A Scaly Tale

A terrible mistake

6

After a few minutes of looking around the room with comfy bubbles in it, I decided to move on. Besides, there wasn't all that much in that room anyway, just bubbles, shells and a few doors made of larger shells. The clam shell let me out and by mistake I said to it,
"Thank you." And to my surprise it replied with,
"You're welcome." In a deep voice. I turned around and inspected the massive clam. It now had three big eyes blinking at different times to one another. One green, one blue and one purple. I swam away quickly, almost frightened. I wasn't looking where I was going as I swam away as fast as my new tail would go. A small slap noise was heard as my fin made contact with another tail. A merman was swimming in front of me giving me a scowl which toned down when I looked up at him.
"I'm so sorry I was-" I started to exclaim.
"It's fine, all good, perfectly ok, don't worry."he interrupted me, sounding rushed and pressed for time.
"Are you ok, you sound stressed?" I asked him.
"I'm fine, but I might not be if anyone sees me talking to you, bye!" And with that he quickly swam away.
'Wow, ok. That was weird.' I thought out loud. I wondered what species of mermaid he was. Maybe a fresh water or cave, I didn't really have a clue.

I swam for a while thinking about that merman the whole time. I wondered where he was rushing off to. Maybe a meeting or even just to visit somebody. I shrugged it off but it bothered my mind when I saw other merfolk swimming in the same direction as him all with stressed expressions. I looked ahead and my eyes enlarged when I saw saw a crowd of about two hundred merfolk swimming quickly towards me. Before I got pushed out of the way, I swerved off to the side. I tried to listen to the conversations of the merfolk rushing by me,
"I think maybe something is about to happen, something big."
"For sure, why would Simon call a meeting if it was not!"
"I heard that there was a transformation."
I couldn't really get anything out of what I heard, just that there was a meeting. The last few of the merfolk were hurrying along, all in the same direction as the others. A loud moaning noise was heard in the distance, it sounded like a choir of whales. As soon as the noise started ringing around the area the few merfolk that were left all zoomed away, racing even faster to get to the meeting. I looked around and I was the only mermaid in the area. Not wanting to look suspicious I ducked behind a bunch of tall seaweed. When I was just about to escape from my hiding place, I heard noises, more like voices. The peculiar voices were getting clearer and soon enough three figures appeared were I was floating just a few moments ago. I got a glimpse through the seaweed of the merfolk that were there. My eyes widened with shock at their faces, tails, skin and everything. They were all covered in flaps of skin or scales, ugly flaps of skin and scales. They looked around suspiciously and then they started to whisper to one another.
"Simon is in the meeting at the moment, so we have to act quickly." One said to the other two.
"I sense another presence." The smallest one said and straight after she did they all quickly soon around and searched the area. I held my breath as one came close to the bunch of seaweed I was hiding behind. The smallest one swam close to me. It's dreadful, flaky skin was only a few inches away from me. I looked into its lime green eyes and felt pain in the back of my eye sockets. If I could I would have stopped the beat of my heart. The bubbles the ugly thing was breathing out were swimming I front of my eyes. she reached out to move the seaweed out of the way. I panicked and blew out a large cloud of bubbles in her face and swam away before she could see me. I heard voices yelling out to one another but to me it was all a blur as I tried to weave through rocks and coral as fast as I could. Small strands of seaweed slapped against my face as I sped along. While I was looking back at the creepy mermaids behind me I had no warning of the Rock in front of me that I was about to crash into-until I crashed into it and then slid down onto the ground. The sound of the smack! that was made when I hit the rock rung in my ears. I lay stomach-up staring at the ugly mermaids just meters above me. Their heads whipped around in all directions, looking for where I had disappeared to. When the looked down they looked down they did not see me because once again I was hiding behind some dark green seaweed. The mermaids above me looked flustered and then swam away in a very fast manner. The next thing I saw was a mermaid's head look out from behind a rock, not at me but around, checking out what the noise was. Once they had finished deeply inspecting the area, or what he thought was deep inspecting, he went inside and just seconds after I followed him. As I swam up the height of the rock I saw a large volt door starting to close. Before it could slam shut I flapped my tail furiously, boosting myself forwards and through the door before it slammed on my tail. My heavy breathing caused everyone to look up and stare at me. They were all sitting at a long table, facing eachother. In each corner of the room, there was a strongly armoured guard. In the far left corner I could see a group of small whales an I wondered what they were doing there.
"Hi." I said to them all, sheepishly.
"What is she doing here?!" I heard Simon whisper to the beautiful mermaid who gave me a tail. All the women in the room either had long flowing hair or cropped bobs. Whereas the men either had smoothly cut short hair or pixie cuts. I hadn't realised how pretty everyone looked until after I had seen that horrible and ugly mermaid out side. Though they all looked nice, everyone also seemed so serious. I searched the faces of everyone and eventually I landed on Ianthe's questioning face.
"What is the reason of your presence, girl?" Simon asked me with an attitude that I didn't like. Everybody's attention was fixed on me.
"I was-uh, I was swimming outside and some-uh ugly mermaids were talking about this meeting." I replied, unsure if I should even say what I was saying. Simon's eyes flickered to the beautiful mermaid and then to the guards surrounding them. Without any words they marched over to me and hooked their arms through mine. I didn't protest but I made some confused noises.
"What are you doing?" I managed to ask. I received no reply, only a pityful look from Ianthe as I was being thrown out the door. The guards were big mermen with large, bulging triceps and biceps. With their enormous muscles they threw me out the door with little effort. I went swirling down from the large rock that I had crashed into earlier and once again I was laying on and uncomfortable bed of shells. As my head landed on the ground I lay there to rest, counting the small, silver fish that swam above my head. Only just now had I realised how exhausted I was. I guess turning into a mermaid was hard work for my body and my brain which had to get used to a whole new life. I rolled my head to the side and wondered if I would ever get back to my life on land. My vision was rather blurry from the all the rocks I had banged against. Even with blurry eyesight, a glowing and white shell caught my eye. I wriggled closer to it and picked it up. As I held it close to my face I could hear noises coming out of it, mumbling noises. I inspected the inside of it closely, making sure there was nothing living in there before holding it up to my ear. I could hear voices coming out of it very clearly now.
"She may not stay until she proves herself worthy." I heard Simon say, as clear as if I was standing right in front of him, "She has six days to earn my trust."