Submerged in Water

If I was human, I would've been chilled to the bone. It was colder than usual for winter and I had a feeling it was below freezing. The weather never really effected me though, except when it got too hot. Cold, on the other hand, was like a nice sunny day to me. I truly liked the cold.

My parents would kill me if they knew I had been sneaking out every night. We had decided a long time ago to never tell anyone about my abilities and to never use them even when I thought nobody was around. I kept to this rule most of the time, but hiding my powers left me physically stunted and restless. I was eager to use them every chance I got, especially as of late. If I had to compare it to anything, it was like not using my arms or legs. So lately, for the past few months, I've been coming out to the Chetco river.

I usually passed a large clearing before ending up at the river. Getting across the clearing was always difficult because I was so out in the open. It spanned about a quarter of a mile and nothing but dead stumps and long swaying grass covered it. A cold wind came from the east. If I was caught, I don't know how I would explain to people what a sixteen year old girl in frog pyjamas was doing during the middle of the night, but thankfully I had never been found.

This time, coming towards the clearing, but not quite there yet, I stayed hidden because I heard noises coming from the across the clearing. Hiding behind a large bush and poking my head through, I saw two male figures far away.

They were talking about the clearing.

"This looks like a good place." A boy said, he had a flash light. He couldn't have been much older than me. His voice was light and eager.

"I don't see anyone."

"Here then?"

"Yeah... but not tonight." The man, who seemed to be older than the one with the flash light, a father or an older brother maybe, said. His eyes scanned around the edge of the forest that surrounded the clearing. His eyes passed over my hiding place.

I retreated into the bushes clumsily to conceal myself, I managed to trip on a tree root and make a large sum of noise. Too scared to see if they heard, I turned around and ran back to the house that was about half a mile away. I didn't stop running the entire time and I tripped again and scraped my knee before finally making it back to the house.

When I crawled through the window, I didn't notice my sister was standing there until she turned on the light.

"Aubrey." I breathed, too scared that I was not only caught by the men in the clearing but also my older sister.

"Emele." Her auburn hair was braided down her back and her brown eyes, raised now, stood out more against the fading moonlight that was entering through the window. She was leaning against the door, with her arms crossed, waiting for an explanation.

"Listen... I..."

"Emele, it's okay." She came towards me and then noticed my anxious expression. "You're breathing heavy." She noticed. "Is something wrong?"

"I..." I turned towards the window to close it and then shut the curtains after it. I turned back to face her and began to explain. "I saw some people, I thought they might've heard me so I ran..."

"Did they see anything?"

I shook my head. "No, I wasn't anywhere near water so..."

Aubrey nodded, slightly less worried now. "I know you've been sneaking out the past few nights..." She whispered, keeping her voice low. Our parents were at the end of the hall, the opposite of where my room was. "Why?"

"It's..." I sat down on the bed to steady myself. I leaned back against the pillows propped up against the headboard and tried to settle my racing heart. "I can't keep it in."

"Keep what in?"

"My..." I was barely audible. "Abilities."

She came to sit down beside me and put her hand on my shoulder. She waited to hear what I had to say, but I didn't know how to talk about it, much less explain it. How do you explain something so foreign? So... different?

"I can hear it."

"Hear what?"

"The river. At night." I brought my knees up to my chin and sighed out.

"That's..." I knew what she was going to say. Strange. Weird. Odd. "Do you know why?"

"I'm changing, Aubrey." I looked at her. "It's not just breathing underwater or swimming faster any more. The past few weeks I've been..." I swallowed, trying to explain, "connecting with it."

"With what, the river?"

I nodded. "Not just the river, but water in general. I feel like I can..." I stopped short, because what I had to say was something I couldn't describe. It was something that I couldn't even show and not only did it seem crazy but it was crazy. I tried to remember the feeling of the water, but it wasn't something that I could describe to her in human terms. I wish I knew another language, with different words, to explain what was happening to me.

"What can you do?"

"It's... complicated, Aubrey." I turned to her. "Please don't tell Mom and Dad, they wouldn't understand. I need to keep doing this. Whenever I don't use my abilities... I feel restless and crazy. I can't have this taken away from me. This is the first time I've ever seen anyone out there. Please, Aubrey."

Aubrey nodded, sensing my uneasiness. "On one condition. If you get caught, I knew nothing the entire time, alright?"

"Yes, anything, just... don't."

Aubrey sighed and threw her arms around me. "I'm your sister, I won't tell on you." I felt her chin raise up off my shoulder. "The sun is coming up." She saw the light coming through the curtains. "We have school."

I sighed. "Yeah I know."

She got up off the bed and walked to the door. When she turned back to look at me, she squinted and tilted her head, like she was seeing me for the first time. "You look different... a lot more healthy now."

I laughed. "I've been losing weight. Eating the seaweed has been helping."

She stuck out her tongue. "Gross."

"I... actually like it." I felt my face turn red. "It tastes good."

"Still... gross."

I rolled my eyes. "I think having an... outlet for my abilities has helped too."

She nodded. "Just don't get caught."

"I won't."

She closed the door behind her and I flopped on my bed.

She was right though, I was changing.

Growing up, I had red pimply skin, I was overweight and my hair was always oily. I couldn't go longer than eight hours sometimes without a shower. It took a long time to figure out the problems and how to treat them. There wasn't exactly a handbook for the condition I had. My parents took me to doctors, but they could never really help because everything about me was so strange. Most of my childhood was spent trying to treat me with human medication that only made me sicker. It wasn't until my Dad got into natural medicine that I started to improve and then within the last year I was starting to become recognizably human. I even got to go to a regular high school now.

Since the doctors had failed, my parents had come up with their own conclusion. They weren't dumb, so most of the time they self-diagnosed me. For the time being, they've come to the conclusion that I'm half-fish. At least, that's what we assume. If anyone asks though, I'm just a very hormonal teenager. Once my body started to heal, the abilities came in. Like breathing under water, not being effected by the cold and swimming fast.

I'm thankful that everyone was done trying to force the human life on me. Instead, if I couldn't connect well with the human world, we translated it over to the fish one and I was fine most of the time. Except for the fact that well... I stood out. People notice when you consume a pound of seaweed in one meal, or drink two litres of water in one sitting and then do it again an hour later. I was an outcast at school and I only had a few people I could converse with.

All this weirdness and you would think that I would be a different person but, no, all the strange-ness in the world wouldn't stop me from idolizing the school's golden boy.

Scott Hendrix.