The Little Mer-Vampire

Part of His World

My heart pounding like a drum, I whooshed past the great white shark, sliding seamlessly through the portal of my favorite sunken ship. The shark attempted to follow, but his thick head got stuck in the hole. He angrily snapped his jaws at me in a futile attempt to grasp my graceful emerald tail by the fin. A few minutes ago he assumed I would be his lunch, unaware that the prey was actually the predator. Tauntingly, I tossed my shimmering blue-black hair over my shoulder and swam leisurely circles around the shark's snapping jaws. He was shaking his head furiously, but he couldn't wriggle free.

"Sirena, didn't Aunt Coral tell you never to play with your food?" My older sister Pearl called from across the wreckage with a smirk on her pretty face. We were the youngest of our father's five daughters and we could've been twins, except my eyes were cerulean like the Caribbean sea and her eyes were a stormy grey. 

Pearl was right; while I enjoyed a good chase and the feel of adrenaline pumping through my veins, enough was enough and I needed to stop toying with my prey. It wasn't fitting behavior for a princess as my father would say. Did I mention I am no ordinary mermaid? My father is king of our ocean which makes all of his daughters princesses.

I lifted my strong tail and slammed my fin into the shark's nose, stunning him momentarily so I could swim above his dorsal fin and sink my sharp, gleaming fangs into his thick flesh to drink his warm, rich blood. Satiated, I floated to where Pearl was examining her reflection in a cracked mirror.

Did I also mention that besides being royalty I'm a vampire mermaid? It's true; all of the royal family are and all of our subjects are too. Don't worry though, we mostly feed on the blood of fish.

" I hope you saved some shark blood for me, after the gift I brought you," Pearl said. She swirled away from the mirror and that's when I noticed the object she was clutching in her slender fingers: a human music box! My sisters know I'm an avid collector of human objects and when I'm not practicing music with them(we are all gifted singers and musicians) I spend my time searching shipwrecks like this one for treasure. My father isn't fond of my hobby, especially since fishermen ensnared my mother in a net, causing her an early death. However, he also knows that some humans love and respect the sea and its inhabitants, as he himself was freed from a fisherman's net as a young prince, so he allows me to indulge in my hobby as long as I am careful.

My sister was cradling the pink music box with a delicate human figure on top in a dance pose. She pried open a little draw revealing human jewelry. I gasped at the sight of a gold ring with a huge sparkling sapphire on top and slipped it on my finger. " It matches your eyes Sirena," she winked.

I threw my arms around my sister's slender waist. " Thank you so much, I love it!" I cried.  

Pearl giggled. " Look what else it does," she said, turning the screw on the bottom. A melody began to play and the figurine on top twirled around and around. I wondered what it would be like to dance like that on two legs instead of a tail.  

Pearl gently placed my new prized treasure in my hands and squeezed them tight. " Sirena, don't look so forlorn. Next year it will be your turn to visit the surface." I nodded and clutched the music box to my heart. I knew Pearl was right, but I wish I could go to the surface now, as all of my older sisters had every year on their sixteenth birthdays. My aunt Coral is a powerful sea witch who grants us the gift of humanity for a week every year on our sixteenth birthdays. She does this to make up for the terrible curse her mother placed on the royal family in retaliation for her younger daughter(our mother) falling in love with our father and becoming his queen. This curse was what turned our kingdom's inhabitants into mer vampires.  After our mother's capture, our grandma perished in a terrible tsunami and our aunt vowed to use the magic she had inherited from her mother to dote on her sister's young children.