Rising Tides

21

They ran down the boardwalk as fast as they could. Fireworks shot into the ebony sky and exploded in noise and colors. People cheered and children laughed, enjoying the show. But there was no sign of Danni's bright red figure.

"Where is she?" Sam shouted.

"She couldn't have gone far!" Said Sarah, breathing heavily. Her arms ached, but she powered through it. Her friend was more important than a little pain.

"Keep looking!" Rowan ordered. "Split up! We can cover more ground that way."

"Okay!" The girls said in unison.

"Make sure to give each other a call on your phones when you find her." Rowan took off in another direction, and Sam looked at Sarah nervously and nodded, then ran in the opposite direction. Sarah kept going straight down the boardwalk towards the beach.

Of course, her clumsiness struck and her crutch hit a rock. She tripped, hitting the sand face-first, and winced as she felt a sharp pain in her knee. That was going to bruise something awful.

"Ugh! Stupid crutches!" She spat in frustration, spitting out a mouthful of sand and scrambling to her feet. She limped her way towards the beach, heart soaring with relief when she spotted a flash of red in the distance. "There she is!"

She quickened her pace and followed the blotch of red. "Danni! Danni!" She yelled. She stopped to reach into her pocket and pull out her phone, dialing Sam's number.

"Did you find her?"

"Yeah. She's down at the beach."

"Okay. On my way!"

She hung up and called Rowan and delivered the same message. As she drew closer, she noticed something that made her blood run cold: Danni was walking towards the ocean, and someone was floating in it. Beckoning to her with his hands.

"Danni!"

She noticed something else was wrong. Laying on the sand, bodies half eaten and faces twisted in frozen terror and agony, were the lifeguards, and a few other people. Dead. She felt bile rise up in her throat at the horrific sight. She knew she would never be able to forget the sight as long as she lived.

"Danni! Danni stop!" Sarah yelled as loudly as she could, now only less than a mile away from her. She didn't hear her. The merman had her deep in a trance. He looked like the same merman who had tried to kill her not too long ago.

"Come to me, Danni." The merman's deep, sonorous voice made Sarah's bones rattle, it was so deep and melodic and captivating that she had to fight to keep herself from succumbing to it.

"I am coming." Danni said in a frighteningly lifeless, robotic voice. Her brilliant scarlet dress swirled around her in the breeze, her dark hair billowing behind her as she walked closer, closer, closer towards the water.

"DANNI, NO! STOP!" Sarah screamed, chucking her crutches to the ground and trying to run without them. To her surprise, there was no pain in her leg at all. Ripping off the cast, she gasped when she saw that her wound was completely gone.

Sarah bolted fast, inhumanly fast down the sandy hill, and nearly tripped as a blur sped past her. It was Rowan.

"DEVIN!" He bellowed. "STOP!"

It was no use. The merman, Devin, flashed them a toothy, devious grin. "No. Come to me, my flower."

"I am coming."

Something sparked inside Sarah, and she shouted, "Danni! Stop!"

Just before she stepped into the ocean, Danni's body gave a jerk and her head whipped around in shock. Her clear dark eyes latching onto Sarah in terror. "Sarah?"

It all happened so fast. So fast. Quicker than a blink. Sarah heard Sam yell, and didn't even had time to scream when the mer suddenly launched himself out of the water and grabbed Danni. Dragging her screaming into the dark depths.

"NOOOOOOO!" Sarah wailed.

"DANNIII!" Sam dove into the water after her, trying to save her, and was followed by Rowan, who shot into the water like a torpedo and vanished under it. But it was too late. They were too late. Crimson blood turned the ocean red, and Danni's lifeless corpse floated to the surface. Her throat was torn out and her beautiful face was twisted in an expression of pure agony and terror.

A bloodcurdling scream rang out and Sam popped out of the water, frantically splashing around and screaming as another mer, this one female, sank her teeth into Sam's right arm with a snarl. "SARAHHH! HELP!"

She dove into the water, pure adrenaline and desire for revenge coursing through her veins as she swam over to Sam. With a growl of pure animalistic rage and grief, she punched the female mer repeatedly on the side of the head, leaving her distracted and stunned, and kicked her hard in the face. She hissed and ripped herself away from Sam, tail thrashing wildly, but she took her arm with her.

Sam let out an agonized scream, blood gushing out from the meaty stump where her right arm used to be. Not again! No way in hell will I lose another friend tonight! Sarah thought, enraged, and felt a tingle and a sharp pain race down her spine and stab at her legs. She screamed in pain as her body arched, bones shifted and cracked, and rearranged themselves, and her legs fused together into a long tail, and scales erupted out of her skin.

All she could see was red. Red. Red. Red. Red. In less than a minute, before she could even comprehend what had happened, Sarah found herself staring at the mermaid's decapitated body and was hauling her unconscious friend over to the shore.

"Sarah!" She heard Rowan call out and appear at her side. "Sarah, you..."

"Not now!" Sarah snapped at him, lisping through her new sharklike fangs. "We have to get her to safety and to a hospital! Where is your brother?"

"Dead. I disposed of his body somewhere the humans wouldn't find him."

"Good. How do I shift back into a human?"

"You have to will yourself to shift." He said. "Visualize yourself as a human. But you will be naked when you turn back."

"I don't care! Just help me with her!" Sarah did as he told her and tried to visualize herself transforming. After a few painful minutes, she was back on two legs again. She dragged Sam's limp body onto the sand and Rowan hurried past her, grabbing a large stack of towels from the life guard station and a med kit, and jogged back towards them.

"Here. Use these to stop the bleeding."

"She's lost too much blood!" Sarah gritted out, quickly wrapping the towels around the bloody stump and tying them tight. "Please, go get Danni's body for me. I can't just leave her floating there like that."

Without a word, he returned to the water with a splash. Hot tears splashed onto her blood-soaked hands as she worked. Her throat burned and she felt nauseous. She heard Rowan approach and a soft thud next to her. "Don't worry. I hid her body, too." He told her and he ran off to search for a phone. He dug through the pockets of the dead lifeguards and unearthed one.

She tuned out his voice and focused only on her friends: on sweet, nurturing Samantha, laying there unconscious with her missing arm and her blood staining Sarah's skin, and on Daniella, whom Sarah failed to save. It shattered her heart to see a girl who was once so full of life and energy and warmth, and was so full of kindness and inner and outer beauty, laying dead and lifeless at her side with her throat torn out and her last terrifying moments burned into her face. Now just an empty shell. Her eyes and mouth were still wide open, she noted with a pained whine in her throat. None of them deserved their fates.

"I'm sorry." Sarah whispered shakily, tears blurring her vision. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." She kept murmuring apologies as she gently closed Danni's eyes and mouth, softly stroking her face and hair and hugging her body close to her. "I'm so sorry! I couldn't save you!" Her voice rose to a shout. "I should have done better! I should have been there at your side!"

Hysteria rose up in her throat, and she let out a wail of grief. She felt Rowan wrap his arms and a towel around her and hold her as she cried. She cried her eyes out even as the paramedics and a huge crowd of terrified people showed up. She cried until she passed out in her soulmate's arms.