail.

"The fungus. You were bitten, weren't you? The fungus must've survived, and when you died, it...well. It brought you back. Look at you, meat sack!" The mermaid's long tail slithered closer to Mara in what felt almost like an embrace. Against her palms, his tail felt warm and slippery. "You're not even breathing anymore," the mermaid continued. "You're a flesh-eater now, I'm sure of it! I can sense it. You're dangerous; you just don't know it yet."