Insula Somnium, Isle of Dreams.

Chapter Ten

Sunlight was streaming in through the cracks in my little hut. The mermaids had been very kind to me after I had agreed to wear the locket. They started making my hut for me, some went out in the ocean to look for male clothes, one even gave me a small dagger, saying that I needed something to hunt with.

I got up, and stretched. I looked over by the opening to my tent, and found a pile of neatly folded clothes. I suppose they found some in the water. I picked them up. The mermaids were very good at guessing size, it seemed, because they had only given me items that fit me well.

A lot of the clothes were bloody, and I didn't want to think about the reason behind it. I stripped my clothes off, and pulled on a white button down shirt, with puffy cuffs. It looked like something straight out of a Renaissance fair. I pulled on some jeans, that, surprisingly, were blood free. The shirt had a bit red blotch right over the heart. The locket still hung around my neck. I went outside, and decided for a little jog down the beach. I was hungry, I couldn't remember the last time I had eaten, but my week on the island had trained me to go for an extended amount of time with being hungry. 

A lot of mermaids were doing tasks, some were bringing things to and from the water. I watched in amazement how they dove into the water, dissappeared, and then emerged a little later with things in their hands, and also with a tail instead of legs. I watched as they dragged themselves out of the water, and morphed from mermaid to human. It looked as easy as breathing to them, but I know it wasn't. Taylor still couldn't do that. 

It was after some time that I found Taylor. She was at the far end of the beach. She was standing on a rocky outcropping that was in the ocean. The rocks were higher than the waves, so she was dry, and human. She had her knees cradled against her chest, her head resting on them. She was looking out at the ocean. I snuck up on her, and was about to touch her when she said softly, 

"Dan, I know you're there." So I guess I hadn't snuck up on her after all. I sat down next to her. She had never moved her gaze from the water, and she continued to do so now.

"Dan, I don't want to eat humans, I really don't. But I feel so weak, so powerless." She said quietly, "I feel as if death is hanging over my shoulder, I can feel myself slipping away. I've tried to eat anything else, I really have. There was a mango tree I found. I sat there for hours, eating mangoes, but every time I ate one, it just came back up. 

Dan, it's terrible. I can't even eat mangoes anymore, and mangoes were my favourite. I don't know what to do." 

"This goes against every moral I have, but Taylor, if it's human flesh you need, then get it."

"But it's wrong, they all had lives before this, they all had reasons to live. I see their faces when they're being attacked, the look of pure horror. I don't think I could take it." I put my hand gingerly around her, and pulled her close to me. Her skin was freezing cold.

"Just think of it this way. If you don't eat them, someone else will. And you deserve to live on Taylor. I won't let you die. So you either eat them yourself, or I'll force-feed my flesh to you." She laughed softly.

"Okay, I'll try." She said. I smiled at her.

"Where's Genevieve?" She asked.

"Why would I know?" 

"Don't kid with me. I see the way you look at her. You like her. Or as Genevieve would say 'you fancy her'" I laughed.

"I guess she would say that wouldn't she? Bloody English people!" I joked, we both knew I loved the English accent much better than my American one.

"So where is she?" Taylor asked, finally breaking her gaze of the water to look at me. I explained to her what happened last night.

"Well, I saw her before she went to her home, her hands were normal."