Reign leaned over in the bath. The water washed over her body from the movement, her tail flipped over the bath tub when she turned to me.
"Your back? So soon?" she more stated than asked, she didn't look happy about it either. Her webbed hands groomed her jet black hair behind her. "Get me a smoke." The smokes were on the bathroom's bench, just out of her reach. I grabbed one and handed it to her. She stuck it in her mouth and waited fro me to light it.
"No one's ever going to believe me that I have a smoking mermaid in my bath."
"Get over it." She crowed.
"You shouldn't be telling your stupid friends anyway."
"What do you want me do?" I asked; slipping into the ground, my butt being soaked from the bath water that splashed out of the bath earlier. My head slipped into my hands. I was sick of mermaids. She was rude and disgusting. She had a mouth that spat scorpion stings and her breath was toxic vapour.
"You look pathetic." She said from the bath. I slowly slipped my two fingers by my eyes so I could still see her behind the safety of my hands.
"I have a condition." I grunted, weakly.
She purred like a sick tiger. "A condition." She sipped some of the smoke. "Does being an idiot, count as a condition now?"
"No! Shut up!" I yelled. My fingers shook out of my control against my face. It wasn't just the heavy smoke that made it hard to breath.
"Pathetic." Reign scoffed. "Get me some more water."
"You can fill it up yourself." I yelled, my anxiety making my knees shake. I had to leave the room before she saw my tears. I stood up and went to the door, looking away from Reign.
"Go buy me another pack of cigarettes." I saw her hold a cigarette up in the corner of my eye.
"Fine." I grunted before leaving.
When I finally hurtled up the strength to see Reign again it was witching hour. I had convinced an older kid to buy me some cigarettes. I stepped inside the dark bathroom, and didn't even hear Reign turn to see me. She was so ungrateful. She hadn't smoked in hours and yet the smoke had settled like dust.
"I've got some good news, I know how to get you out of here." I said. I could see her tail half out of the bath in this darkness. "I thought vampires didn't sleep." I joked, knowing I would get yelled at about how she was a mermaid, not a vampire and I was so stupid to not recognize that. But no response. "Reign, I got your cigarettes." I walked over to the light switch and flicked it on. Reign hadn't preformed a disappearing act, she was still here. I walked up to the statue-like figure in the bathtub. Reign lay perfectly still on the porcelain, her neck holding up none of her heads weight and her lip submerged in the water.
I dropped to my knees on the soaked bath mat by the tub, the pack of cigarettes falling from my hands.
"Reign." My fingers touched the water, no longer water but turned into some see-through sludge. Cigarette butts had littered the water. Reigns eyes had gone black. She looked like she was sweating, but the condensation on her body was ooze that was transforming the bath water, it was her own mermaid-unique rigor mortis.
"Fuck!" I cursed, my head resting on the baths side. My anxiety climbed up through my throat to my tear ducts. I felt myself vomit, as if I was watching my body rather than being in control of it. The hurled stomach acid slid down along the side of the bathtub and joined Reign in the bath.
I was pathetic.
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Thank you Pr0digyOfTheStars for the opportunity to be in this competition. I think Fantasy is such a broad range of writing, so it's hard to dumb it down to what exactly I wanted to write about. This short story was super hard to write, like I haven't written anything with this kind of... depth before. So it's one of a kind for me, and i'm proud i was able to write in that kind of zone.
I really hope you can enjoy it!
