I opened my eyes and the light immediately blinded me. I closed them shut to escape the glare.
“It’s okay now, I’ve dimmed the lights and you are fine. Don’t be afraid,” a female voice comforted me.

I peered through my eyelids to find a lady in a uniform and two more females standing beside me.

I was in a bed and as I looked around I realized having seen this place in a book. It was a hospital.

I looked at the ladies in their blue dresses.

‘POLICE’, the word came to my mind.

“Do you remember what happened dear? You were drugged,” asked the one closest to me.

‘DRUGGED’, well that was something new for me.

“They were chasing me, I fell. They tried to capture me. I struggled and then they put a cloth on my nose and then everything was black,” I recounted the events.

“Thank God you were not assaulted or worse raped. We found you on the streets, unconscious. I guess they had seen the police van and had abandoned you.” commented another lady.

‘RAPE’, another crime. I didn’t understand any of them but I didn’t dare ask the ladies. I had to be very alert.

I had never worried about crimes in the human world. There were crimes in the merworld but they were once in a blue moon. Death was the only punishment for criminals in my world.

Now I felt the need to go and research on crimes too if I wanted to live in this world.

“Take some rest dear,” the third motioned for the others to leave.

After they were gone, I lay there for a long time, worrying about my past, present and future, in the human world.

Suddenly I felt shortness of breath. It was as if someone was strangling me.

I was horrified as I realized that I had left my oxygen pills at home and it was 24 hours since I had left home.

Of all the dangers that could befall me in the human world, this was the most unexpected. I knew that I had thirty minutes before I would collapse from the lack of oxygen. I had to get back home, as fast as possible.

“How far are we from Montana,” I asked the receptionist.

I was panting as the minutes ticked by.

“It’s a one hour drive from here, ma’am…”

I came back to the room sank to the floor unable to say a single word. I was going to die. There could be no I would reach there on time.

I knew I had fifteen minutes left in my life. I realized that I was 90, old enough for a human to die. I was kind of living the life of a human.

I realized the truth that mermaids were immortal, as long as they didn’t break the rules of nature.

The tightness in my chest with the fading eyesight, made me realize how quick death was approaching me.

498 words...
TO be continued...

Thanks for reading friends. Any ideas on how this will end?