Rue
I am adrift in the deep Pacific as I float in the vastness of the purples and blues as I am breathing...underwater. Soon, I felt the slick texture of oils from a scaly tail as I looked down at a beautiful mermaid that has captivated my mind since I was just seven years old.
Her eyes were turquoise green, her shiny hair almost blonde as she ran her delicate fingers over my face as she looked at me with a sense of wonder, however, all I felt was terror.
Her pale purple lips were icy cold due to the water as I kissed those lips twice, tasting her salty breath. Her blue scales shimmered like no fish I have ever seen before. She gazed into my glittery eyes as she spoke softly to me; her gentle voice echoing in my mind...
[I will deliver you back to the surface, but you must never enter the ocean until 21 years have passed! Then, when you are 21 years old...return here, back to me...]
For 21 years, that memory has played over and over in the back of my mind. But now, as I sleep, she returns nightly to warn me...
[Only seven days left.]
I thrashed away from her as I felt myself rising out of the ocean as I was now sitting up in bed, gasping as it was only a nightmare. My body was soaked in salty sweat, glistening on top of a thin layer of slime that covers my face.
I breathed as best as I could manage as I reached for my inhaler.
Ever since that fateful incident back at Copalis Beach, my health has been on the rapid decline. Every year, my lungs continue to get worse. Being only 20 years old, I have only 23 percent of my total lung volume left and my doctors fear that without a lung transplant, I probably will be dead in a year from now.
I wiped away the viscous sweat as the dream I was having was becoming more frequent. I was dreaming of the time I had drowned...each time, becoming more vivid as I was remembering dialogue and images. But deep in my head, there was doubt clouding my mind:
'Mermaids are not real! Rue!'
Still breathing rapidly...just for a moment...I thought that I was still under the ocean, taking deep gulps of air as if it were water; then realizing that I was actually breathing the cool morning air. I wasn't even at the beach! Rather, I was safe in my own bedroom.
I rubbed off the slime from my face as it dangled like stalactites from my fingers, all see-through and clear like snot.
"Gross!" I grumble as I wiped my hands off on my blankets and rubbed the headache away from my temples as I staggered out of bed.
My tired joints creaked as I made my way to the bathroom to wash the slime away. On my way to the bathroom, I glimpsed the outside of my apartment window on to the busy world outside.
Outside, there was a bustling city, with the sound of soothing laughter of charmed loved ones who walked hand-in-hand together as they warmed their skin under the morning sun; while lazy teenagers sunbathed on the dew-kissed green grass, listening to music.
On the horizon, just beyond the cityscape, the ocean rolled gently back upon the beach with its foamy white waves. I was safely far away from the rollers, and yet, after a nightmare like that, it was still far too close for comfort.
Continuing onward to the bathroom, I washed away the silky-smooth mucus as globs of the slime floated around in the sink like jellyfish. I looked at myself in the mirror, my rapidly aging face was showing my terminal sickness. The skin was pale and colorless. I once had black hair which was already greying at the temples, turning ice white.
I glanced at my stocky body, frowning. I wasn't overly obese, but I could afford to lose 80 pounds or so -- might even help with the breathing issues. The silence was broken when my phone then began to sing to me:
I managed to slink over to my phone before the song got to the 'weird part' as I clicked the receive button and placed the phone against my ear.
"Uhm, Hello?" I cough violently as I cleared the mucus away from my lungs, still feeling the heaviness in my chest.
"Mr. Amiri? You don't sound too good!" says a young voice on the other line.
"Oh! Professor Todd!" I replied, surprised that she would actually call me, here in my dorm...a place that I do not bring school-related work to...it was meant to be my mental sanctuary from the stress and rancor of school.
I wondered how she actually got this number...
"What can I do for you, Dr. Todd?" As I look for the time. I was certain that I wasn't tardy!
I was a student here at the University of California ~ Santa Barbara campus, enrolled in the aquatic biology program, studying complex marine life.
"I think we discovered something that might further your research. I am here at Campus Point." she says as I thought about that treacherous part of the ocean that I typically avoid as the ocean pounds the rocks there, quite violently "Are you interested?"
A cold chill filled my soul as I did not want to go. It was far too close to the ocean's breakers, but knowing that the professor had personally called me was a once in a lifetime offer that I could not allow a nightmare to deny. This could further my research and education!
"What is it exactly?" I asked, curious.
The professor, who stumbled upon the object bent down as she prodded it with a stick, puzzled by the discovery.
"Well, to be honest, I do not know what it is!" she admitted "I do not have the background to even make an educated guess. Whatever this thing is, you might have a better understanding of it." She told me "I have asked the University to block this area off for the time being."
"I see." I coughed once again as the pain in my chest continues to get worse over time.
"I see, what?" she asked.
"I will be down there in a few minutes. Make certain that no one disturbs the site! Leave it in situ until I arrive!"
"Very well then." Professor Todd said, her tone seemed pleased as she paused as I could only assume something about the object had caught her eye "I am certain that you will not regret coming to work a few hours earlier, just for this! It is very peculiar!"
"We'll see." I grumbled.
"Well, hurry! The tide will be rising soon!"
Hanging up, a sense of dread and excitement grew deep down inside of me as my dorm was like my egg, protecting me from the dangerous world outside. A world that was mainly covered in water!
I hurried to dress into my water repellent clothing as I hurried out of the Santa Cruz Resident Hall and followed the Lagoon Road up to the Marine Department. Walking the trail to the point, I paused as I looked down at the sharp black rocks below. The tide was far out and there was a person on the furthest rock, hunched over, staring down at something hidden.
I looked at the beach as it ends with basalt rocks that one can hop upon at the lowest tide during the super full moon phase. The rest of the time, the rocks are mainly submerged under the waves.
I looked across the vast ocean as it spread as far as I could see. At one time, long ago, I used to imagine that just over the horizon was Japan and China. But as I grew older, I knew that it was just a child's folly! The Pacific was a massive ocean! Beyond my horizon was only even more ocean!
Looking down at the waves, they break and roll across the shore. They were a constant reminder of my past as I saw the ocean as a fiend. A place that had almost consumed my soul!
"I have returned as I have always promised. So please do not drown me today!" I prayed as I looked down at the necklace with the crystal hanging from my neck. No one knows where it had come from...it just appeared around my neck with an unbreakable chain.
The last time I ever touched the ocean with my hand, I was fourteen years old. After that, my nightmares then returned.
I was only seven years old and was with my family at Copalis Beach, taking a long vacation and hunting for razor clams. My Tutu taught me how to hunt for clams and when I found one, I turned my back against the ocean and was swept away in a powerful riptide that buried me under the waves.
The riptide was traveling five miles per hour and I was deep under the Pacific. The Earth fell away, and I struggled to stay above as the waves continued to knock me back under the whitecap foamy surface.
The moment I sank, darkness consumed me like the cloak of death. My mammalian eyes were not designed for seeing underwater and all I saw was fuzzy shapes and colors of blue and silver flashes, all around me. Something spoke to me and kissed me as I could breathe under the sea.
The next thing I remember, I was vomiting out water as my mom and dad cried over my waterlogged body. An officer was examining my life signs as my parents both watched me cough up blue glowing water.
That was all that I remembered. I tried to explain what I saw, but no one believed me. I was terrified of the sea. I refused to swim in pools, which turned out as a major problem for me in high school and whenever I was near water...for I could not help but recall the nightmare.
It was pure irony that I would decide to major in a career that involved being near and in the water. But at the same time, I was unable to touch it!
For a long time, I wasn't certain what I saw until I was in second grade and was tasked to do a book report on a fantasy creature. I wanted to write my report from My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett, but a greedy boy got the book and all that was left for me was The Tail of Emily Windsnap by Liz Kessler.
The boys all snickered as my teacher handed me the blue book with a picture of a mermaid upon it. The children snickered because it was a girl's book filled with girly things. And it wasn't a book that boys should be reading!
Children can be cruel with their ideology!
I was humiliated as I buried the book, feeling red hot. When I got home, I stared at the image...it was just like the creature that had saved my life. I now had a name for the creature that breathed life in me!
'Wahine Hiʻu Iʻa! A mermaid!'
Tutu used to tell me stories of how Hale-lehua had driven our family away from the sea! He would sing to the waves a song he heard so long ago:
I reluctantly read the mermaid book and wrote the paper which had sparked an obsession. An obsession that feels like: when you read, see and hear something...it opens a whole new world to you and you may be like 'this explains everything!'
An excerpt of my final paper read like this:
'Emily is a 12-year-old girl who loved to swim, but was forbidden to do so by her mother and discovered why: she was an unchanged half-mermaid. She goes on an adventure looking for her father and attends a school for mermaids in a sunken shipwreck. She finds that her father is a merman, imprisoned for loving a human and she worked to clear his name and set him free.'
I read all seven of the books and was intrigued as it felt like it was a missing part of my life. The image of the mermaid triggered my dreams, and since I was seven years old, all my dreams have been about her...and rereading those books did not help my overly active imagination.
There was something dreamy about being a creature of scales and a fish's tail: the freedom of the open ocean. The unexplored depths and all the mysteries and beauty of the creatures of the sea...but as a human...I remember the pain of drowning and the cold darkness that consumed me.
However, instead of slipping into a sleep as many had said would happen with drowning, I could feel the sensation of rushing water, and seeing a beautiful woman holding me in her arms as she looked down upon me like a mother looks at their child. I remember seeing something golden glittering around her head, it was brilliant, just like the morning star.
The memories began to clear as it wasn't a creature that I saw; it was a woman. And she was as beautiful as a Victorian painting. Her eyes glittered and glowed like Neptune's orbs as she studied me. Her head was decorated with her almost blonde hair as its position was determined solely by the current.
Her threatening omnivore teeth were perfectly ivory white. Her pale blue lips smiled as she ran her webbed fingers through my dark brown hair. Her scales on her breasts and tail glimmered blue as I wanted to touch them, to see if she was real.
She cradled my head and locked her lips onto my own lips as she sucked the water out of my lungs as her face changed, her neck blossoming in long frilly light blue gills that exhaled the water. She then breathes in as she exhales the water back into my lungs. I felt its cold fluid filling my lungs as my senses erupted! Alive...I could breathe and see...and for just that moment, I thought that she was turning me into one of her own kind.
For many years, after that encounter, I wondered how I even suppressed that memory in the first place. I tried to recall that fateful day, but time has gone by, claimed my memories of that moment...but that was now all changing.
Was it even remotely possible that mermaids really existed out there, in the ocean deep? Why didn't anyone else see her, besides me?
One thing that was confusing to the people on the beach was that I was underwater for over twelve minutes and I did not even drown! Yet, my lungs were filled with thick blue fluid that defied being called water! My research into mermaids took me from Ancient Greece to the mythical island nation of Atlantis.
I learned never to bring up mermaids with anyone. I made that mistake by asking my parents if they knew anything about these aquatic deities, and they answered by shaking their heads, almost too scared to say anything...as if they were hiding something from me.
All that they knew was that the ocean had spat me out...spared by Kanaloa and whatever spirit the rules over the waves of the chilly North Pacific. I learned that being interested in mermaids got you teased as the boys nicknamed me 'The lover of fish' which lingered like the mucus that somehow appears upon my body every night.
Since then, my research and ideas about the mermaid who had saved my life became a private secret that only I knew. You can only take so many insults before you start to believe their wicked words.
It was because of her that I had dedicated my entire life to learning all about marine life and secretly, learning about mermaids. However, I soon took to scouring the beach every chance that I got, looking for proof that mermaids had actually existed! Looking for their spears and tridents, trinkets, and even a body...anything to prove that I was right.
Day after day, month after month, for many years, I searched and came up empty every time. I was very limited in my visits to the beach as I was too afraid to swim out into their watery domain to search for them.
When I left high school...something weird and unexpectant had happened one mid-morning when this glowing wave of blue energy had flowed through everything! The people around me began freaking out as there was a growing panic as we did not know what it was that had engulfed us in light, or what consequences that light would bring!
A few people then began to dissolve into water as it was a vivid living nightmare! Terrified that I might be next to die, I slipped backwards and fell into a gurgling saltwater fountain. My eyes were wide open, mesmerized as I watched beautiful orbs of light dance in the water before they all flowed directly inside of me!
I then surfaced when I needed to breathe, and when I tried to exit the bubbling fountain, I discovered that my feet were replaced with flippers! I found myself itching, rolling up my pants leg to see that patches of my flesh were converted into shiny scales!
Luckily, it was a short-lived event as after a few hours of gawking eyes and curious bystanders, the curse had swiftly ended. And with it, half of the human population had ceased to exist. How haunting it was to drive down the 101, and not come upon a single soul!
My whole life had changed that day!
A few days later, I came to the University of California in Santa Barbara and had engrossed myself in everything aquatic. Taking every marine biology and oceanography class that I could sign up for. I was one of my professor's top students and was now presented with a daunting task to face my fears.
My fear of going underwater hindered my career, something that the teachers just did not understand. I dared not to swim in the water, knowing that a panic attack would most certainly occur.
Instead, I was more than happy to do all the grunt work...examining specimens that others had found to further my knowledge. In my own unique way, I was being slowly pulled back to the sea...back to her:
[I will deliver you back to the surface, but you must never enter the ocean until 21 years have passed! Then, when you are 21 years old...return here, back to me...]
I was now 21 years old and as my health had failed me, I wished, by some type of miracle...that the mermaid who had saved my life in the past...would return to claim it. But as the year was already half-over, she had never come: forgotten -- because in the end, it was just my imagination.
'I am here...where are you?' I pondered as I looked down at the professor working diligently.
~~~
I watched Dr. Todd, wondering what she had found; thinking that it might be a new mollusk, or an undiscovered octopus! I had searched every nook and cranny on this beach, looking for evidence and never found a single thing of interest.
Taking a deep breath, I climbed over the rock berm and walked over to the first rock that was still high and dry. I then climbed onto the second rock that was coated in barnacles and sea anemones. They squished beneath my shoes as I looked at Dr. Todd's jet-black hair blowing in the breeze. Her shining skin was wet from taking a dive into the ocean.
She peered over her shoulder, hearing footsteps approaching as she glanced up at me with a warm inviting smile.
"Ah! Rue! You made it here right in the nick of time! The tide is already turning!" she grins, holding out her hand for me to cross over to a low point where the sea water rushes through. "And, good morning!"
"Good morning, Professor Todd!" I said, stone faced with terror as I watched the ocean run through. This was the closest I have been to the waves in over 14 years. I took her hand as she helped me across as I looked all around. "Well, where is it?"
"Follow me" Processor Todd says as we walk to the very edge of the rock as the waves rolled in. "I was out collecting specimens for class and found this."
I was intrigued as I knew not to be hopeful for something mystical. I was just happy to be here nevertheless...I overcame my fear as I danced with the waves!
"It's down here." Professor Todd said as she climbed down into the low tidal zone and looked back up at me. "Are you not coming?"
I gulp as I reluctantly take her hand and step down onto the rocky wet platform, already taking on water with the rising tide. I looked around and saw a hollow, a space that was filled with sand. Half buried in the sand was a large spherical shape...like an egg!
It looked like an ammonic sac with an outer hardened shell. It was colored orange inside, and had orange and red liquid within. It mainly retained its 'egg' shape with a massive hole on one side. The egg itself was about 22 inches long and about 12 inches wide. Its outer shell was colored all hues of blue and white.
Whatever was inside, it seemed to have recently hatched and was now somewhere in the ocean.
"Any idea?" Professor Todd asked as she glances over at me.
"I have not a clue! No fish creates an egg this size!" I knelt down, looking at it. Oddly, inside, it looked like a mammalian placenta, but that wasn't even possible!
Cautiously and carefully, I studied the egg, considering every species of fish and aquatic mammal, but nothing came to mind. Reaching down, I touched its outer membrane, finding that the shell wasn't hard like I thought before...it was jelly-like. Spongy to the touch as I pushed into the membrane, it indented, but did not break, resiliently strong!
"When did you notice this?" I asked as I continued to push the membrane as if I were pushing into Jell-O that did not break.
"Early this morning, when the tide retreated." she then elaborates "Look here!" she says as we looked at the clear mucus and oil floating in the water, attached to the egg as it floated out to sea. It was a haunting sight as I was also having the same issue when I woke up in the morning.
"What is this stuff?" I commented as I cupped a handful of the mucus, examining it. "Did you see what might have been inside?"
"Whatever it was, it had already gone." Dr. Todd comments; she would have loved to see it with her own eyes. I frowned, disappointed, but not surprised.
"I see." as I sighed and looked at the goop "How do you know it was anything organic? It could be something industrial." I wondered, not wanting to put all my hopes in this egg.
"We don't know that, Rue. Let's take some samples and then study them back at the lab. I will call the genetics department to have a DNA panel done." Dr. Todd comments. I figured that it was the best idea. She slipped on a pair of gloves and collected a few samples.
"Until we know what it is, I wouldn't handle it too much, Rue!" Dr. Todd commented, taking the chance to collect the samples as I tried to wash the slime off.
"Probably a good idea." I remarked.
I looked down at the rock's edge and saw what looked like snake skin. Reaching down, my fingers accidentally touched the ocean and a painful jolt of energy knocked me off my feet as Dr. Todd turned to see me groaning on the basalt, clearly in pain.
"Are you okay?" she asked. Dr. Todd had witnessed a powerful force throwing me back as this discovery only went from strange to paranormal. I still feel the pain in my fingers as I nod my head, clearly in shock.
"Yeah," as my body hurts "for a moment there, it felt like I got shocked!" I say as I reach down once more and grabbed the skin and noticed what might have harmed me. It had a spiky outline of what appeared to be a bony fin on each side. Then, the skin tapered down to a narrow point near the end before fanning out into a large caudal fin.
It wasn't a dolphin as the bony fin was lacy, not thick. It wasn't a fish either, because it was shaped like a mammal's fluke and not a fish caudal.
'A tail?' I think and then realize what I am holding 'A mermaid's tail!?'
Professor Todd with her sample looked down at what I was holding and was beyond disbelief. I felt like whatever energy was in this skin was somehow now passing into me as I just looked at it, dazed.
"Rue?" Dr. Todd asks as I am looking drugged, as if I was in a trance "Rue? Are you okay!?" I shook my head as I snapped out of my daydream, hearing her voice.
"Hmm?" I looked up at her worried brown eyes.
"You seemed a hundred miles away...maybe you should go and see the school nurse. You are not acting normal." I smiled as I held up the skin and showed her it.
"What does this look like to you?" I asked as she looked at the scaly imprint of a tail. The top half of the skin was missing. Her eyes squinted as she looked at the imprint of scales left on the shedding.
"Looks like..." she struggles and does not want to say it "...like a... mermaid's tail."
"Glad I am not the only one thinking that!" I said with a smile, holding my proof in my hands.
[...return back to me...] comes a frightening thought, not of my own.
I dropped the skin as I stepped away from the water. I do not want it to be true, fearing the unknown! But also, I wanted it to be true...to know that I was not insane.
Both Dr. Todd and I knew that it had to be a fake! Everything here must have been planted for us to find. However, something inside of me was screaming that it was real and I should run as far inland as possible before it was too late.
Everything looked far too organic to be synthetic. Even holding it gave me the distinct sensation of holding a raw fish.
I did not want to believe it, I have been told over and over that it was all a near-death hallucination, a figment of my imagination. Hysteria!
Dr. Todd looked at the skin floating away as she looked back at me, bewildered.
"Are you not going to go get that?"
I shake my head, refusing to go into the water.
She sighs as she takes off her shoes and jumps into the ocean and grabs the skin. She holds up the skin as I take it and lay it on the ground. She climbs back of the ocean and slips on her shoes as she takes the skin in her arms. She then points at the egg, ordering me.
"Get it! If it is industrial or a prank, then it is trash!"
I really did not want to remove it...it seemed wrong to me. The whole egg was fragile, like the skin. I did not want to spill out its contents, so I took out my drinking bottle and dumped out the water within. Professor Todd was making her way up to the beach as I leaned over and slipped on the rocks and fell headfirst into the slimy egg...somehow, slipping inside.
~~~
Either the egg had grown to the size of a hot tub, or I have shrunk to the size of a baby. Looking around, I felt the outer shell as it was still warm. I do not know what was happening...could this be another hallucination?
It smells of blood and reeks of fish! I could feel the squishy membrane closing in upon me. It took all of my willpower just not to vomit. Bending down, I dipped my drinking bottle into the fluid and looked at something that made me retch.
In the fluid, I saw something that looked like seaweed, but as I stared at it, it did not have the proper shape of any seaweed that I knew. I placed the fluid filled bottle in my ammonic soaked pants pocket as I walked over to the weird looking stuff.
The yolk of the egg then seemed to fuse to my belly as I did my best to pull it away from me before it could become a part of me forever. Perivitelline fluid then began to rise as I wanted to scream for help.
'What is it doing to me!?' I cried out, finding myself submerged in a fluid that seemed to cocoon me within. I feared that if I did not escape soon, something tragic might happen to me.
I felt the soft lining of the egg, looking for a way to escape. My vision was rapidly failing inside this red world of warm fluid. Yet, even within the slimy fluid of the egg, I watched flashes of blue light penetrate my body through my weakest point -- my naval.
With the energy flowing inside of me, I ceased all my movements as sleep crept inside my mind. I found myself falling under the egg's spell, drifting away. I then fell asleep in the warm inviting cocoon of my egg, losing track of time...
I finally felt a surge of conscious energy flow through me, awakening me from my slumber as I had all the knowledge of how to escape this ovum world. With both of my hands, I positioned my claws in the egg's weakest point, pushing as I felt my hands burst through the membrane of the egg.
A searing pain erupted from my belly as I reached down, removing a solid marble-like thing that had connected to my navel with filaments. I held it within the palm of my hand as I looked up and saw that I was now under the waves of the ocean!
Like being captured by the suction of a vacuum cleaner, I felt my consciousness being pulled directly out of the egg, along with my body...
___
...with a heavy plop onto the wave crested rocks, a wall of cold salty water washed all over me. I laid there like a newborn bird, uncertain of how to move or cry out for help. To be honest, I felt like I had been reborn!
The wave stole the slimy film that had covered my whole body, pulling it back out to sea as a bubble of warm liquid that I was within then popped. I choked and coughed as I struggled to get air back into my burning lungs. The stench of fish coated every inch of me.
When Dr. Todd saw that I wasn't following, she dropped the skin and returned back to the rock as she looked down at me lying flat out on the rock, covered in putrid reddish-orange slime.
"Roe! Dear god! What happened to you!? Are you alright?" she asks me, helping me up.
I sat there stunned as I believed that I was alright, but like wearing someone else's clothing, I felt awkward! Some parts of me felt baggy, whereas other parts of me felt too tight!
"Roe!?" I heard her cry out to me once again.
As my vision came back into focus, I then realized just what it was. My human instincts wanted me to throw it back into the ocean. But like a priceless heirloom, when I saw it, I felt a strange unbreakable bond with the round sphere.
It was an orangish-red ball of fleshy, organic matter that that a fleshy tube still attached to it. I swiftly hid it in my specimen bag, then vomited all over the rocks as the waves washed over the stones, soaking my legs and chest.
"I... I am alright!" I lied.
Dr. Todd helped me back up to my feet as she could not understand what her eyes had just seen. Unable to tell me that she had watched me disappear into the egg for a brief second, then reappear on the rocks.
The egg was then carefully collected within a sterile bag. We both agreed that no one should handle it, as it was far too dangerous! We, together, worked our way across the rocks as the ocean chased us back to the shore.
Princess Meara Fisher
I have been following the trail of mucus from the Cascadia birthing waters off of San Miguel Island in the Northern Channel Islands.
With the freedom to move about, I carried my Mutagen vials in secret...I have to be conservative with them as I must save enough to do my work on Vancouver Island to see if my foster family had survived the tsunami.
The water was very choppy here as I have come to the shore of California where the mucus and oils were the strongest. I surfaced as my scaly aquamarine face glittered in the sunlight; I have to be careful not to be seen. I may be in the Pacific Ocean, but I must still obey Atlantean law.
I keep my gills just under the surface as my glowing glittery silvery blue eyes examine the scene before me. I looked at the rocks where the mucus was coming from and saw that it had been cleaned up.
I then looked at two duine's helping one another walk across the strand. In the arms of the young man was they egg and all of its dangerous contents!
I gasped! I feel a pain of regret and failure in my belly.
'I am too late!' I realized as I bobbed in the water like a buoy.
There was a very good reason why my people of the Oceanid Kingdom never allow our technology to appear on dry land. It was dangerous in the hands of the others! Mainly in the hands of those who are ignorant and have an unquenchable thirst for power.
The Cascadia birthing eggs have special abilities, but Queen Sedna and Princess Syreni are unwilling to tell me the dangers of their egg. Queen Sedna then surfaces as she looks at the young man on the strand. She looked sad as she glanced down; having felt the egg ensnare a new victim.
"I'm sorry, Queen Sedna. But it seems that the duine have already taken it. I will track him down and take back the egg from him!" I promised Sedna as she shook her head.
"There is no reason to harm him." she softly said "If anyone was going to find it, I am glad that it was him. Please just retrieve the egg, skin, and all the evidence that they might have gathered in the process. And Princess Meara, if you can, please detain him too and bring him back to the ocean!" pointing at Rue.
"You want me to bring him!?" I asked for clarification. Sedna nodded, alerting me of the situation.
"'He' isn't a duine, any longer."
Rue
Professor Todd and I walked down the trail as I must stop and catch my breath a few times. Every time I breathe, all I taste is salt and raw fish. I coughed once again as I coughed up globs of mucus and ammonic fluid from the egg. Dr. Todd looks down at the sticky substance as she then looked back at me with concern.
"We need to get you to the hospital!" she says as I shake my head.
"No! Let's just get these samples back to the lab!" I wheezed, looking at the egg that I held in my hands, protected within its own cocoon of plastic.
I just want to get out of sight of the ocean! I had this feeling that I was being watched! I could almost sense them out there. Besides, I had just witnessed something amazing! Something that I cannot explain.
I somehow had entered the tiny egg and if I did not already know it to be true, I would seriously debate that I was just reborn from the egg, just now.
The truth was...I did not want to let this egg out of my sight!