"I want to eat you," Kelsea stated easily, as if she had said "I want to eat ice cream" instead. "You can either take that as a compliment or a sign of my loss of sanity - I don't care which. I'm craving meat and you're the closest thing to it out here. Of course, I could never actually eat you. For one, I would have to catch you and that is right next to impossible. Also, I'm a lousy chef so you would definitely taste horrible if I tried cook you. However, the most important factor that is preventing me from eating you is that I don't know what kind of diseases you carry."

The seagull in the palm tree above her squawked.

"Hey, don't take offense from that. Germ-infested trash is part of your diet and I do not want to catch anything else on top of this stupid mermaid disease-thing. Plus you're clearly wrong in the head if you flew out to this island in the middle of nowhere."

The gull deposited a load of poo on Kelsea's foot before it squawked again and flew away. She leapt up from her shady seat on the ground and yelled at the bird, "Fly away, coward, because if I get my hands on you I'll wring your neck!" She shook her leg out a couple times but realized the flailing was getting her nowhere. It was more like she was doing a ridiculous dance.

You put your right leg in, you put your right leg out, you put your right leg in and you shake it all about.

Clearly, sheer boredom was driving her insane.

She mumbled, "You made an awful conversationalist, anyway."

Kelsea shuffled through the sand, hoping that the fine crystalline granules would scrape off at least some of the gunk. Instead, most of it simply stuck to her, leaving her with a bigger mess. Finally, she decided to rise off her foot and headed towards the water.

By her count, this day made her third on the pathetic excuse for an island. Her dad's fiftieth birthday passed and Kelsea was certain it had not been the happy celebration he wished for. She wondered what they did instead. What if they thought-

Nope, she was absolutely not going to let her thoughts wander down that dark alley for the hundredth time.

The blonde girl stepped into the shallow surf in order to rid herself of bird droppings.

To avoid dwelling on the unhappy things, she tried to think about the bright side of her situation. For instance, she was alive and breathing. Not to mention, she could keep an eye on the merman. As long as he hovered around the island, he was nowhere close to her family. She could put up with the silence, the tense atmosphere, and the itchy throat and legs, but she would not tolerate her family being harassed or harmed.

Kelsea, having scrubbed her foot clean, made her way out of the water. She sat down in the sand so that the warm waves would barely brush her toes while the rest of her stayed dry.

The teenager scanned the horizon, hoping that today would be the day a boat would sail by or even a plane would fly overhead. They never did, which Kelsea found highly unusual. It was like she was living in the center of the Bermuda Triangle. Except, this was probably worse.

As she stared into the distance she mindlessly ran her fingers up and down her legs. Normally she'd kill for a razor to shave her legs after only a couple days (she couldn't stand prickly legs), but somehow her legs were relatively hairless. Weird, but for once she wasn't about to complain.

Her fingers lingered over the puncture wounds. They had healed quickly into shallow dips in her skin. The black color was disconcerting, but that was on the list of topics she tried not to think about. Just like the little dark bruises that dotted her lower limbs, which were concentrated around the bite mark. Where there were bruises, there were also little bumps, like scales just under her skin.

"How do you fare?" The baritone voice of Izmuir came out of nowhere, disrupting her thoughts.

Kelsea glanced to her right, where the merman lay on his back and his arms crossed under his head. He must have dragged himself there within the last couple minutes, and she hadn't noticed a thing.

"Doesn't lying like that hurt the fin on your back?" she asked, her gaze quickly returning to the water when fish boy turned his gold eyes on her.

"Nay. My dorsal fin is mainly composed of soft rays; they are fairly flexible," he said with a slight flick of his tail. "Now, how do you fare?"

She shrugged. "Can I go home now?"

Izmuir's face had been neutral, but with that question a frown marred his pleasant features. "My response remains unchanged: nay."

Kelsea hummed briefly.

"Human -" The girl glowered at him, so he started again: "Kelsea, how fare you?"

She sniggered, "Reply hazy; try again." Her land-colloquialisms confused him, but he understood the gist. Perhaps an alternate topic would be more suited to her liking, he reasoned.

"What are you doing?" he tried.

A pregnant pause made Izmuir doubt a response would be had, but then she said, "Searching for a sign of life."

"Am I not amongst living?" he goaded.

Kelsea pursed her rose-tinted lips. "Can we try again? Ask me what I'm doing."

Hope bubbled inside his chest. "What are you doing?"

"Searching for a sign of intelligent life."

"Am I not - oh." With her rejoinder, clever retorts died on his tongue.

She truly despised every bit of him, he thought, down to the very last scale, and there was nothing he could do to reverse the damage. He could not let her return home, not now.

Kelsea felt like she had kicked a puppy. Izmuir had sat up during their exchange, but his head was downturned, his long, dark hair falling in front of his face. Underneath the curtain of hair, a hurt expression adorned his face. What happened to Mr. Haughty?

She regretted opening her mouth, despite having no good reason to feel sorry to her captor. Arguably, he deserved it. He never gave a good reason for tearing her from her friends and family. He never apologized for any of his actions. Her philosophy: When in doubt, blame the merman - it was probably his fault. Coconut head was an a-hole.

And she was being a jerk too. He had his story and secrets; she had hers.

The blonde girl stood up, brushing the sand from her butt before retreating. Starting the next day she would be the bigger person.

Kelsea hid herself away in the boat. She padded over to a cushion and sat down, crossing her legs. Her fingers drummed across her thighs for a moment as she pondered what to do next. It was times like these she yearned for her journal and a pen to record and sort out her thoughts.

She had not been inside for half and hour before she heard the distinct pitter-patter of rain droplets hitting the boat. The sound lulled her into a light mid-afternoon nap.

When she woke up, the rain had stopped. She rubbed her eyes, stretched, and took in a deep breath.

Only for her breath to hitch. The smell and taste of salt in the air and the sound of rolling waves assaulted her senses more than they ever had before.

Her throat felt exceptionally dry and itchy; she needed something to soothe the burn and she needed it immediately. She darted over to the sink and drank, not caring that she spilt water all over herself. The water did nothing for her but go down the wrong pipe, causing her to choke and cough.

Instinctually, Kelsea stumbled out of the boat cabin and beelined towards the shore. When her feet hit knee-deep water, she tripped.

In the two seconds she spent face-down underwater, the relief she felt was immeasurable. She could have stayed there forever.

Then her reflexes kicked in, forcing her to push her head out of the water. Slowly, the girl stood up so that the waves were not breaking on her head. Kelsea tried to turn around, but found her legs uncooperative with her desire to move.

She ignored her body's demands to start hyperventilating and focused on staying calm. She took in deep, even breaths and -

Hiccup.

Kelsea's hand flew over her mouth as involuntary diaphragm spams rapidly struck. She wished that she had cute little hiccups, but instead she suffered from deep, loud ones.

She couldn't move. What was happening to her?

The girl did not even care that the merman half swam, half dragged himself closer to her while she unwillingly stood in place. She did not snap at him when he looked up at her with pity in his reflective eyes. Boy, did she want to though. Kelsea did not want his pity; she wanted to go home.

"Let me aid you," Izmuir said, holding a webbed hand up to her.

The girl shook her head. "I don't" - hiccup - "trust you. Tell me" - hiccup - "what is happening."

"Your body has reached a critical point in your metamorphosis. The sea calls to your essence to continue the process." His hand fell slightly as he spoke.

She thought about his response and said between hiccups, "So I could theoretically avoid the water and go back to normal?"

"Nay." He briefly exposed his sharp fangs, though less out of malice and more to remind Kelsea of their presence. "When a merman bites a human female and introduces a venom to her lifeblood, nothing will halt her change into a mermaid. Being near my presence has quickened some of your developments. Resistance at this point will only elongate the remaining time and lead to unnecessary pain and possibly death.

"Now, if you were to have confidence in me but once in your lifetime, lend me your trust this moment. I wish you no ill."

With her legs still being frozen in place, she was not going anywhere any time soon. Why not? She took his cool hand in hers and gave a sharp nod.

As the last of the sun's rays of light left the sky, the merman yanked on her arm, pulling the helpless girl into the water once again. She writhed and struck at him, attempting to surface, but Izmuir held her down.

"Breathe, silly girl," he hissed, although the water in her ears made it nearly impossible for her to perceive what he said. "Your chest spasms are your body encouraging you to use your gills. Breathe!"

It did not take long for Kelsea to make use of the new features on her neck. She stopped thrashing and once her hiccups ceased, the merman hoisted her back up.

The first thing she did was slap Izmuir. "A little warning would have been nice!"