Vanessa began to wake up, her back feeling stiff and uncomfortable and her neck hurting even more. She brought her hand up to her neck and rubbed it as she sat up. She heard a ‘whooshing’ and crashing sound. She opened her eyes and stared out into the black sea and began to panic. She didn’t know how she ended up here under the boardwalk. When she tried to think about it, her head just hurt more.

All she knew was that she was wet and covered in sand. She brought her hand up to her forehead and rubbed it with the back of her hand. Something felt slimy though and she moved her hand, looking down at her arm. Starting from the top of her arm and fading as it got closer to her elbow was some slimy pattern. She couldn’t see well in the dark, but it was there!

She just panicked more when she rubbed her other hand around it to see if come off, and noticed the same thing was on her other arm

“What’s happening?”, she asked herself before she checked the rest of her body, but the strange pattern was just on her arms. She knew just sitting there wasn’t going to help, so she got up. Her legs felt wobbly and she stumbled a little as she walked. The whole boardwalk was dark and quiet and she wondered how late it was. She was going to be in such big trouble.

She wondered what had happened to her though. She couldn’t remember anything except sitting near the ocean and then nothing.

She couldn’t find her shoes, so she had to walk home bare-foot. This wasn’t the best idea because she had to look out for glass and such, but she had no choice. Not to mention the fact that her house was about two miles away. She was tired, hungry, and she felt like some had beaten her. How was she going to explain herself to her father?

I’m in deep trouble, she thought as she rubbed her scaly arms. Having a heart attack right now was not going to help. She could deal with it when she got home.

It took her almost thirty minutes to reach her small two-bedroom house. She saw the living room lights on and cursed inside her head. She knew her father would be in there. She hesitated, but forced herself up the stairs.

She tried the knob and find it was unlocked. She opened the door and went in, the bright lights almost blinding her as she came through the door.

She heard a gasp, “Vanessa!”, she heard her father exclaim in a panicked voice. Her came into view and put his hands on her shoulders, “Sweetheart, are you okay?”, he asked. She wanted to speak, but her throat felt dry. She actually felt like she was going to faint. The bright light was too much. She lowered her head when she began to feel dizzy and looked down at her arms. The blue and gold scales were gone!

“What?”, she breathed out in shock.

Her father put his warm hands on her cool face, “You’re so pale; you need to sit down.”.

She knew he was right, but when she took a step forward, her knees gave out and she would have fallen if her father hadn’t caught her. Everything went black.

{}

Vanessa heard chirping sounds and she slowly forced her eyes open. She stared out her window and realized it was morning. She brought her hand up to her eyes and rubbed them as she leaned up on her bed. She brought her arms in view and saw they were normal. No scales, nothing.

She pushed off her blanket and felt a little dizzy as she got up, but the feeling dissipated after a few seconds. She made her way over to the door and left her room, feeling the intense desire for water. She never thought she could be so thirsty. It was like she had swallowed mouthfuls of dry sand. She coughed as she made her way downstairs and found her dad asleep on the couch.

She went into the kitchen and grabbed a water bottle from the fridge. She took the cap off and chugged it down in a minute. She grabbed another one and another one. On her fourth bottle, she only drank half before her thirst was finally quenched.

She leaned against the counter and tried to figure out what had happened yesterday. Her mind was completely blank. One minute she was sitting on the beach and next, she woke up under the boardwalk?

She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples, trying to see if she could remember anything. Even the tiniest detail, but the only thing that came to mind was turning her head around to see Raphael calling out her name, but she wasn’t sure why.

“Vanessa?”, she heard her dad and she opened her eyes to see him walking into the kitchen. “Are you alright?”.

She ran her hand through her knotty hair and nodded, “Yeah, I’m fine…I think.”, she said.

“What happened to you?”, he asked, walking over to her. “I got a call from the police saying you were missing.”, he said. His voice was hard, but his eyes showed concern and fear. “They said you went into the sea and just vanished!”.

She stared up at her dad, trying to picture it, but nothing came to mind, just a blank page. “I-I’m sorry, daddy, but I don’t know either.”, she said. “It’s just…blank. I don’t know what happened to me.”

He gave her a confused look, “You honestly don’t remember?”.

“I think I would.”, she said. “And I’m a good swimmer, you know that.”.

“In a pool, not in the ocean where you could be pulled out without warning.”, he said. “God damn it! Vanessa, do you know how worried I was?”.

Her eyes teared up when she saw how upset, scared, angry, and confused her father was. She was just as scared and confused as he was. She just hated seeing that on his face. She hadn’t seen him like that since her mother died of cancer when she was eight. “I’m sorry, but I don’t remember. You know I would tell you the truth.”.

He ran his hand down his chin and sighed, putting his arms around her as he pulled her into a hug. “I know you wouldn’t, I was just so scared. I thought I lost you too, Vanessa. I don’t know what would have happened to me if I lost you. When you came in last night how you were, you don’t know how lucky I felt.”.

Vanessa just put her arms around him, laying her head against his chest. She wished she could remember, but she can’t.

He pulled away for a moment and put his hands on her face, “You don’t know how scared I was.”, he said, forcing himself to laugh. He ran one of his hands over her hair, “I love you so much, you know that right?”

She gave him a small smile and nodded, “I know, daddy. I love you too.”

They hugged again for a moment before there was a knock on the door. They looked at each other for moment before she said she’d get it. She walked out of the kitchen into the living room and went over to the door. She opened the door and was shocked to see Raphael behind the screen door.

She stared at him for a moment before opening the screen door, “Hey.”, she said, kind of awkwardly. She was sure he was the last person she had seen before everything went dark.

“Hey,” he said as he came into the house.

Her father then came out of the kitchen and saw them, “Oh hey, Raphael.”

She looked at her father confused, “You know him?”.

“He is the one that saw you being pulled into in the ocean.”, he said.

Her mouth formed a small ‘O’ as she looked at Raphael shyly, “Oh,”, she said, brushing one side of her hair behind her ear.

“Yeah, I saw the news before I came here, there was a story about how you suddenly just showed up and I had to see it with my own eyes.” he said and she blushed.

“I’m on the news?” she asked and both her father and Raphael nodded. “Oh great, the whole town is going to know now.” she said, completely embarrassed. She turned and walked over to the couch, sitting down. “I’m going to be the talk of the town and not in a good way.” she said, already imagining all of the rumors being spread.

“Sweetheart, this isn’t something you should be embarrassed about.” her father said as he sat down next to her. “News-people are noisy, don’t worry about them. Worry about getting help.”

“Help?” she asked.

“Well you’re going to need a psychiatrist, what happened to you is traumatizing.” he said.

“But dad!” she whined. “I barely remember what happened to me. I don’t even know how I ended up back on land!”

“I know, I know, but the police officers suggested this would be the best thing. You can talk about what happened when you woke up.” he said and she looked away from him, not knowing if she wanted to talk to someone about this. She wasn’t the kind of person who talked about things. “Just think about it, okay? I’m going to go make breakfast, you must be hungry.”

Starving actually, she thought, but just stayed quiet.

Her father sighed again, “Raphael, do you want to stay for breakfast?” he asked.

Vanessa just wanted to hit him for embarrassing her even more! Having her crush over to breakfast wasn’t such a good idea in her opinion and keeping around the only person who saw what happened to her wasn’t a great idea either.

“Oh, thanks, but no thanks. I actually have to get back to my house to get ready for work, I just came over to how Vanessa was.” he said.

Her father nodded, “Alright. I understand.” he said, getting up and going into the kitchen to make breakfast—well, brunch. It’s one o’clock in the afternoon.

When her father was gone, Raphael sat down next to her, “Are you alright?”

She didn’t look up at him when she nodded.

“You really can’t remember anything?” he asked.

She just shrugged and shook her head.

He was quiet for a moment, “You don’t know how scared I was.”

She finally looked up at him at that, confused. “Why?”

“You were pulled into the ocean, how could I not be?” he asked. “One minute you were there and next, you were pulled into the ocean.”

“Pulled in?” she asked and he nodded. “How far out was I?”

“Not very, which seems really strange actually.” he said. “I couldn’t tell because you had your back to me, but it looked like something actually pulled you in.”

“Who would do that?” she asked. She groaned, “None of this make sense.”

“I know. I saw you in the ocean and I got curious, it looked like you were looking at something. I saw your arm stretch out and I called your name. You looked at me for just two seconds before you were literally pulled in. I ran as fast I could cause I wasn’t sure if you could swim or not, but I couldn’t find you. The police and coast guards said you were probably in far too deep and didn’t see a wave coming, but I know that isn’t the case.” he said, looking at her seriously.

“You were there though, why didn’t you just say what you think happened?” she asked.

“I did, but they said I was too far away to actually see what really happened.” he said. He turned to face her, “Vanessa, I know you’re going to want to forget about this, but I can’t.”

“You’re right, I do want to forget about this.” she said. “My whole life going to change, I can feel it. But, thank you.”

He looked at her confused for a moment, “For…?”

“At least trying to save me.” she said, blushing. “Who tries to save someone they don’t even know?”

“Of course I know you,” he chuckled. “You work only a few stores down from me.”

“Speaking of work, what did Cameron and Shayna do when they realized?”, she asked.

“Worried like puppies,” he said. “I didn’t think you would be such close friends with them, you seem different.”.

“Friends?” she asked. “I didn’t know that either.” she chuckled. “They were always nice to me but I thought it was just because they worked with me.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re okay.” he said. “I’ll see you around?”

She gave him a small shy smile and just nodded. He got up and she walked behind him. She closed the door after he’d left and walked into the kitchen to see her daddy frying up some bacon and eggs and making some pancakes. She loved her dad’s cooking. It was so good; he deserved to be a chief instead of some boring office man.

“He seems to like you.”, he said and Vanessa’s face reddened in embarrassment.

“He’s just a…” she trailed off, not sure what to call Raphael. They only spoke when he came to her work, so she couldn’t really call him a friend, but maybe now he was. “Friend.”

“Oh really?” he asked, not believing her at all. “He seems too nice to you.”

Her mouth dropped, faking a shocked look, “Daddy! Guys can be nice to girls, not all of them are jerks. Isn’t that what you tell me?”

“I don’t remember ever saying that.” he said. “Why don’t you go have a quick shower before you eat?”

She nodded before turning around and going upstairs. She grabbed a towel and went into the bathroom. She turned on the shower and peeled herself out of the clothes she’d been wearing since yesterday. She looked into the mirror and realized she looked like a mess. Her hair was so wavy and her skin looked a little dry. She sighed and ran her hands down her face, wondering if her father going to let her off the whole week of school.

She turned away from the mirror and stepped into the shower. She closed her eyes as she let the hot water run down her back. She rubbed her shoulders and sighed. She felt something glide across her collarbone and her eyes snapped open. She moved her hands and looked down at herself. Her eyes widened when she saw the blue-gold scales were back again!

She tried to control her shaking hand as she touched the scales. They were actually there again! She softly scratched at the scale and it just hurt! They wouldn’t come off, and her eyes began to water, not understanding what was going on.

I’m a freak, she thought.