Chapter Three
Vera
When I wake up, I’m lying against decaying wood. I sit up, wrinkling my nose with disgust as I scrape my arm against some sort of mollusk-y creature.
I shudder, kicking upward and looking down when I realize I’m cutting gracefully through the water as if I’m an Olympic swimmer. Or a mermaid as it turns out.
My orange fins glint which is really weird because I’m deep under the water and there is no sunlight. I wonder where the blueish lighting is coming from. Even though I’m currently in the crushing depths, I’m neither crushed nor blinded by the darkness.
Okay, so I still have fins.
The weird fever dream persists.
Even as I think that, something niggles in the back of my mind. A surety that if I was asleep I would have woken up by now. Especially after having experienced pain. Isn’t feeling pain—or more the lack of it—supposed to tip you off that you’re in a dream?
Well, my head certainly hurts enough that it should have woken me up a dozen times over.
I rest my hands on my hips, trying not to flinch as my fingers meet scales. “Okay, I think I need a vacation,” I mutter to myself. I’m stressing myself so much at work that I’m beginning to be consumed by delusions of being in my script.
That must be what this is, after all. I recognize all the key details. The sinking ship, the mermaid tail, the lair in a wrecked ship.
I’ll admit, I’m kind of impressed to be imagining this all vividly. It looks better than I could have hoped CGI would make the movie eventually look.
I hold my hand up, studying the glint of the iridescent scales dotting my arm. I stare at it for a long second before I give my head a sharp shake and swim down toward the hollowed-out door of the ship. It should lead into the captain’s quarters. As I duck inside, I see that I’m correct and this is indeed my script.
Because there is an alchemy lab inside.
I reach up, stroking my chin as my eyes flick over the bubbling liquid in the bowls that somehow does not spill over despite the fact that the bowls are under water. What is stopping the fluids from mixing? Is it a chemical reaction?
I wish I had done better in chemistry so I could fill in this plot hole.
I swim closer, settling onto the curved piece of stone that acts as a seat in this lab. All right, I’ll play along. Already I’m discovering flaws and plot holes in what I had originally thought was a flawless script (although you will never hear me admit that to James).
I may be going slightly mad but at least my script will be better for it.
Suddenly a timid voice reaches my ears. I whip my head around, wondering how I can hear when my ears are full of water. But then, it seems just like my lungs and the boiling pots that my ears have decided to ignore the fact that I’m under water.
My hair more than makes up for that by floating around me endlessly.
“H—hello?” the voice calls again. It’s a sweet voice, almost sounds childlike in its innocence and hesitancy.
I frown as a brown head of floating hair pokes through my nonexistent door. Wide sea green eyes latch on me. “Are you the sea witch?”
I open my mouth to say no, but I freeze when I look down at myself. Red and orange fin with green spots? Fiery red hair?
I certainly look like the sea witch I always imagined for my script.
And this girl must be the little mermaid herself, Naia.
But if she’s the little mermaid that means I am filling the role of both the antagonist and the protagonist of the tale. Moira of the Deep. The notorious sea witch who tried to kill the little mermaid and wound up losing her own heart and eventually her life in the end.
I reach my hand up, rubbing at my chest.
She swims into the alchemy lab, holding her hands tightly in front of herself. “My name is Naia, the princess of the seas, and I have a request.”
I nod absently as I struggle to come to terms with the fact that I really am somehow living out my script. Except as the villain. I’m no longer so convinced that this is a psychic break. Or even a dream.
Everything is too realistic. I can feel the lull and pull of the water, and it causes me to bob against my seat.
