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 Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2022 12:59 pm
With climate change melting the glaciers at the poles, ancient bacteria and viruses soon make their way into the ocean waters and fish inhabiting the seas. As fish and other sea life are ingested by humans, adaptations to our DNA, or maybe genes that had been sleeping were now waking, people began to realize they could hold their breath longer, some could breath under water, and others began to grow gills and fins. In a way this was a blessing, as land masses shrunk more and more, but some refuse to accept the changes.
Who will survive on land? Who will move off land to explore the seas?
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Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2022 4:29 pm
"ugh the weathers so hot today" Emily complained
She placed her hand above her eyes and looked up to the clear blue sky. Sweat trickled over her hand.
"A breeze would be nice" she muttered
She removed her hand from her face and instead tried to fix her hair. All the little loose pieces were sticking to her. She untied her light brown hair and let it fall to her shoulders for a moment. She ran her fingers through it and then tied it back up into the tiny pony pony tail.
She heard the sound of the ocean nearby.
"I wonder how high the tides are now?"
She strolled casually along the road. It was quiet in town. When she came close to where all the beaches were she cringed. People were crammed in together at every human spot.
"It really is that hot today" she mentioned out loud "its been in the triples for a while"
She looked around farther down. In-between sunken houses new beaches were always being made. When she had walked for what felt like an eternity and her feet were burning in her sandals she gave up.
She put her hands on her hips and sighed heavily. There in front of her was an empty beach but it wasn't for people.
"I'll just go stick my toes in" Emily said "I don't think anyone will mind. I've got no problem with mer people"
She hopped down the beach cause the sand was on fire and plunged her feet in. A huge smiled came across her face. She closed her eyes to just listen for a while. A soft breeze finally started to blow.
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Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2022 5:21 pm
Amara was floating on her back in the calm waves near a less populated beach. She came here for that reason, seclusion. Her face was on fire while her feet and hands were cool. Turning face first into the water, she continued to float, and breath, slits in her neck opened and closed. Though she wasn't a full fledged "fin and scales" mermaid, it seemed like things were heading that way. She chuckled to herself, if anyone came to this beach they'd think she was a floater washed ashore. The sound of something plunging into shallow water caught her attention as she twisted and turned, treading water she saw a human woman smiling with her eyes closed, seeming to enjoy a break from the heat. Amara allowed herself to sink down so only her eyes and up were above water.
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Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2022 5:49 pm
"Hey what do you think you're doing" a male voice shouted
Emily opened her eyes and turned around to see a group of male mers approaching. The leader was a big burly man with nothing but a pair of short shorts on. He had green scales on his shoulders. The other two were smaller than him and had scales across their collar bones.
"I just wanted to put my feet in" Emily explained "I'll leave. No trouble"
"You think I'm just going to let you go?" he said "This place is ours. I let one of you over here and we'll lose the whole thing"
He reached for Emily's shirt. She stepped back a bit putting her hands in front of her.
"I recognize you" he started to get even more angry "You're from that family"
Emily groaned internally. Why had she been born to such a troublesome family. All she wanted to do was be at peace. They wanted to keep their fortune and hated anything that was different. To them mers were a diseased people.
"I hate them" he snapped grabbing her by the shoulder.
His friends were desperately trying to calm him down. They tugged at his shoulder and waste. Emily couldnt hear what they were saying to him as she got dragged into the water.
Emily started kicking to keep herself afloat clinging to his big arm.
"Please sir. I"
She didnt get to finish as he dunked her under the water. He kept doing this repeatedly as she struggled.
"We're superior to you" she heard "You shouldn't even touch the water"
She went under thrashing each time. When her head popped up she'd quickly swallow air. Finally he held her a bit too long and she let all the air out. Emily stopped struggling as much losing energy.
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Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2022 7:23 pm
Amara's eyes widened as her head popped back out of the water. "Hey!" She shouted, shocked they were trying to kill the girl. "If she's who you think she is, imagine what her family will do if you actually kill her!" She warned. "It could start a war!"
"Then come save your little friend!" The guy taunted, letting go of the girl and making his way back to his friends on shore.
The human's body floated, face down, in the water. Amara's eyes shot between the men and the woman several times before swimming toward her. Wrapping her arms around the human's belly, keeping her head above water, Amara pulled her arms in, hoping to push the water out of her lungs. She'd try CPR on shore but didn't want the mer men to do any more danage than they already had.
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Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2022 8:43 pm
Emily coughed up some water and groaned a bit. She took another few shaky breaths. Her eyes started to focus and she realized she was staring up at the sky. She rolled gently out of Amara's arms and started to float on her own. She kicked her feet and moved her arms a little.
She gave Amara a gentle smile and then coughed a little softer. She made a crinkly face and stuck her tongue out a bit.
"ugh too much salt" she joked at the nasty taste
She blinked some more and rubbed at her eyes. They were two different colors now. The one on the left was a sea green and the one on the right was a very light blue. When she blinked again there was a clear slit that went over her eyes.
"Must of lost my contacts" she mumbled
"thanks" she added gratefully
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Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2022 9:19 pm
Amara had gotten so used to the taste of salt that she didn't know what Emily meant at first and made a curious face before noticing her different colored pupils. She nodded at the "thanks". "Do you need contacts to see or are they just to cover up your different eye colors?" She asked, glancing at the boys real quick, they seemed to want to get back in the water and swim away but couldn't figure out an escape route far enough away from the girls. Amara allowed her body to float farther away from shore and the human.
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Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2022 9:56 pm
Emily followed after her and swam out further from shore. The men glared but got over themselves. They came into the water too and swam away.
"Its to hide the two colors" Emily admitted "and it helps protect them too. I had them made special"
Emily did a few fun spins in the water and went under herself. She swam under Amara and popped up behind her.
"I can see clearly under water" Emily admitted "I have adapted eyes. My family doesn't know. Nobody knows. Its the only thing that is different about me"
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Posted: Sun Sep 04, 2022 11:10 am
"If your assailant is right about your family, it's probably a good thing that's your only adaptation." Amara stated, watching the three make their escape. "I'm sure not all humans feel the same way about us as your family, at least I refuse to believe it, simply because not all of us feel the same way about humans as those three."
She watched Emily swim around with ease, she must have grown up around the coast. Amara sighed, she missed her home on land, it was one of the first to be submerged, luckily a van on wheels was easy to roll deeper into the waters, so she still technically had a home with locking doors for protection from human and mer folk alike.
"My mom craved sushi when she was pregnant with me, so I was born with these scaled fins on my forearms, gills on my neck and ribs, and webbed fingers and toes. Those are harder to hide." Amara was curious. "What's so special about them other than seeing deep in water? If you can't breath in water, I could show you my home some time, you could look down from the surface. It's not far or deep."
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Posted: Sun Sep 04, 2022 3:12 pm
"Nothing" Emily admitted "That's the silly part. I can keep my eyes open under water indefinitely. I can see really clearly too but that is it. No scales, gills, or fins.
I have learned to dive pretty deep and hold my breath longer than I use to"
Emily started floating on her back gently bobbing in the waves.
"Not all humans are stupid like my parents that is for sure. I don't know why they're so obsessed with money. They think they're going to own most of the land around the area and be what? slum lords or something?"
She scoffed and splashed her hands in the water playfully.
"They've been pretty rotten about this whole purity thing. They're just going to wined up drowning like everyone else or get stuck on a cramped boat"
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Posted: Sun Sep 04, 2022 4:50 pm
"Cramped in luxury." Amara smirked, still floating on her back a bit, she curved her body so her feet flipped out of the water for a second splashing water in both her and Emily's face. Amara was sad to think about human's fading away with the land shrinking. "To bad they couldn't put their money to good use, really helping your kind." She twisted herself so she was face down in the water but with her head up. She asked before allowing her face to submerge halfway under the water. "I don't get why some of my kind is angry with yours, beyond the mistreatment of some like your parents, we might outlive yours for millennia thanks to our changes, my parents saw my adaptations as a blessing for me and any children I might have."
~*~
(I kinda wanna do something with a biologist but I'll add something in later, what route do you want to go?)
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