Baby, it's creepy outside

The Mermaid

I'm afraid there's something out there we are not ready to face.
Even if we can taste it with our pain.

That summer I was full of expectations and worries too. But he was by my side. And that was all it mattered for me.

The sunset was spreading the last light of the day throughout the horizon. And the orange air and the warm water and the soft sand beneath my feet make me wonder it would be the perfect day of summer.

I hugged him from behind and he turned his head to press a kiss on my lips. We stared at each other till the sun shined so hard that the water seemed to be made by diamonds floating on its surface.

That brightness caught our attention and even if our eyes hurted, we couldn't stop staring at the shining ripples.
A bunch of silver diamonds was floating towards our legs. Closer.
We frowned. It went near faster than the movements of the waves. We backed off.

There weren't diamonds. I stumbled and fell onto the water and the sand. He took me by an arm just in time before the corpse brushed up against me.

But the dark hair dragged along by the current touched my ankle. I shivered. And when I realized a giant tail was surrounding me, I screamed.

He dragged me out of the water by grabbing my arm. Gasping on the shore, hugging each other, we finally looked at the creature.
There were scales. Bright scales huge as diamonds on that tail.
Half of the fin was out of the water, the other half was probably stucked into the sand.
A webbed hand leaned over the calm water, moving at its rhythm.

My boyfriend jumped into the water and took the corpse.
He was about to stumble because of the unexpected length of the tail.
"Please, help me" he nodded me to take the tail out.

I did it with reluctancy and the tail slipped away from my grip. It was just like touching a dead fish.

We rolled her up, even if I was not ready to see her face. Would it looked like a fish's head?

But my boyfriend seemed not to be that scared and took control over the whole situation. His mouth on her mouth. He started putting air down her lungs.

I stood still. I was astonished by his movements. Maybe he didn't notice she was not human?
While he was trying to make her coming back to life, I caressed the tail right on the opposite of the scales. Yes, just as a fish.

"She breaths" he smiled with one ear on her heart and his gaze into the horizon.

We took her alive, but still unconscious, in our flat. I filled up the bathtub because it was all my instinct told me doing. And then I waited for my mind to get back in health.

Having another woman or something similar with us was uncomfortable, but seeing him so grateful and happy about a life just saved made me cry about how he was so perfect and gentle with all the creatures in the world.

He had a big heart.

And every time I got back home and he wasn't there to say hello to me as he used to before, I knew he was in the bathroom, feeding our creature with raw fish.

The mermaid was well. We learned to communicate with gestures and I used to change the water of the tub once a day. She could resist about 15 minutes above water, so usually I made the most of that time to change everything while she was lying on the ground. Grateful. Smiling at me. She was beautiful, even with the silver tail, the webbed hands and the gills on her neck.

"Soon we will release you back into the sea" I murmured, nodding to the window from where she could see her home.

That day when I got back home, he did not look at me, neither when I kissed him. He did not feel my lips on his skin. He got eyes only for that creature.

I was frustrated. And she noticed it when I sighed while I came in.

"He talks more with his hands than with his mouth now" the mermaid gestured.

And she stared at me as usual, while I was cleaning my damn bathtub, with a big smile on her beautiful face and the long dark thick hair covering her breasts and stomach till her hips.

I stopped cleaning and I sat on the edge. I crossed my arms. And I did nothing but waiting. I thought of my blonde hair and my nice features. I was beautiful as her. She shouldn't have dared to challenge me. I was the strongest. I was the beloved one. And when I saw her smile slowly vanishing away and a worried expression growing between her pale cheeks, I started feeling better.

Now everything would be back good as once.
She slammed her tail to catch my attention while I was watching me in the mirror, but I did nothing to save her from suffocating.

I felt her soft and weak hands brushing my leg, gently, more gently. And then nothing more.

She was dead. Finally. And I was happy.

And I noticed her tail was the same brightness as before, so I wonder it would be nice wearing her tail for a day.
He would be astonished by my creativity.
So I ripped off her tail. As I didn't want to spurt lots of blood all over the bathroom, or whatever that blue liquid was, I gently began scraping all the scales off with a razor blade.

The scales were huge and still full of brightness.
I took them onto the tub. Once the work was done, the tub was half full.

I was proud of that job. When I got off the bathroom, he was sleeping as an angel. The clock was signing 9 p. m.

I locked the door of the bathroom and without making noise I took a black trash bag to hide the corpse. Then I just went to the beach by car and launched it on the rocks.

When I got back, I took off all my clothes and dived myself into the scales. They were sticky and covered all of my body as it seemed I was dressed of diamonds.

I was satisfied and ready to show him how beautiful I was. How I was the perfect woman for him, the best he could ever asked for. The one he could look at.

I heard him coming.

And when he opened the door, his eyes were all for me. Again. He watched me with the same intensity he has been treating that stupid mermaid during the last week.

"You have a new mermaid. The right one" I glanced at him, biting my bottom lip.

He smirked. How long I missed that smirk.

Now I know that's really something creepy outside here, where the darkness rules.

But the scariest thing is what my mind made me figuring out to survive the darkness.

- Tales heard in a public toilet this summer. Edited by me.