SECRET TAIL

CHAPTER FIVE

What the hell is happening to me, it's like I am turning into a fish freak or something, how will I live my life from now on and why me? I used my hands to pull myself away from the fringes of the ocean so I could distance myself from the water. Lying there, I did not have the energy to move let alone stand up. I hugged my knees and tried my best not to panic and held back my tears in order not to cry out from the pain to avoid drawing any unwanted attention to myself, I could just imagine what would happen if somebody were to discover the fish freak by the sea side, the reporters and scientists would have a field day. As I laid there shivering and numb from the pain it started to recede gradually and slowly I fell asleep to the sound of the ocean acting like a lullaby.

I woke up to find myself lying on the beach close to the water and that meant that what happened to me was not a dream. I looked at my legs and saw that they looked normal, letting out a breath in relief that I had not been aware I was holding.
Looking at the sky, it looked like it was already close to noon. 'Mom is going to kill me!' Immediately, I ran home as if my life depended on it, only for me to get there and find out that my parents had left for work early and they left a note on the fridge telling me money was on the counter for me to order food and that they will be back late today.
On seeing the note, I wanted to do a happy dance since apparently, the heavens realized that I could not handle any more problems and decided to lend me a helping hand. Going straight to my room, I headed for the bathroom and that was when I paused mid stride. It had just occurred to me that every time weird stuff happened to me had been when I touched water. It did not matter if it was salt water or plain tap water, since my birthday it has always led to weird stuff happening to me.
The thought of that almost made me have a panic attack, I sat on my bed and tried to calm myself down. There had to be a perfectly reasonable explanation for why this is happening to me. In novels and movies this kind of stuff happened to the hero or heroine when they encountered something magical or strange but nothing like that has ever happened to me, my life has always been pretty normal and boring and as far from magical as it could be. I could not think of anything different that could have happened to me, then why me, why is this happening, why am I so special? That was when I recalled the dreams that I have been having since my birthday, was that a dream or a memory, I knew I was adopted, my parents did not keep it a secret from me. Maybe my birth parents were the cause of this new change, maybe I did not need a magical encounter because my blood was already magical, maybe this is who I was meant to be. After analyzing everything for a while I felt calmer when I came to this conclusion and decided to have that bath after all, if it was my heritage then there is no way I could run from it rather I will just bring myself unending troubles, it would be better to accept it and try to understand it so I could continue living a normal life.
I got up with a new determination in my veins and walked into the bathroom with steady footsteps, plugged in the bathtub and put on the tap. It did not even cross my mind to check the temperature of the water, while the tub was filling up, I took off my clothes. As soon as the tub was filled up, I switched off the tap and entered the bath.

I felt the water sink into my bones and all the tension I had been feeling drained out of me. I let out a sigh in relief and this was when I started feeling the tingles crawl from my foot to the other parts of my body. I tried to relax my mind and body to let it run its course. After it was over, I opened my eyes to see what had happened and what I saw shocked me for life.

As I walked down the halls at school heading for the cafeteria on monday, I tried not to think about the incident that happened a week ago. When I opened my eyes that day, I found out that my legs were covered with scales. The scales were different shades of blue in color starting from the top of my waist down to my toes, this was when I discovered that my toes were webbed, I raised my hands to touch them and saw the same thing happening to my fingers. Just under the knuckles there was a light coat of skin that was very thin and flimsy almost transparent but you could still tell that it was there. I looked at myself in wonder and tried to take in every bit of change happening to me so I could better understand what was going on.

I should have been having a panic attack at that point but it was like everything that had been happening to me up to this point had prepared me for it and it just felt right. I saw that there were slits at the top of my waist before the scales started on both sides and they looked like gills, similar to what was found on sharks. Looking up, I saw my reflection in the mirror at the other side of the bathroom and I was surprised, my eyes looked so blue like they were glowing and my hair looked longer with the color brighter. I looked beautiful but at the same time it was terrifying.

Since then, apart from the dreams that kept getting worse by the day, everything else had calmed down. Although I still noticed different changes happening to me like my sudden love for sea food and I could not drink any water that was not salt water, not to talk about the unusual speed, strength and stamina I noticed during P.E nothing very noticeable happened again but rather there were gradual changes that on its own may not even be noticeable but together let me know it was not over yet. I could feel it in my bones, all these changes were building up to something huge and it was happening soon, very soon.