Ariana's eyes were focused on the chipped paint on her classroom wall, but her mind wasn't. She kept wondering if this whole mermaid business was true, even though deep down she knew, it was. It was ironic to her, how angry it was making her feel. She gave a small snort of laughter, though the heavy feeling in her stomach seemed to weigh her down even more, leaving her feeling like she had swallowed a dozen stones that was making her mind ache and her body sag. Had she only receieved this news about 6 years earlier, she'd be leaping for joy. Any little girl would be dying to be a mermaid. She wasn't even quite sure why she was so upset at the prospect. In the tales she had read, Duyung always lived a life of freedom, Singing beautiful songs to passing sailors to help them on their journey, protecting them from the almost-identical sirens who used their melodic voices to drag the sea explorers to their horrific deaths. She wondered now if sirens were real too. She thought to all the fairy tale creatures she had read about, about Pari-pari with glittering wings and giggling voices, about Naga with beautiful scales and judgemental eyes,about pixies with sparkling dust and mischevious grins. She had worshipped all those creatures as a kid, even wanted to be some of them, and now she wondered if those too, had been real at some point atau another. Then she thought about the other mythical creatures in her books, the ones lebih known for being of a lebih hostile breed. She thought about the lochness monster, rarely seen but deadly to those who do, about the hydra, appearing harmless but transforming into a deadly creature with 9 heads, and the scylla, lesser-known but one she was always fascinated by, who appeared as a seeminginly beautiful water-nymph but could summon horrible powers beyond belief. If Duyung were real, who's to say those weren't either? Who's to say she hadn't been swimming in the ocean, unknowningly receiving a jealous glare from an aspara, atau a hungry look from a draci?

Suddenly, she felt herself being shaken, and the imej in her head swirled away.
"Ariana? Are anda okay?" She looked up to see Chase shaking her and the whole class gone.
"What...What happened?" She asked. Chase frowned.
"Uh, it's 3:00? Schools over?" His look was now waning between concern and wary.
"Did anda uh...hit your head when anda fell underwater?" He asked, giving a smirk she wanted to perahu nelayan kecil, pukulan right off his face.
But instead she got up, pushed aside him, leaving him with a wrinkled baju and a confused look, and stormed out the door.



------------------------------


She started to walk utama on the boardwalk, reminding herself to pick up her purse. She sort of felt bad for how she had treated Harold. The first thing she was going to do was apologize to him. Well, the first of many things, she thought. But as she walked towards the boardwalk, she felt her pace getting slower and slower. Something wasn't right. She didn't feel like heading home. She stopped in the middle of the boardwalk. Suddenly, she jumped the railing, completely forgetting her dompet, beg tangan and all the contents inside, and started running along the beach.


At first she didn't realize where she was going. But then she recognized the pattern of the beach, the familiar rocks jutting out, all jogged from memory. She was heading to the spot where her grandfather had found her, she was sure of it. She had gone there a lot as a kid, fascinated, but stopped as she got older, as she found she didn't like it. There, the water was always colder, the sand always grittier and harsher under her feet, it was littered with trash, and there was always some group of teenagers smoking atau drinking atau doing whatever other activities that would guarantee them a certain profession of McDonald's employee for life. Finally, she reach the spot and stopped, hati, tengah-tengah pounding, the beat a steady rhythm in her ears. She dropped to the sand, hands digging into the crushed shell, knotting underneath her fingernails, taking deep, gasping breaths. What the hell was she doing here? She shook her head, trying to clear her mind, but she felt like her head was filled with water. And slowly, her whole body started to feel that way, draggish and slow on land. She put a hand ke hadapan to steady herself, not really paying attention, and that hand ended up right in the shallowest part of the water. To her surprise, her hand suddenly felt light and carefree, like it was floating.

And then her shell kalung started to glow.


"What-" she started to cough out, but felt her voice run dry as dust. Then, the shell kalung literally started to pull her towards the ocean. She sat back and tried to grasp the chain, but it was to no avail. She was having a tug-of-war match with her necklace, and her jewelery was winning. It began to drag her along the sand, leaving a muddy trail behind her. She knotted her teeth and tugged harder, eyes full of panic, now waist-deep in the ocean. She cried out and pulled against the chain with all her might, even tried to lift it off her neck, but it was stuck fast to her, like it was attached to her skin. She looked around in vain, but no one was on the beach. Damn delinquents, why did they have to choose today not to fill their lungs with chemicals so they could be there to fucking save her! With one last gallant effort, she tried to rip the chain in two. But she couldn't stop the kalung from pulling her whole body underwater, until she had completely vanished into the ocean, the only trail trace of her quickly washed away sejak the foam of the tide.