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  Against The Current

  Ashlynn Mills writing as SJ Lynn

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  Copyright©2019 SJ Lynn

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any oriented of electronic form without permission.

  This is a work of fiction. Names and characters have been made up, and the story came from the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to real-life events or people is pure coincidence.

  An ocean between us Novel sneak peak

  Emery always stayed buried in the deepest parts of the water, until one day a light from up above triggered his curiosity, bringing him to surface. He didn't know what to expect from the world above. He never expected the giant mystery to lead him into the deep brown eyes of a breathtaking human, who may be the answer to the awful curse he's under and also the one person who will forever own his heart. He was always told nothing but danger rested above the waters, but the real dangers just may lie in the very place he always thought of as safe. When his real safe haven may be the place that rests outside the ocean.

  Caleb always felt like something was missing in his life, but never knew what it was until he found it and lost it all in the same day. Night after night Caleb set out into the waters where his heart pulled him, leading him back to the beautiful man that swam up to his boat one night and then slipped back into the sea without giving him so much as a name. Time after time he was disappointed, until one day fate sends him right into the tentacles of the most captivating creature he has ever come across and once he is there, he never wants to leave.

  The two worlds should never mix, but Caleb refuses to let Emery slip through his fingers again, getting lost in the sea. Emery refuses to stay lost, but something may keep him from ever coming to surface again and Caleb's love may be the only thing that can save him.

  One

  Emery

  The memory of the sea Queen’s last words had cut into me like glass, as I made way into open waters with my arms and appendages floating behind me, “You will always pay for the mistakes of your mother.”

  She was right, I always would. The water seemed clearer today, the colors of each plant beneath me were crisp and vibrant. My stomach growled, as my eyes followed a school of fish. The ocean has been the only world I've ever known, and nothing ever gave me a reason to leave it. I was safe down here, and it was familiar. It got lonely at times, but it was my home, my safe haven whenever the humans didn’t try to disturb it. My tentacles dodged a family of pink jellyfish that swam past me. The dangers that lay below the water were different dangers than the ones that awaited above the ocean. I'd had no desire to explore the human world as a child, because the ocean was such a huge, colorful place to explore, full of many creatures so different from myself. My thoughts floated back to my own family as more families of creatures made their way to their destination. I didn’t always look this way and only did due to a curse the sea queen had set upon my family. My purple tentacles and arms that surrounded me were a reminder of how my mother, the sea witch, betrayed the sea queen many years ago and was banished to the other side of the ocean. She had been a beautiful mermaid once but now was something else entirely, and so were me and my older brother. I never did understand why we were cursed alongside with her.

  For years I lived in my mother’s shadow, and for years I fought to be free from it. My mother is gone now, but I still don’t feel free. She had been here one minute and the next there had been no trace of her anywhere. I bear the weight of all the pain she caused the people around her. I never knew exactly what she did, I was too young at the time to understand everything that had been happening around me. No one could look at me without seeing her. No one had seen my brother since my mother left years ago. I wasn’t sure I ever would see him again. I could barely even remember what he was like. All I carried from him were his last words to me, “This can’t be our fate, I won’t let it.”

  I carried those words with me over the years. Sometimes, the only words that kept me company, were the ones in my head. There were only a few Mer-folk who would speak to me, and they were the only thing that connected me to the outside world. Many of them had swam to the surface out of curiosity of the life that took place outside the ocean. They could transform into human form as soon as they were completely out of water, but my ability to transform out of water was taken away when my tail was. Not many of them who traveled above stayed for long, except for Raven. It was like he always left the water in search of something or someone. “There is so much to be offered from the world above,” he had said.

  I had never been and never thought I would, but enjoyed hearing all their stories of the place I always forbid myself to go. Then the day came when I let curiosity overtake me. My mother always told me curiosity usually came with bad outcomes. My father died swimming to shore before I was born, and I never even had the chance to meet him. I never wanted to suffer the same fate, so I always stayed far beneath the sea where it was safe.

  The only reason I was above the water that day was because of a bright light my eyes had followed all the way up to shore. It was different from the sun and only shone in one spot. I was never one to explore my curiosity, but I suddenly had the need to know the source of this light. I swam and swam with my arms and tentacles flowing beneath me, until the light got brighter and brighter. My face pushed through the barrier that kept me separated from the world where instead of breathing water, I was breathing in what Raven called, "air." I wiggled my nose, as it took a minute for it to become adjusted to the new substance, getting a feel of the air running along my face—it was cold and dry. My eyes remained closed for a minute or two as I took in the smells around me. I had never smelled the ocean this way before, but there was something mixed in with it, something much more alluring than anything I’d ever scented before.

  My eyes opened, and the light was gone and replaced with curious green eyes of one of the most beautiful creatures I’d ever laid eyes on. He appeared very much like me from his head to his waist, but instead of two tentacles and six long arms, like I had, he had two long limbs much thicker and longer than my arms, which the humans called legs. They were peculiar things that allowed him to move along the floating device he was standing on. I studied them and the way they rested on the ground, allowing the human to not tumble over. What would it be like to rest on the earth's dry land with my limbs touching the dark sand? I had never wondered what it would be like to stick my tentacles outside the water until now, with the moonlight dancing against it.

  I was so close to the shore, too close. I didn't realize how far I’d swam out. This was the danger zone, but the pounding of my heart told me it was worth the risk. It was so loud it took over my ears, almost blocking out the sound of the human’s voice, which was deep and smooth. "What are you doing in the water so late? Do you need help?"

  I wasn't sure how to answer his questions. He was speaking a language I wouldn't have understood if I wasn't wearing my amulet my grandmother gave me before my mother and I were forced out of our old home. She had said,”Always keep it close to your heart,” and I always did, with it hanging off a piece of rope around my neck. The human continued to take me in with his eyes, reaching his hand out into the water. “I didn’t realize anyone else was out here. What are you doing out this time of night without a wetsuit? You must be freezing!”

  My hand was reaching up for his, ignoring the warning my brain was sending. Our hands touched, leaving a zinging sensation that traveled down my body. His hand was different from mine. It was soft, and his fingers weren’t webbed together either. Suddenly, the sound of a loud horn nearby snapped me out of my trance, and I quickly sunk back into the
water without exposing my tentacles to the mesmerizing stranger—who no doubt would have shared with his friends about what he saw. I didn't need to bring any disturbance to the ocean like a Mer once did, exposing herself to a bunch of fishermen claiming she was in love. Do humans even love? I never quite felt love before, but I enjoyed the idea of it. The way people spoke of it as if once you found it, nothing else mattered. That it was a feeling that consumed you in the best ways and filled your heart with the utmost joy, but that it could also break it. That Mer risked everything just to have her heart broken by this so-called fisherman who claimed to have loved her. He didn’t love her; he was fascinated by what she was, and that fascination soon faded.

  I wondered if all humans who floated above the water were called fishermen. The way these fishermen were described to me didn't fit my human's description at all. Black rubber covered his body, and he had removed a device from the top of his head that must have been the thing that produced the light I saw. It was hard to see much else of him with the sun not being out. Was the sun as beautiful as the moon was? It was a beautiful white crescent shape that rested in the sky, shedding enough light to make the water gleam around me. The one thing that shone brighter were his eyes. I had a feeling those eyes would stay with me for a while. As I swam further and further back down into the ocean, the sound of the horn grew more and more faint. I had never been so careless before, but I couldn't come back without knowing what it was like to touch him, and now my body ached to do it again.

  Two

  Caleb

  I was taking a night dive like I usually did on Friday nights. Today was a lot colder than it had been lately, so I didn’t plan on staying out long. I didn’t dive too deep this time and was already taking my boat back to shore as I began removing my swimming gear. Something moved in the water before me, so I kept my headlamp on as I bent down over the boat, glancing into the dark ocean’s water. The water shook as if something was coming at a fast speed; I took a step back into the boat, expecting something that resembled maybe a whale or dolphin, but definitely not a human. Why would a person be out swimming this late? He was like no one I had ever seen before. His eyes had a yellow hue, almost as if a light shone from them into mine, locking me in place. He was breathtaking, with long dark braided hair that fell down his right shoulder into the water. But what the hell was he doing out here? My eyes wanted to follow his bare skin down to the part of him that was hidden below the water.

  I called out to the man, and I could hear the shakiness in my voice, “I didn’t realize anyone else was out here. What are you doing out this time of night without a wetsuit? You must be freezing!”

  He didn’t say anything, and I found myself sticking out my hand to touch him without so much as a thought. By the time I realized what I was doing, his hand was already on its way to touching mine. His fingers were webbed, almost as if…no. There hadn’t been a Mer sighting in years. I wasn’t even sure if they existed anymore, or if they were ever real to begin with. He was very much real though and was floating right in front of me. Maybe that was why I reached out to touch him, to see if I actually could. As if I thought he would disappear the moment our hands touched. He had on a necklace with some type of glowing pink stone that hung from a piece of twine. His palm stuck against mine, almost as if it was partly made of scales. Mers didn’t have hands like that in any of the tales I’d heard, but for all I knew, that was all they were, just tales.

  Having never seen a Mer, who knew what was real and what I was made to believe. People stopped searching for them long ago after continuously coming up empty-handed. People used to say they were the reason for all the mysterious drownings that happened every few years when people would wonder too far into the ocean. These stories never scared me because that’s all they probably were, just stories. I believed that for a long time, until tonight. Unless I was more tired than I thought I was and had briefly fallen asleep standing up. But no, he was real. He had to be. The memory of this would be forever etched into my mind. There was no way he was just some dream or figment of my imagination. Maybe I should be scared or freaked out, but I wasn’t. I was fascinated by him, and I needed to see him again.

  I would go out again tomorrow night to the same spot at the same exact time and wait to see if he would show again. Maybe he was drawn out by the light of my head lamp. Maybe I would be able to draw him out again. I had to know if this was real; I had to know if he was real. I threw myself into bed right after my shower. I should have kept talking to him, I should have tried to keep him there longer. That boat just had to show up at the wrong time. I hope it didn’t show up again tomorrow night. I wasn’t even sure he could speak or if he even understood me. There was something about the way he tilted his head to the side at the sound of my words. The way his hand clasped around the glowing stone that sat below his breastbone as if he was seeking it for answers.

  I closed my eyes to the images of the beautiful creature in the ocean and hoped my dreams of him would be enough to hold me over until I saw him again. Until the day came where he would be in front of me again, making me forget anything else existed.

  Three

  Emery

  Visions of the human continued to swim in my mind as I swam further away from the spot I last saw him. I knew I couldn’t go back there. I would be too tempted to be near him again. What if he did more than just touch my hand next time? What if he captured me and carried me away in his boat? I would probably let him. I swam into one of my favorite caves, closing my eyes to make my last visions of the human appear more clear in my mind, almost as if he was standing right in front of me, and I reached my hand out to touch the empty space before me. Suddenly, I heard a familiar voice call out, “What on earth are you doing?”

  I turned around to face the annoying little Mer who didn’t know what privacy meant. Raven would occasionally come around to antagonize me, and I guess in a way we were friends. He was the only one who really talked to me anymore. Raven was told just like the others to stay away from me, but he was never very good at listening. Just like he was not very good at listening to the warnings not to go up to shore. My purple limbs and tentacles moved from behind me as I swam closer to the annoying merman. If it wasn’t for Raven, I wouldn’t know so much about the things that lived outside the sea. I wouldn’t know so much about humans, and now that I had come across one, I wanted to know more. “I was just thinking.”

  He swished his beautiful blue tail back and forth, “That’s not what I saw. Did you miss me so much that you created an imaginary friend?”

  I brushed my hair away from my face, “No, I was actually enjoying the peace and quiet, but since you’re here, maybe you can tell me more about humans.”

  His eyes grew wide, “Why would you want to know about humans? You never even leave the water.”

  My hands fell to my tentacles nervously, “I did tonight, but you have to promise to not tell anyone okay? I went up, and I saw a human. At least I’m pretty sure it was a human. He looked like me but then he didn’t.”

  Raven rested against a nearby rock, “Wait, you went to the surface? You saw a human? Did they see you?”

  I shook my head, “No, I mean yes, but he didn’t know what I was. He didn’t see my tentacles. He did talk to me though and well…we touched for a brief second until a boat came, and I hurried back to the cave without exposing myself.”

  Raven relaxed against the rock, “Well, that’s good at least, the last thing we need is to have humans disturb our peace. What did he say to you? What do you mean you touched? You have to tell me everything, and then I will tell you all you want to know about humans.”

  Raven and I spent the rest of the time talking before I laid upon my favorite resting place to get some sleep. He told me everything he knew about humans and how they wore these things called clothes, which was probably what the human I saw had on. He spun around on his back," Humans are not safe, and you shouldn’t go near one again." He swished his ta
il back and forth, "You're lucky he didn’t take me away to be some kind of science experiment."

  I wasn’t sure what he meant until he explained what humans did when they found creatures like us. I knew I should listen to him, but now that I knew what I saw above the water, I didn’t think I could stay away. I had to see the human again, but I knew it wasn’t safe. I would be risking everything if I saw him, but I still didn’t think that would stop me.

  When I awoke in the morning, I didn’t swim out to the same spot again. I tried to keep myself occupied swimming in my favorite areas, examining different parts of the sea I was still allowed to travel. It all seemed so boring now, and nothing down here was as exciting as what was offered up above. The next few days went by the same way, and I’m not sure how much longer I would be able to continue avoiding the thing I wanted to see the most. Maybe I could just swim near where his boat last was but not reach the surface, but every time I tried, I would quickly turn back around. The thought of him running in disgust from seeing what I was made my heart sink into my stomach. What if he found me to be some kind of monster? Mers were seen as beautiful, but I wasn’t beautiful like them.

  They had long beautiful tails and I had these long purple arms and tentacles that often got in my way when I swam, and many sea creatures swam away when they laid eyes on all of me. If they felt that way, then surely, so would he. Raven said my appearance was unique, and it made me different from anything else in the sea. I didn’t want to be different. I had a beautiful tail once but now it’s nothing but a lost memory. I can barely remember what it looked or felt like.