The Fool By The Seaside | mclennon

9

Chapter 9: The Bath

John was collecting shells, his lovely tail twisting around him joyously. He was humming a nice tune, probably one of Paul's, and digging in the sand. His hair was long and held back with a diadem decorated with pearls, like the ones mated mermaids wore. John saw nothing unusual about this scene, and he only giggled when a pair of arms wrapped around his waist.

He turned around to face his mate, Paul. The other merman regarded him with a soft smile, his emerald green tail wrapping around John's.

"Have you found anything?" Paul asked as he caressed the other's waist.

John smiled and held up a sack, "I have, acushla. Wonder where all the crabs go, leaving their shells behind."

Paul chuckled, "Well, they died, Johnny! Just like I did."

John's smile fell and his head tilted in confusion, "What are you talking about?"

His mate kept on smiling, even as his gills closed and his tail started to fall away. "I died, Johnny. You forced me to love you, you dragged me down with you-" He was turning blue now, his eyes becoming empty. "And I died, I drowned." The human had his legs back but they were slack and dead beneath him as he sank- "Why did you do it, Johnny? Why did you kill me?"

John held his mate as bubbled came out of his mouth, "No! Paul, I didn't-I wouldn't kill you, why-"

Because you are a siren, A familiar voice told him, and a little fish appeared next to him. It was Ridire.

"Ridire, what do you mean? I love him-"

The fish swam next to Paul's slack face, You put him under your spell, it told him, you seduced and drowned him. You are a siren, it is what your kind do.

John sobbed, " No. "

But it was true, wasn't it? He was holding his human's dead body, now slowly starting to float towards the surface.

John chased after him, "No, Paul, NO-"

The merman woke up, his chest shaking and the rest of his body quivering. He felt a wet substance all of him and in the nets, or 'sheets' as Paul had called them, around him.

He looked around him in fear, but found himself far away from the ocean, no dead lover or dead friend near him. But there was a strange salty smell in the room, almost as if someone had been there and left an ocean smell behind.

He startled again when he heard a knock on the door.

"'Ello?" Said a voice, Paul's friend. "You okay there, mate?"

John didn't answer, why was the stranger asking him if he was okay? They didn't know each other.

The door started opening, "Sorry, it's just I, I heard you scream." The thin boy entered the chamber, "Did you have a nightmare?" George was hesitant, Paul had had to go home so that his dad didn't get suspicious, and that meant that George was all alone with this stranger.

John just looked at him with a tilted head.

The other boy sighed, "I get them too sometimes, nothing wrong with them." He have John a small smile, trying to push his fear aside.

The siren frowned, "Night-mare?"

George nodded, pleased at getting a reaction. "Yeah, y'know, a bad dream."

John tilted his head further, "Dreeam?"

The human frowned, "Don't you know what a dream is?"

The other shook his head.