Each baby born beneath the waves is killed--with one exception: the one hundred thousandth is spared. There's one rule shared between the island's tribes: don't touch the water. When Cressa-la breaks this law, her world, and body, changes. Sure, change is normal... but when has growing scales ever been normal? • • • Watty Award Winner 2015: Best Use of Visuals • • • Each baby born beneath the waves is killed--with one exception: the one hundred thousandth is spared. Among the spared, magic chooses a rare few, connecting them to the moon or sea. These are the One-Hundreds, mermaids and humans with the power to save the world-or corrupt it. When Cressa-la breaks the first rule of her tribe and touches the water surrounding her island, everything she knows turns on its head. Talking, sinister dolphins, mind control, and a whole world just under the waves await her on her eigteenth birthday... but she never asked for any of this. All she wanted was to become a Tribe Leader and take care of her village. It's amazing how one screw-up can change everything. A relentless darkness reaches for her, wanting her affections for his own twisted purposes. In opposition stands a fractured light, haunted by a painful past where corruption eroded friendship. Unless Cressa-la can bring the darkness to his knees and fight the war raging inside, the world is doomed. • • • Content warning: This story contains themes of depression and violence.

/// SAMENESS, WHAT WE STRIVED FOR SO LONG TO ACHIEVE. BUT WHAT IF YOU'RE DESTINED TO BE DIFFERENT? \\\ Nine months of Hibernation, three months of being awake--that's how the year goes for us. Half of us wake up tired and sore while all of us wake up smelling of either lotion or bleach. But during the nine month period of hibernation, I woke up. And now I know why I always wake up sore and reeking of bleach. ⥀ Humans have always strived for equality, for everyone to be treated equal. We finally reached the point of this harmony, this level of sameness--and everyone is happy. Many, many generations later. But what happens when, in a wold of people knocked down and stood up to be exactly alike, a person wants to be different? What if they're destined to be unique in a world of strict equality? ⥀ #10 in Scifi on 7/21/17 MADE IT TO ROUND 3 IN THE WRITERS OLYMPICS Now available as a paperback and ebook. [[word count: 65,000-70,000]]