Chapter 1

245 5 1

by creativegirl35769

by creativegirl35769

I wait until Papa takes his weird potion bottles out onto the front of the boat, then swim sneakily towards a secret hatch. My siblings give me curious looks. "I'll be back," I say, shushing them with one of my red flippers.

"You can't leave!" Jesabelle, the eldest of us, snaps. "I can and I will! And you can't stop me!" I hiss, swimming away. "Then I'm going to tell Papa!" Jesabelle screeches, "Papa! Papa! Elizabeth is leaving!" I gulp and swim as fast as my flippers will take me.

"Elizabeth!"

I look back, seeing Papa waving frantically for me to come back, and Jesabelle looking smug beside him. I hiss a toothless hiss and swim faster. I'm coming, human girl! Just wait for me, wherever you are!

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"Loser!" "Freak!" "Yukine? More like Yuck-ine!" I whimper as my three brothers kick and shove and punch me. The oldest one, Jiro, shoves me down the hill in our backyard. I cry out in pain as I slam against a rock near the shore.

My parents never notice this, rather, they're too busy with their jobs to care. My mother is a chef and my father is a scouter. That means that he helps find new land for us. With their jobs, I'm mostly left alone with my abusive older brothers. My only escape is at the ocean. Most children avoid it in fear of causing another disaster.

I whimper as blood trickles down my arm from a rock dug into it. I pull it out and toss it into the water. Plip! Plip! A small red goldfish practically leaps into my lap. She- the fish just looks like a girl, okay?- flops around on my stomach.

I lift her up and carry her to a nearby pool of water underneath a jutted-out rock in the cliff. This pool is separate from the main ocean. I put her in the pool, and she shoots a small stream of water at my face.

I giggle and lie beside the pool. I jolt as something smooth runs over my cut. I look down at my arm in time to see her licking the blood away. I smile and run my hand along her back. The fish flips in the pool and squirts water into the air. I giggle again.

"What's that, Yuck-ine?"

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I glare at the three boys from my little pool. "N-nothing!" My human slides in front of me. "A-and stop calling me Yuck-ine! My name is Yukine!" Yukine? What a beautiful name. It suits her perfectly.

Yukine cries out in pain and lands in my pool. Red swirls around her leg, so I go and lick her cut. It closes almost instantly. "A fish? Really, Yuck-ine? You're so desperate for friends that you'll talk to a fish? Man, you're pathetic, Yuck-ine."

I growl mentally at the boys. Her name is Yukine, not Yuck-ine! Yukine! Yukine! Yukine! "Yukine!" Everyone freezes. I run my tongue along my new, small teeth. "Her name is Yukine!" I shout, spitting water all over the blonde boy.

"Aaah! A crazy talking fish! Run!" The boys flee, and I smirk at their retreating forms. "You-you said my name..." "Elizabeth!" "Hmm?" "I'm Elizabeth! You're Yukine!" I smile up at Yukine. She faints.