John pov~

I sat on the beach, pale sand under my hands as I watched a crab scuttle along with it's weird little reddish crabby feet. Crabs are so odd, with the sideways way they walk, and all their armor and giant claw hands. I leaned closer to the little animal, wondering what it would be like being a crab. Would I be a lonely crab? Do crabs even have social lives? Is there a boss crab, and it's the popular crab with the biggest claw hands and it scares all the other crabs and everyone envies it? That would be cool, like crab-Heathers. Who would crab-JD be then? Probably a crab that looks like it's really cold. Like it froze it's brain. Crab-Veronica would be a pretty, dainty crab who still has pretty big claw-hands.

I set my book aside, not wanting to read it anymore. I could read it later, I still had a few days until we had to talk about it at school.

The beach was empty, no one came this late/early. It was practically 1 AM and I honestly don't know why I'm still out. I guess I didn't really want to go back to my appartement. I put my head in my hands and let out a sigh, lifting my eyes to the stars that gleamed above the beautiful Pacific waves. The water crashed against the beach in a soothing pattern, almost like the heartbeat of some huge sleeping creature. Could be Pontus. In Greek mythology, he's the being of the sea, like Gaia is the Earth. Probably isn't Pontus, I'm pretty sure waves are caused by the wind blowing against the water. It's fun to think though. It could be something fun like a giant sleeping being with a name, a gender and a consciousness, or it could be the wind. Then again, the Greeks also had gods for the winds, so the wind can be made into something more interesting than just some clouds. I like how, despite the concrete facts, the ocean has so many secrets and things that can be left up to imagination. I'm a marine biology student, and I do not regret a thing in my life. My dad was upset at first, but he's ok with it now, I'm doing really well.

I stood up, brushing sand off my pants and rolling them up to my knees so I could go wade in the waves I was just admiring. Let's be honest, I'm going to go for a swim, there's no point rolling up my pants, but I still felt like it made me seem more of a reasonable human being then just walking into the water. Then again, some random guy wading in the South Carolina ocean at 1:30 in the morning doesn't seem very reasonable in the first place, pants rolled up or not. I stuck my foot in the water and drew back, yelping a little. It was so cold. I shook my foot and hissed, setting it down on the ocean's splash zone. I slowly got used to the cold and the chill water was actually pretty refreshing. I walked in up to my calves and I think my body went numb because when a huge wave came and splashed my whole legs I didn't feel anything except joy.

As I went deeper I felt like a five-year-old or something, just splashing in the water until I realized I was freezing and I needed to go home. I sighed, not really remembering five-year-old-ness. It seems like such a long time ago. It was such a long time ago, I'm twenty. That's fifteen years of life separating me and my five-year-old self. It feels like a lot, but fifteen honestly isn't that big of a number.

I gasped suddenly. I'd been swimming, it had gotten too deep, and my foot caught on something, which made me falter, giving the waves an upper hand as they shoved me down.

I landed on something (probably the same something I got caught on) and panicked because I was now under the crashing waves, on the seafloor. I struggled upwards and my head broke the surface, I coughed and spat out a little bit over water. Then I realized that it had felt like I'd landed on a human. Which is odd, but I'm not going to risk indirectly murdering someone. I pushed my head under the water again and spotted a silhouette, grabbing it and tugging it towards the surface. I pushed off to shallower water, and when I got secure enough on the ground (the second my feet could touch the ocean floor) I let go of the person and examined them. They appeared to be a man, and I assume this because they were shirtless and women usually have boobs, which this person did not have. He had shoulder-length brown hair that was tied up in a loose ponytail. His eyes were closed, so I couldn't tell what color they were, his skin was pretty pale but that might just be the moonlight. The man had bags under his eyes and looked really peaceful despite almost having drowned. Maybe he was dead?

I put one hand on his chest and felt it rise and fall. Not dead. Unconscious then? That's probable, he did not seem to care that he'd almost died. I hauled the guy to shallower water, wanting to set him on the beach and maybe call 911. Can I even call 911 for this? Probably. Yeah, I think I can. I frowned, wondering if I could call 911, then I remembered that there was an unconscious guy in my arms that I needed to get onto dry land. I moved in the water, feeling something pass by my foot.

Crab? What if it was a crab? I peered down and saw no crab. But what if it was hiding? Was the crab going to pinch me? If it pinched me, would I drop The Guy? If I dropped The Guy, would he drown? Would that be considered murder? Could I go to jail because a crab pinched me? I started worrying and felt something brush my foot again, this time a little bit sharper. I hastily waded into the really shallow shallows, what I liked to call the ocean's splash zone. I set The Guy down and that's when I realized something about him.

He had a fish tail.

a / n: this is pretty much how my brain works