Swim Away (Mermaid)

Chapter Eleven

"Lara?"

I opened my eyes to that soft sound somewhere in the distance. All I could see was the color blue. It took me a moment to realize I was underwater. But I could breathe. I could see without that stinging feeling in my eyes. When I turned, I saw a group of fish swim by.

"Lara?" There it goes again. No one was around, so I didn't know where it was coming from. I looked up to see I was a little deeper than before. I began to swim up to the top, but it seemed endless. When I was sure I was almost there, I heard a loud scream. "Wait!" But it was too late. I was already at the top.

My eyes shot open and I sat up, spitting a bunch of water out of my mouth. My eyes began to burn as if I was in the ocean at that moment. I started fanning my face but that didn't help. I forced my eyes to open and that made tears come out of my eyes. But it did stop the burn. I moved my hair out of my face and it felt wet. I started to feel my hair. Sand started falling on my bed. I stared and my jaw dropped.

I slid my hand down to my cheeks. It was like I came out of the ocean and came to bed. I threw my blanket off me and got up. The exact spot I was laying on wasn't wet at all. This was odd.

Then I remembered the paper. I walked over to it. The magical paper had the number zero on it. The second I felt the edge of the paper it began to turn to sand. As if it was an hourglass, the paper slowly turning to sand and falling like there was only an hour or so until who knew what happened.

I left that and went to take a shower. The second I went in to turn on the water, it turned on by itself.

"Umm," I said to myself. The temperature of the water was really cold, almost ice cold. But for some reason it felt nice. Not the usual chills or anything like that.

When I finished the water stopped by itself. I tilted my head to the side and I pressed my lips together What if? I thought about the water turning back on and it did. I stared at it. Wow, this was weird.

I wanted it to stop and once again it listened to my command. It seemed I could control the water around me. Maybe it wasn't just water? I thought about my towel falling on the floor, something different, but it didn't move. Yup, only water.

I probably should be going nuts or freaking out, but the odd build up to this didn't make that so. A lot of weird things happened already and this was just another one. For some reason it felt normal, like this was something I had been doing all my life.

I grabbed the towel and wrapped it around me. As I was about to squeeze all the water out of my hair, it quickly spilled to the ground like a waterfall. My hair instantly became dry. I started to run my hands through it, and it didn't look as frizzy as it used to be.

I walked over to the mirror and gasped. My hair looked perfect. It had cute, bouncy waves that weren't frizzy at all. It was like I styled it. I ran my hands through it again, it felt so soft. I couldn't stop feeling it.

I looked back at my reflection, and saw my ocean blue eyes staring back at me. When I meant ocean blue, I meant it. It looked like the actual ocean was captured in my eyes. It was beautifully unnatural.

Soon enough I got ready, grabbed a small snack, and was on my way to school, on foot again. The second I finished my snack, I pulled down the shades that were on my head to cover my unnatural eyes.

I made it to school, getting a good look around. I was surprised that Noah didn't show up. He usually did, I let the thought go. But I couldn't help but continue to scan my surroundings.

"Lara!" I jumped, not expecting anyone. Ariel appeared next to me. "Hey," she said. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you," she giggled.

"It's okay," I replied. I sat on the bench nearby and Ariel followed.