Irreversible (h.s)

Chapter 2

Coralie's POV 

"Coralie! I need you to hurry up! Wedding starts in two hours!" My sister, Echo screams. I roll my eyes in annoyance. Echo is getting married today, to the richest merman in the ocean. Should I be happy? Yes. Am I? Not at all. Echo hardly even knows him, and the only reason she is marrying him is because he is rich and father needs the money. 

"Coming!" I swim as fast as I can to the bride and her bridesmaids. My sister looks at me with disgust as she looks at my hair. 

"Take your hair down and brush it, it looks awful up." She demands. I yank the brush from her fins and swim to the other side of the cove. "Yes, my queen." I fake bow.  

"Well I will be Queen soon, so get used to saying that from now on." She winks. I roll my eyes and glance out of the window and notice a turtle being taken to the surface by a net, and I cringe. "Another turtle?" My sisters friend- Bianca asks. 

"Yeah." I sigh. I have never been to the surface, I am too scared, but the stories I have heard are awful. Our city is surrounded by a barrier that only lets mer people and fish inside, and if you leave the barrier, you can never return. I have spent most of my life reading scrolls of the outside world. There are patches of dry land that lay the earth, apart from the ocean. And there are people that live on the dry land. Us mer people call them Dry- Landers. 

"That's way you never leave your group, that turtle could be you." Echo explains for the millionth time this week. 

"That's terrifying, to think that if we ever hit dry land we will become a siren." The other bridesmaid- Penelope mutters. 

        A siren is a creature that is half human- half mermaid. The tale states that once you dry off on land, that your tail only comes back on a new moon. Your hunger changes from sea-weed, and shrimp- to human flesh and blood. I've never seen a siren in real life, but my father has told me many stories about the mermaids from his time that wanted to be rebellious. Sirens can change their form to look like any creature, and they lure people to their deaths by their voice. 

        All mer people can sing. But the sirens singing, is deadly. I finish brushing my hair and Penelope braids the front of my hair into a headband. 

        The wedding goes by slowly- too slowly and I am practically falling asleep. My father keeps tapping my tail to make sure I stay awake. 

"You know she doesn't love him?" I whisper to him. He nods his head slowly. 

"I know sweetheart. Sometimes greed causes people to do stupid things." He says. I know whenever I do get married, I want to be in love. Love seems like such a strange and intriguing emotion. "But she's also doing this out of love. She wants to be able to support us as well." He adds. Is that was love is? Doing nice things for other people? Being the oldest sister, I have always had a pinch of jealously towards my sister. She has always been able to attract mermen and be such a confident merperson. My thoughts are interrupted by the cheers and laughs of everyone around me. 

"You may kiss the bride." Echo may act like she is in love, but I know she is just doing this for the attention.