Something moved to my right, but when I turned into that direction, there was nothing there.  Blinking, I thought about how my eyes still had to make the transition complete.  The water still stung my throat and pain shot through my brain as my voice began to screech.  It was the most awful sound I’d ever heard myself make.  Never, once, did I imagine my voice this ugly, like the screech of an injured bird.

My skin prickled, and a trail of blood floated into my vision.  Warmth blocked my nose, and the taste of blood mingled with the salt of the water.  I tried to close my mouth but found I couldn’t.  The impulse to keep singing was so strong that it made me dizzy, never really giving me the chance to breathe in between.

I had the fleeting fear that my blood would catch the attention of a predator, and I started to thrash, growing desperate with panic when my restricted arms and legs wouldn’t snap away.

The screeching abruptly shot up until it was only a vibration in the water, the frequency so high that my brain couldn’t pick it up.

Everything went abruptly silent when a hand went around my mouth, the urge immediately dissipating as warmth sprout from the slippery hand and into my body, unfurling in my stomach, dulling my senses.

Confused, I writhed, and a strong, unyielding arm wrapped around my small waist, surprisingly gentle but firm.  No matter which way I twisted, I couldn’t break free.

The water churned near my ear, and his voice whispered into it, bafflingly soft and seductive.  “Relax.  I won’t hurt you if you stop fighting.”

Panic filled me, but at the same time relief made me sag.  Had they heard me?  Sent a guard to help me?  My brow furrowed when I realised that he wasn’t releasing me, nor allowing me to speak.

Something slick brushed my leg and I tensed.  A merrow?  Why would they send a merrow?  Sure, they were warriors, but only Encantado guards were assigned to me, and they didn’t have tails.  Was this a stray, then?  I’d heard of them, but never really encountered one.  Until now.

Damn.

“Are you going to let me unbind you?”  I didn’t like the way he was pushing his nose into my neck, but I forced myself to nod.  If this was a stray, he wouldn’t be compelled to yield to Encante’s most sacred, unspoken law – no one could hurt the most precious treasure that kept their society stable.  Alive.

His hand left my waist for a moment to work at the nylon, and then he released me from the weight.  As soon as my legs were free, I shot forward, working my limbs.  It still hadn’t been an hour, so not all of my transformation was complete.  My hysti weren’t grown yet, which hindered my movement.  And as my rescuer was a merrow, he had the strength of a tail to easily catch me again.

He crushed me to his chest, his hand slapping to my mouth when I started screaming.  He was holding me so tightly to him that I couldn’t move my upper body.  I kicked with my legs, and I grew increasingly more confused at the weird feel of his tail.  It had too many bumps, like fins, and didn’t feel anything like the scaly dolphin’s tail of my best friend, a merrow.

“Stop it.  You’re coming with me whether you like it or not.”

I shook my head feverishly, anger making my skin flush.  I hadn’t gotten a glimpse of my rescuer/capturer, and all I knew was that he was strong.  If he was a stray and didn’t know anything about a creature like me, he wouldn’t hesitate to question the pull he felt towards my body.  In fact, I could feel the result of his arousal as my pheromones affected him.

He started to move forward, but it was all wrong.  It felt like he was sidling from side to side, much like how a water snake moves.  I tried to calm myself, but it wasn’t easy.  It could be no coincidence that I was captured twice in the last two hours, first by humans, who mysteriously just dumped me into the ocean without killing me, and then this strange sea spirit.

I closed my eyes, trying to keep the panic at bay.  It didn’t help that every time he moved his tail slid against me, making me shiver with revulsion and fear.

I deepened my breathing and began to think of a way to escape, but inspiration eluded me, like always.  I’d never had to think strategically, having never been caught.  I was always cautious, paranoia causing me to never be at one place for too long.

I shouldn’t even be out of Encante in the first place.  The only reason I put myself out of safety was because Eugene was missing.  Had been for a long time.

I pictured his pretty face, broad shoulders and dazzling smile.  Encantadoes loved to party among the dangers of humans, but they couldn’t bear to be apart from their realm for more than a day.  Now, a day was different to us than him.  In fact, Encante didn’t have a day.  Or night.  It was just an infinite state of in between, with no sun, moon, stars…

Nostalgia made my stomach turn for a moment as I thought of him and Encante.  I wasn’t an encantado, but even I couldn’t stop craving its clear waters, the silence of peace between spirit species.

The beating of my capturer’s heart was fast, his breathing irregular as my potent scent overwhelmed his male instincts.  I was too tired to think about it though.  At first I didn’t think it was strange that I was tired.  It had just been a few hours ago when I’d fed, but now it seemed like my glow was seeping away.

How…

I woke with a start, a torrent of salt water spewing from my mouth.  I coughed, my breathing ragged as the salt seared my throat.  Holding a hand to my neck, I tried to get a hold of myself while I blinked my surroundings into focus.

I seemed to be in a dark, cave-like room.  The concave walls were damp and uneven, a few holes peeking through with ragged edges, barely the size of a fist.  The scent of seaweed and mineral was strong, but the air was fresh and ventilated.  My back complained when I pushed myself up from the hard surface, seaweed sticking to my damp clothes, which I hadn’t gotten the chance to get rid of before going into the sea.

Groaning, I rubbed my burning eyes, noting that my hair was a dried, knotted mess, the colour of dull chestnuts.  How had I lost so much energy?

I inspected my skin, found it dry, and parched, not the lovely, golden glow it had been.  Shaking my head to assure myself I was awake, I stood up, slowly, still unsteady on my feet.  Where was I?

I racked my brain, trying to remember, but it eluded me.  I sagged against a wall, drained, almost deciding to give in and go back to sleep.  It had been a long time since I’d been this tired.  It wasn’t exhaustion, but that little tiredness you got when you had less than, as the humans speculated, eight hours of sleep.  Having never had to strive to get the energy, I never got tired.  One male and I was good to go for two days.  There had been only two times in my infinite life when I became this tired.

Shaking my head again, I told myself to get a grip and find out what was happening.  How had I gotten here?  No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t bring up a memory.  It was on the tip of my tongue, but slippery as I tried to grab it.  I only had the vague memory of being thrown into sea by men, and then a merrow finding me…

Sighing, I pushed up from the wall and studied the room again.  I saw a slight opening in the ground, tucked between beds of rocks on the right of me.  It looked barely big enough for a slight human man to slip through.  I neared it and tried to look beyond it, but all I saw was darkness.  I couldn’t see through the black void, which left me in the unknown.  What waited for me, if I chose to go down?  Looking over my shoulder, I knew it was either go down, or drain away here.

The craving for energy was already strong, so I chose the first.

Halfway down, with the jagged edges of the hole scratching the pliable flesh of my human-like form, water started to lick at my ankles.  I paused, just hanging there, trying to keep my breathing steady.  Fear of what I might find at the end of my climb, in the dark my eyes couldn’t penetrate, made me want to race back up to the cave, where I would know if someone was approaching.  Now, there was no reassurance that there wasn’t someone waiting at the end of the hole, and my throat restricted as tears pooled in my eyes.

I shook my head angrily, quickly wiping the alien, salty water from my eyes.  I didn’t know whether it was the usual paranoia gripping me, but my whole body felt like it was vibrating with anxiety, like it already knew what it would find.  At least I knew I was still Ashore – there was no air in Encante – which I doubted was a good thing.

I literally didn’t know how long I hung there, trying to compose myself, but I finally convinced myself that I was alone.  For now.  Or else someone would’ve already found me.

It took me a moment to adjust to the transition, my eyes burning when my head finally dipped under the water.  I slowly released the air within my lungs, anticipating the sting of salt as water flowed into my airways and changed my way of breathing.  My skin became slick and thick, my nails elongating.  Contracting and releasing repeatedly, my pupils reformed, pain shooting over my cheekbones.  The ugly brown quality of my hair lightened a bit to a light, tawny texture, and my skin regained some of its moisture.

I could make out the vague shapes of the underwater dwelling around me, and something about the underwater cave nagged at my mind.  I blinked hard, trying to erase the invasive sting as I attempted to catch my bearings and comprehend what my instincts were telling me.

I was alone.

I didn’t know why I felt so relieved, or even why I expected something to attack me the moment I came down here, but then again, I had been taken captive by a rogue merrow.

Something about that thought shot a pulse through my instincts, and I glided forward, arms outstretched.  My vision should be better than this, but it would take at least an hour before I could see – and swim - better.  My hysti hadn’t even grown yet.

I ran my fingers over the rough rock, letting it lead me as I kept my other hand outstretched, in case I didn’t see another obstacle in my path.  The texture under my fingers was abrasive against my soft skin, even though the cave’s walls had been run smooth with years of water currents shaping it.

For the next few minutes, I explored, growing more and more baffled at the colossal structure of the cave.  Either I was going into circles, or I was very near to the shore and this was a cave carved into it.  This gave me a sparkle of hope; I just had to find a way out, and then I would relish the sight of a beach for the first time since I began searching for Eugene.

The cave seemed to divide into many tunnels, most of them dead ends, but I was cautious to keep in one direction.  It wouldn’t do to get lost.  My sense of direction was instinctive, but even the infinite darkness could muddle my senses.

At yet another tunnel I came to a dead end and by then my vision was fully developed.  It felt like forever since I climbed from the hole, but in truth almost an hour had gone by.  I could feel my limbs begin with a familiar itch, forcing me to abstain from scratching.  I leaned against a wall, waiting for my body to make the final changes.

I started to hum under my breath, just a tune without a particular rhythm.  Words began to weave themselves into the tune, making me feel at ease and speeding up my transition.  I remembered the screeching noise I’d made, and I frowned thinking about it.  In all my life, I’d never made such a horrifying sound.  Just remembering it made my head begin to ache, and my voice rose a little.  Concentrating, I brought it back to serenity, immense relief making me sigh.  A string of bubbles followed the movements of my mouth and I stood up.

My hysti drifted around my legs like the velutinous folds of a gown, caressing and reassuring.  They looked like strings of translucent satin, appearing flimsy and discerptible grown from the tough skin of my calves and thighs.  They served the same function as the tail of a fish, able to allow quicker movement in water.

My hysti grew less at my arms and appeared more on my forearms, and as my arm brushed the rock walls of the cave I flinched.  My bewildered mind had failed to remember how sensitive the silky strands were.

I drifted forward, my hysti contracting and then releasing like a muscle, gliding me forward.  I could now see that each division of the underwater cave was adorned with shallow stalagmites and dripstone, growing more dense the deeper I travelled.  Sand started to bed the bottom, and by then the roof of the cave had risen to twice its height.

All the while I sang to myself, trying to keep myself calm and collected.  I could not panic and get lost.  I had a duty to fulfil, and the more I thought about it, the more I started to realise how reckless I’d been.  The encantadoes did everything they could to provide protection for me, but somehow I evaded their attempts, and now I deeply regretted it.

Something in a dark corner caught my eye, and I swam forward, relishing how the water slid over my sensitised skin.  I didn’t know what about it caught my attention, only that it seemed to be more shrouded in shadow than the rest of the cave.  At first, I assumed it was a recess in a part of a wall, curving inward.  Then I saw a crack running along it, barely as thick as a pinkie and not even two centimetres long.

Now that I thought about it, it was almost as if something had collided with the wall, causing the tiny crack, but after a while I dismissed it as a ridiculous thought.  It was probably natural, the cave giving in to years of strain against the ocean’s currents.

I traced the crack, suddenly feeling a pang that reflected in my voice as I crooned softly, still with those nonsensical words that I made up in my mind.  It wasn’t that I lacked creativity.  It just felt right, as if words with a meaning attached would crumble my emotions interlacing with the song.  It would give a meaning to my emotions, let me know what they were instead of making me feel them, desiccate them into the baser colours that defined my existence.

Which is why it was difficult to comprehend the sad note that resonated around me, making my eyes droop as an air of weariness surrounded me.  All of a sudden I didn’t know why I was even trying.  The sense of doom was so final to me that the tension released from my shoulders, my eyes struggling to focus.  I felt worn, and I sighed, resigning to the fact that, if someone found me, I wouldn’t want their company.  Because that company would be nothing other than my captor’s, a rogue, unpredictable to the laws of those I endeared.

A part of me knew that my energy was drained and that I needed to find a male, and quick.  Even the rogue would do, although, strangely enough, I had a feeling that wasn’t happening.  I distantly remembered something of great importance, but when I perked up and tried to grab it, it slipped from my fingers.

A clapping noise jerked me out of my mental search and my heartbeat spiked into a frenzy.  I spun around to meet another series of clapping, and my heart dropped like a stone in water – ironic, wasn’t it?  For the first time, with no reference from when since, I was the first to witness a myth told by water spirits to their younglings, a myth that was in reality a creature from extinction.  And it had to be the most terrifying sight that my mind couldn’t grasp, making me gasp as my voice suddenly shot up in a frenzy of shrieking.