From Feet to Fins

The ocean was smooth and calm as glass. The usually tumultuous waves were reduced to gentle ripples. The air was fresh with a salty tang, the night sky spattered with stars.

The only thing that disturbed the peaceful silence was a party of seven people, five of which were drunk.

The five inebriates were dancing around a bonfire, screaming bar songs at the top of their lungs whilst chugging bottles and bottles of beer.

Kim and Alan were the only sober ones. Alan was designated to be sober in order to drive everyone home, and Kim wanted to give him some quiet, pleasant company.

An engagement ring glittered on Kim's finger, twinkling like a star in the red firelight. Alan recently proposed to Kim. It would be their second marriage, both having ended in a violent divorce. They'd been high school sweethearts from their sophomore year until the end of their senior year and had drifted apart for some reason that neither was able to pinpoint.

Kim laid her head on Alan's shoulder, smiling softly, warm golden undertones revealed in her dark eyes.

Suddenly, a baby's cry shattered the night. The drunkards stumbled around, their eyes squinting into the darkness. "Whawuzzat?" asked the most inebriated, Dave.

"Larry, go check it out!" Alice whispered, shoving him in the direction of the baby's scream.

"No!" he stumbled away, his eyes wide and frightened.

Kim sighed. "I'll go check it out."

"I'll come with you," said Alan, slipping his hand into Kim's. The infant continued to wail, its screams shattering the night.

The sound led them to the shore. Kim turned on a flashlight and flashed it along the length of the shore. "Oh, Alan!" Kim dropped the flashlight, fortunately onto the sand, and grabbed her fiance's arm.

"What?" asked Alan.

"What's wrong?" called Julie from the fire.

"It's a baby! I didn't even... I thought..." Kim felt around the damp sand and lifted a toddler from the water's edge. She lifted the toddler into her arms and Alan shone the flashlight on the infant.

The toddler had a halo of rosy copper hair, and most astoundingly, a rose-pink tail with a coppery shimmer instead of a pair of legs. Kim grabbed the flashlight, glaring up at Alan. "Give me your jacket," she whispered. "They can't know."

He handed her his flannel and she wrapped the young toddler in the warm, rough fabric.

"Lemme see the baby," Alexander slurred, poking his face in between Kim's head and the baby's. Kim clutched the toddler to her chest and felt the tail squirming inside the jacket. "It's not a baby," he pouted. "It's a toddler!"

"Shhh," Kim whispered as the child yawned. "I need to take her home. Call some people. Find out where she's from," she lied, knowing that no one would reply.

"Okay," said Lucas with a tinge of disappointment.

Everyone got into the car, and only five minutes into the drive, they were asleep.

Kim waited a few more moments to pull the toddler out of the jacket. Alan glanced over as he drove. "It's gone," she whispered, seeing the perfect, chubby toddler legs that had replaced the tail.

"What?" he asked, glancing back over.

The toddler shivered violently and Kim grabbed a beach blanket from a small pile at her feet and wrapped the baby in the sandy cloth.

"We can't let anyone know about it," Kim said. "We can't let anyone know, or it will be in the news. She'll become a science experiment, and that is no way for a child to live."

"Okay, so we protect her? For how long?" asked Alan.

Kim looked down at the peaceful, sleeping face and whispered, "Until she is ready to go back to the ocean."

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This is going to be a multiple-part series, so stay tuned!! Drop a like, comment, share, and subscribe if you want to see more.