Under the Sea ⇔ Cashton ✓

We Act Like We Had Never Met

When he was little, Calum's foster parents used to read him stories. They were cute childhood stories, tall tales about mythological creatures, like vampires and werewolves and unicorns and, eventually, mermaids. Calum always found them interesting. He would touch the shiny-looking scales on their tails with his finger while Laura read to him, and he would run his hands over the blue pages. He felt attracted somehow to the water, loved the way it looked drawn on the pages, loved how the mermaids were always under the sea. He liked that. He thought it was comforting.

Calum always liked the water. He met Michael when he was young, about six years old. He had bright blue hair, and these kids at school were always commenting on it, but Michael couldn't care less. He had a way of self-confidence that made him stand out above everyone else, and he always looked in control of the situation despite his ever-changing hair colors, and Calum thought it was interesting. Calum was always a bit scrawny, very much unmuscled and no build to speak of. He always thought he would look a little stronger when he hit puberty but instead he just grew taller and looked even more scrawny, as though that were even possible.

He gained a bit of confidence when befriending Michael, and he told the boy of his fascination with water, and Michael introduced him to surfing. He fell in love with it, inevitably, and they surfed every day together on the beach by Calum's house until finally, a few days shy of seventeen, Calum started to grow sick.

He was already a little too skinny to start with, so when he started losing weight fast, it looked as though he lived in a state of penury. His bones protruded, skin turned a little pale, bags grew under his eyes. The doctors said his organs were shutting down, that the constant stress on his body could lead to cardiac arrest and too much movement or stress could trigger it. In other words, there was nothing they could really do to fix him, given they didn't have a specific diagnosis, therefore no prescribed treatment. They were calling code blue far before Calum was even dying.

Calum hated being sick, mostly because it tortured his family and Michael, too. They stared at him with sad, doleful eyes and watched him waste away without power or control over anything. Calum remembers thinking the real brunt of the sickness was the hurt it put on Michael. He wilted when Calum grew sick, like a dead rose, and each time Calum saw him, it was like he could see Michael's petals dropping. He would sit, morose, and worry about Calum all day and all night.

Calum, not exactly enjoying the attention his undiagnosed disease gave him, cracked jokes and played video games and insisted he was fine, because he didn't want his family to die just because he was dying. If someone should have to bare the weight of the tragedy that is his life, it should only be him.

Which is why Calum is so torn about his current life situation. He got a second chance at life, which is great, and he appreciates it of course, but the reasoning behind it is confusing. He's not got two separate lives, as two separate species, in two different worlds. He doesn't know how to handle this. There's no handbook, no instruction book. He just got handed this life with an unsympathetic pat on the back and a "good luck". Calum knows he can't have both lives, he's not that lucky. He just doesn't know which one to choose.

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More nets have shown up over the course of a few weeks. They sit like death traps in the water, almost invisible in the moving water, making it nearly impossible to see the net until you're caught inside it. Calum's not sure why they keep showing up more and more each day. There's not exactly a ton of fish around the clan, at least not as many as the fisherman will be looking for. So Calum isn't sure why they keep showing up.

For the first time since Calum has met him, Ashton has looked completely terrified. He hasn't left the safety of his own cave in a few days, huddled against the wall, tension visible in his taut muscles. Nobody asks why. They already know how Ashton feels about the nets. But Ashton is sort of their consolement, their leader, in a way. They have nobody to look up to now, and that makes all the other mermaids way too antsy and unsure.