M. R. Parsons

Grandda’ always talked about the mermaids. He was already old by the time we landed on this planet, but he remembered the stories.

“Cairbre,” he told me. “This planet is cursed. Mermaids are a woe to mankind—an omen of bad tides. Banshees of the water, signaling death and destruction. I tried to convince your Da’ when I saw one before we left Dublin. But he never believed the tales.”

Neither did I. Not when Da’ got sick on the starship taking us to this watery grave. Not when he died shortly after landing. Not when Grandda’ passed only a few, short years later.

But I believed it when Keira was lost.

I look down at the small holo-map displayed on the dashboard. The raised globes of lights note the islands and storm systems within half a day’s travel. Wind and a spray of saltwater whip at my long, dark hair as the powerful electric engines of my boat race across the water.

I’m getting close.

My fifth trip out in as many years, this one feels different. I will find her. Find Keira. I know our colony thinks it a fool’s errand. Even if she or any from the mapping expedition survived, they are surely dead by now.

I can’t believe that. We found their boat undamaged. No crack in the hull. No water-logged equipment. No storm-ravaged cabin. Nothing.

They were just gone.

Looking down at the holo again, I study it to be sure. I know these waters, but freak hurricanes are known to materialize out of thin air and capsize colony ships. Only a few more mile—

My thoughts cut off as my boat lurches sideways. Stumbling to the rail, I almost fall over the side. Below me is a dark abyss swallowing the ocean.

Whirlpool! I pull myself back into the captain’s chair and gun the engines, trying to climb the boat out of the current. It shutters against the water, seeming to stop my descent. For a moment, I think it’s working.

Then it’s not. The boat has already passed the event horizon, the point of no return—the engines are not powerful enough to save me. The wall of water climbs above my head and blocks out the day.

Keira. I’m sorry. I failed you.

I kill the engine. On the chance they can recover the boat, I want it to have power for the others. I pull myself back to the rail to cast eyes upon my black, watery fate.

What I see shocks me. Through the darkness, I can see lines. Straight lines, squares, triangles—rising out of the black. It’s too dark to make them out. But they appear to be massive structures, kilometers away on the ocean floor.

Unnatural.

I’m still gazing in wonder when my boat shutters one last time, pivoting ninety degrees as it catches on some unknown obstruction and casts me into the dark, churning waters.

I come for you, Keira.

###

I feel an excruciating burning in the pit of my arm as the saltwater rolls against me in the shallows. I’m alive? How is—I retch up a stomach full of saltwater. Small bits of this morning’s biscuit float in the foamy bile now polluting the surf. I watch it, keeled over, as I suck in the warm, tropical air.

I’m alive.

Joints aching, as if I’d been stuck in a metal box and sent tumbling over a cliff, I struggle to my feet. Somehow, I walk the twenty feet to shore and collapse.

I dream of the swirling water. And shapes in the black. And Keira.

###

I jolt awake, pushing myself out of the sand that has already begun the process of burying me. My arm buckles as the pain in my pit ignites. “Jeez—ah, Mary, Joseph.”

Finally regaining my feet, I rip off my loose-fitting cotton shirt, now barely damp with any sign of my odyssey. I peer under my arm, straining my neck to see the long gash there. The effort opens the wound and a bead of blood forms before rolling down my side.

Searching my pant pockets, I find my waterlogged Cauter and a smashed hand-desalinator. I look at the Cauter: a six-inch, orange metallic C. I don’t dare activate it until it’s dry, so I place it on a rock to air out. It would have been helpful to seal the wound, but I guess I’ll need to do this the old-fashioned way.

I rip a long strip of cloth from my shirt before folding the remainder into a rough square. Struggling, I manage to bind the square against the wound, wincing as the salty cotton bites into me.

Finally, I hold my hand open in front of me. I’m relieved as the white lights of the implant beneath my palm activate. The Palm Pilot—Grandda’ always laughed at that but never told me why—is still functional. I am saved!

Running my fingers over the sensors embedded beneath my skin, a yellow flashing light greets me. One of the satellites above the planet will alert the villages of a distress call. How long will it be?

I manipulate my pinky so that the date and time glow in the center of my hand. That can’t be right. I look around, noting the position of the sun and getting my bearings. Lower in the sky and rising. I slept all of yesterday.

Damn! If I’d only activated the beacon yesterday, somebody would already be on their way.

I want to kick myself, but instead kick the sand. It is immediately avenged as a gust blows it back into my face. Sitting in the sand, I do the math. I’d been on the ocean for nearly three days.

They’ll send a boat—wouldn’t even consider wasting Skimmer fuel on me. So it’ll take them as long as it took me. Two nights, I think. I just need to make it two nights.

I begin to prioritize in my mind. What was it Grandda’ always said? Three, Three, Three. Three hours without shelter—with the storms on this planet, cover is necessary. Three days without water—I can probably make it, but the last day would be rough. Three weeks without food—not a necessity, I can—.

I notice the dull ache in my belly. It has only been a day, yet my stomach feels like a hollow hole about to collapse in on itself. Maybe food will be a priority after all.

Not now, I think, looking at gathering darkness on the horizon. Stormclouds. Shelter.

I stare inland at the forest creeping up to the beach. The turquoise-gray, tree-like plants are familiar with their broad leaves and hanging vines. It should look like home. But there’s something dark and ominous, telling me to stay out.

I stick close to the beach as I search for shelter. This oceanic planet, dotted with tiny isles, makes that easy at least. Rocky outcroppings spring from the earth every dozen meters. It’s not long before I find one, perhaps fifty meters inland. An overhang. Not quite a cave, only a few feet deep. I can make this work.

Weaving together vines and the broad leaves of the trees, I reinforce them with fallen branches. It’s tedious and the effort blisters my hands. But my wall comes together. Leaning against the makeshift wall against the overhang and adjusting my bandage, I am satisfied. It covers most of the small cave.

As the sky above me darkens, I begin collecting wood. Well, not technically wood. The chemical makeup of these plants is slightly different. But close enough—it’s solid and combusts eas—

Snap!

I spin around, the bundle of sticks in my arms falling to the ground. For a moment, I’m paralyzed. I see a monster, thirty meters through the trees. Eight feet tall, no legs that I can see, two thick arms rising out of the top of it. The monster stares back at me—black, beady eyes unflinching, just below the arms.

There’s a flash of light behind me, toward the ocean, then a clap of thunder. And it’s gone. Replaced by a dead tree with two broken branches.

I breathe a sigh of relief. Then—Shit! I need to retrieve the Cauter before the rains come.

I run out from the treeline, down the beach, searching for the rock I’d placed the Cauter on. I find the stone. But the Cauter is missing.

How? I look around. The only tracks in the sand appear to be my own. Already partially covered by a wide, waving pattern in the sand.

I finally spot the orange-metal gleam of my device poking out of the sand, ten meters away. I pick it up as the first drops of rain hit my forehead. It seems dry now, so I give the on switch a gentle flick. A red energy beam rewards me, forming a line between the endpoints of the C. The Cauter hums a gentle vibration where my hand grips it. I quickly turn it off.

And almost drop it.

Feeling eyes on me, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Raising my head, I see a shape floating in the gray water. Feminine curves and pale skin grace a creature, half in the water, fifty meters out. Dark hair flowing in long, loose curls. Even from this distance… the eyes. Bright white. Almost glowing.

Keira?

I blink and she’s gone. My heart drops into my stomach. I probe my head, searching for a bump. A gash. Anything.

I find nothing. What is wrong with me?

Walking back to my improvised shelter, I clutch the still-warm Cauter to my chest. It’s pouring by the time I arrive. Sand from the beach stings my back as a fierce wind threatens to rip my woven wall from where it leans. I rush to gather fallen rocks and wedge them against the wall.

By the time I finish, I can’t control the shivers racking my body. I wish I hadn’t turned my shirt into a bandage. This planet is tropical, but the rain freezes lower in the atmosphere, making the water a cold mistress to the abundantly warm climate.

Near the entrance to my overhang, I gather the scrap material left over from weaving my wall and pile it into a small pyramid to stimulate airflow. Taking my Cauter, I flip the switch, generating the red beam. I hold the beam close to a clump of leaves. They quickly begin to smoke, and seconds later, I have fire.

I have warmth.

With the dark, rolling clouds, it’s too dark to infer the time. I activate my Palm Pilot and see that it’s nearly dusk. My stomach groans and for the first time, I notice the dry, sandpaper feel of my tongue.

Barely able to keep my eyes open, I dig several small holes and line them with the broad leaves of the trees. At least when the rain stops, I’ll have water.

I crawl back under the overhang and lie on my side, staring into the fire. The rock is rough against my skin, but I don’t mind. Warmth.

###

I dream.

Two creatures. Eons ago. One bright, reflecting light from near the surface, one dark from the sunless deep. Barely more than single-celled organisms, they come into contact. The dark surrounds the bright, choking it. Eating it. Absorbing it.

The bright creature is gone—the dark, bulges in its glutton. Moments later, it bursts, dark and light creatures spewing in every direction.

Millions of years pass. The cycle continues. Two creatures, evolving separately but needing each other to reproduce. Both developing fin-like appendages to navigate the waters of their world.

Then they take different paths. One’s tailfin develops into a gestating, slithering belly as the creature becomes amphibious, taking advantage of isles rising out of the sea. Growing large to compete with others coming onto land. Days, I think.

The other refines its fins, developing a lithe and powerful body to dominate the oceans. Tearing apart any beasts daring to compete in the waters. Nights.

The amphibious Days, huge now, with thick gray limbs, and a waist following behind it like a bride’s train, slide back into the water. Their evolved lungs no longer allow them to breathe underwater—they seek the assistance of the Nights to build massive underwater bubble cities so the two symbiotes may grow together. The call is answered. Dark, agile bodies glide out of the ocean depths to help build.

The two coexist. Mingling and exchanging thoughts and ideas in the underwater docks of the cities. Separate, but together. Utterly dependent on one another.

That peaceful existence ends one fateful day.

Walking among massive pillars and columns to the deep pool of water forming the dock, I’m ready to meet my mate. She is there, floating, onyx skin contrasted against the blue water lit from below. Her head idles in the water, watching the fish swim. I think she is looking for a snack.

Entering the water carefully so as not to scare her, I gently nudge her. It is a tentative touch. Unsure of what is to come. Afraid my compulsion won’t be fulfilled.

She does not respond.

I push the water with my body, generating waves that bob her up and down. When she still doesn’t react, I know something is wrong. I roughly turn her over.

Her blank gaze stares back. Eyes strangely blackened, like mine—not the glowing white I expect. Her flesh sloshes off in my arms, infecting the water.

But there’s something familiar about her face.

Keira.

“Hughhhh!” I convulse under the overhang. Rocks bite into my back as some force clamps my eyes closed and wraps around my thighs. Something is on top of me!

I struggle against the weight—it’s like a boulder pinning me down. And likewise, my squirming is no use. My hand goes to my pocket where the Cauter is. Only, there is no pocket. Now I can feel my pants around my knees. They must have slipped when I pulled myself back into the overhang! The grip tightens, causing an ache in my groin and pinning my hand at my side. I am unable to reach my sagging pants.

Suddenly a voice whispers, “Cairbre.” The voice is oddly reverberative but familiar. I know that voice; it’s etched into my soul.

“Keira.” I echo. As I stop struggling, the grip against my legs and face lessens.

Then the hand is taken away from my eyes entirely.

The fire is low, but I can see her clearly enough. Keira. But not the woman of my dreams—that of my fantasies.

Her face is much the same. Unblemished, porcelain skin and large eyes beneath long dark hair. Only the eyes are white.

My own eyes roll down her body. Breasts bare, rising like the rocky islands that dot this cursed world, ending in hard, dark points. Below her navel, her body turns to inky blackness. Not shining in the low light of the fire but absorbing the glow. A single, scaley appendage where her legs should be wraps around me.

Keira? A mermaid!?

“I know. It’s just like your Grandda’s stories,” she whispers, rubbing her pale hands across my chest, tracing the bandage. “Only I’m real… And I don’t have long.”

I can’t help it. Something about her touch kindles a deep inferno buried in me. I feel myself grow where she wraps around me.

She seems to enjoy this, smirking at me with that sideways grin of hers that always told me she was up to no good. A slit parts in the dark flesh below her waist. Before I can think, it engulfs me in a warm, intimate euphoria.

###

I start awake. The gray light of dawn greets me as I jump to my feet—smashing my head against the rock in the process.

I collapse to my butt and rub my head while I stare at my legs. Pants, still on? I breathe a sigh of relief. Or was it longing? Either way, just a dream.

The memories of it quickly fade. Except Keira’s face. Except the eyes.

I’d been starting to forget the details of her face. But now they were back. I suppose I should be happy. But the eyes are wrong.

Keira’s eyes were my favorite. Dark irises floating in a sea of white. They offered hope when this planet and its isles only provided death.

When I try to swallow, I find that I can’t as my dry throat grinds against itself—hoping against all reason to satisfy my thirst.

The holes!

I rush to the holes I’d dug the night before. I despair when I see them empty. Leaves scattered amongst the same wavy pattern I’d noticed on the beach.

I fall to my knees in despair. I don’t dare let a tear fall for fear I lose the water. Through bleary eyes, I see a turquoise-gray leaf cupped against the ground.

One. There’s one leaf that stayed in place.

I scramble over to the hole and, with both hands, carefully grasp the leaf. Only a few centimeters of water—perhaps three mouthfuls. I suck them all in greedily.

For the moment, my thirst has abated, but I know by the end of the day, I will be worse off. There wasn’t enough to ration, I reason. Besides, I only need to make it another day—day and a half.

I hesitate. The gnawing hunger in me telling me to get food—water can wait.

Pivoting my head in the direction of the ocean, then back to the forest, I weigh my options. With my Cauter, I could fashion a harpoon from the abundant plant material—might even catch one of the fish-like creatures that saturate the oceans. But after what I saw from the beach yesterday—and my dream last night—there’s no way I’m going into the water.

On my home isle, there are groves of native, fruit-bearing trees. Some of them even have nutritional value. Not as much as the Earth fruits planted across the colony—the slight difference in our DNA chemical makeup limits the compatibility of nutrients with our bodies.

At present, I’m more concerned with filling my belly than developing scurvy. I will be saved long before that sets in.

My mind is made up. The dark forest that seemed so foreboding the day prior, now feels like a welcome reprieve to the water. I pat my pocket to ensure the Cauter is still there, then walk deeper into the woods.

It isn’t long before I wonder if I made the wrong choice.

The island isn’t large; I know this—none of them are. But as I near what I think is the center, the woods thicken. I’d started carving X’s into trees as I passed, marking my way. But now I have to cut through so many branches and vines, the path back is obvious.

And the bugs. Crawly things like on Earth, hundreds of legs, wriggling bodies, biting mandibles, ticking in my ears. I find myself stopping every ten seconds to brush one off my shin or shoulder.

Nowhere do I come upon the fruit trees.

Instead, I run into a wall of vines. It appears… Woven? Almost like the wall I built for the overhang, but cleaner. I glance to my right and left. As far as I can see, the vines block my progress. I ignite my Cauter and begin burning through them.

Seconds later, they fall forward into a narrow clearing. I step forward and look around. It’s not a clearing; it’s a path. A game trail? I wonder. But what animal would be large enough to make this?

Then I remember the hulking gray creatures. Days.

I shake my head. No, that was just a dream.

I take a step forward and notice the ground isn’t what I expect it to be. Not the soft, moist earth of the forest. Nor the rough rock that juts from the ground. It’s a hard, smooth surface, like polished stone. Only not reflective but swallowing any light that brushes it.

Seeing this, I know I should turn back. Instead, I take a step forward. Some compulsion wills me to reach the center of the island. Whether it’s simple curiosity or something heinous, I don’t know.

It’s not long before I reach the center.

My jaw drops. At the end of the path is a clearing. Centered in the clearing is a shallow lagoon of the bluest water I’ve ever seen. Centered in the lagoon is a wide, silver disk, rising several feet above a shallow island. At least ten meters across, I think. Connecting the disk to the path is a narrow land bridge.

My brain screams that this isn’t human. That I need to turn back. But my heart and my body disagree. My compulsion drives me forward.

Reaching it, I run my hand along the smooth surface. It tingles my fingertips, almost tickling them, like when Keira would gently caress my hands. Tracing every line, every divot, every wrinkle with her touch.

There’s a gentle S, curving from where I stand to the opposite side. It’s clear the surface is a kind of door or hatch. Carefully, I raise myself onto the disk and look around. I don’t see any way to open it. The logic in me is relieved with this.

I wonder if—

“Grrrrrraaaaahhhhhhh!!” A roaring erupts below my feet. I can feel agony in the sound—it terrifies me.

I flinch back, tripping, falling over the side, and hitting the ground on my tailbone. Ignoring the pain, I jump to my feet and sprint across the land bridge.

I don’t stop as I reach the path. I don’t stop as I run through the hole I made in the weave of vines. I don’t stop as I stumble through the thick forest, cutting up my legs and arms.

I only stop when I reach my overhang. And then, only because I’ve nowhere else to go.

I crawl into a corner, as far from the entrance as I can go. There I sit, arms wrapped around my knees, shivering despite the exertion.

The rest of the day, I only leave once to gather fallen branches and leaves. Fire. I need fire. Not for the warmth, but to ward off the monsters from the metal disk.

At the time, I don’t think about how stupid I’m being. Surely any creature intelligent enough to build the disk has mastered fire—I think about this as I watch the flames lick the night air. Still, the light is comforting. If my demise is to be tonight, I’d rather die seeing my fate.

I won’t sleep. Tomorrow I’ll be rescued. I just need to make it through the night.

It seems simple. This discomfort makes it easy to focus. The gnawing in my belly, long turned to a sharp stomach pain. My mouth, now so dry I can barely swallow.

But the insects of this planet buzz and click in the forest around me. Like those of the Earth, many are drawn to the light of the fire. The sound reminds me of the crickets of my childhood, chirping outside my window as I lay, fighting to keep my eyes open. I thought their song was just for me—a lullaby to put me to sleep. It always worked.

It does now.

###

The dark, mermaid-like beasts—the Nights—are dying. A prion has infected the waters. It unfolds in their brains and the third and fourth subdermal layers. Both making them crazed and destroying their thick layers of skin and scale.

Their vicious nature, usually reserved for feeding and reproduction, is triggered by the disease. It causes them to lash out against each other. And against us Days.

Those able to control their actions to the end are awarded a slow, painful death as their dermal layers separate. Water fills the spaces, bloating their bodies and eventually disintegrating the skin until their internal organs can no longer take the pressure of the ocean and implode.

Try as they might, our scientists find no cures. There’s no way to clean the malformed protein from our waters. No way to filter it before it enters the bloodstream of our Nights. No way to save them.

The only salvation is a quick death.

As their numbers dwindle, they retreat to waters the prion has not yet tainted. For a while it works. Our Capitol is moved to a great city far from the contaminated water. With the Nights, come the Days. In massive schools; every Day hoping to be chosen to satisfy their compulsion.

But there are not enough of our mates to satisfy even a fraction.

The compulsion, buried deep in our DNA from the earliest of evolutionary leaps, tears my kind apart. There’s unrest, civil war, suicide. It’s not long before hope is lost—a single drop in our vast ocean of despair.

A drop that evaporates when the prion reaches our waters.

When the first Night is found, floating on the gentle rolling waves of the surface, the rest quarantine in a small lagoon that we’ve built near the city. A separate body of water, we hope the prion will not be able to reach them.

It doesn’t.

The handful of scientists remaining continue to search for a cure. Generations go by. Whether by luck or environmental pressure, we make breakthroughs in genetics and biotechnology. But nothing that will save them. Save us.

The Nights in the latest generations have been getting smaller. Weaker. Adapting to the small lagoon that has become their world. They are wretched, sickly things. And because of this, their litters, too, shrink. Before, one Night might produce seven or eight offspring. Now, we are lucky if we get one or two healthy.

Less and less does a Day enter the lagoon to churn the waters dark.

I am in the ocean, contemplating ending my existence. Contemplating going to an abandoned city and breaking the water barrier, allowing thousands of tons of water to crash down on me—ending this vain attempt at survival.

Then I see it. A fireball, impossibly far away, dropping from the sky. Slowing in a controlled descent. A spaceship?

Our scientists had always talked about the possibility of reaching other worlds. What it would look like.

It looks like this. Maybe this is precisely what we need.

###

I wake to a guttural clicking. It’s still dark and I’m confused. Wasn’t I just watching a spaceship?

No, another dream.

I hear the guttural clicking again—moving towards the beach. Still in a daze, I make my way out from the overhang. I don’t even notice when my feet press into the glowing embers of my dying fire.

The clicking continues. I can’t understand it. But it was in my dreams.

I stumble through a narrow strip of forest onto the beach. I lurch back when I see the beast a dozen steps away. Standing in the sand. Staring at me.

The Day from my dreams.

Two eyes, black as night, mounted too far apart on a gray torso so wide, it would take two of me to wraps my arms around it. Sprouting from the torso just above and behind the eyes are thick but flattened arms ending with eight webbed fingers—an almost wing-like appearance. Its belly curves under it as it reaches the ground, tapering to a gentle point several feet behind it in the sand.

It could kill me in an instant, yet my feet don’t move. Something compels me to watch.

The creature turns toward the water, and for the first time, I notice a pale being floating in the surf. Keira? No, not Keira, but a woman with golden hair. The beast leaves waves in the sand as it slithers across the beach. It enters the water in a beeline for the woman.

“No!” I yell. “Stay away from her!”

Willing my legs to move, I splash forward into the shallows. But the beast is fast in the water. Half-submerged, it reaches her before the water rises above my ankles.

“Swim!” I gasp.

The blonde woman sinks into the ocean. The Day follows her, then convulses, thrashing about in the water madly. A black substance splashes about as it churns the water. I’m sure it must be blood.

Finally, the gruesome scene comes to an end, and all that’s left is a darker spot on the nighttime ocean. She’s gone.

Horrified, I sprint back towards my overhang. Fire. I need fi—My thoughts cut short as I ram my face into a low branch, invisible in the night.

###

When I piss myself, I wake up. I’m on my back atop a hard, smooth surface. My feet hang over a lip into a pool of warm water. It’s dim in the room—the only light source is a gentle glow from the water, illuminated from some unknown source. It’s enough to make out the curving wall near my head as I sit up.

There’s a sharp, aching pain buried in my face. Gingerly I touch my nose and find it crooked. I don’t know my appearance, but I speculate mangled is an appropriate word. My nostrils are clogged, so I give them a blow and send globules of blood spraying down my chest. I double over, clutching my face. That was not smart.

Looking up as the pain subsides, I know where I’m at. The disk. I’m inside the disk. I sit on a meter-wide slab ringing the interior space, made of the same material I found on the path. A pool of water fills the ring.

A dark spot appears deep in the glowing water, ascending. Slowly it elongates, black, white, black. Then it becomes clear. I know what it is. I know who it is.

Hardly disturbing the water, Keira’s dark hair breaks the surface. Then her brow. Her nose. Lips. She grins at me—there’s both tenderness and seduction in her crooked smile. Her long abyssal fin waves at me, floating upon a gentle undercurrent.

“How is this possible?” I ask.

“Five years and that’s what you want to ask?” her voice oscillates.

“What have they done to you?”

“Only what is necessary.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Perhaps it’s better if I show you.”

My vision blurs, then I’m in another place. Somewhere bright. Indoors. Cold. All around me is equipment: pressurized cylinders, trays of agar growing microbes, blinking towers of computers, beeping screens monitoring vital signs, and two huge tanks with portholes on the sides and huge pipes connecting in.

For a second, I think I’m back at the colony. The tanks remind me of the hyperbaric chambers in our hospitals. Only these are much larger.

A door slams open and I turn to see two of the colossal gray Days dragging a naked woman between them. She kicks and punches at them, shimmering golden hair flying, but her blows have no impact. I recognize her.

Chloe—she disappeared only a couple months before Keira’s mapping expedition vanished.

The lead beast opens a wide door on one of the tanks, and the two force her inside. She cries out in anguish, but it sounds like a kitten mewling through the thick tank walls. The Days then spend several minutes checking the chamber, then standing at a blinking tower, manipulating a rod that extends from it.

A loud thrum fills the air as a distant pump starts up.

It isn’t long before the mewling turns into loud painful howls, pleas for a quick death. They are the cries of torture. Of a pain unendurable.

I approach one of the portholes. I don’t want to. But I need to. Chloe writhes on the ground, scratching crimson ruts into the skin of her arms and legs. Bloody tears stream down her face. Black tears. Clouding eyes.

I turn away. I’m not strong enough to endure the sight of her torment.

Thirty minutes later, the screaming stops. The thrumming dies to an occasional click.

Tentative, I peek through the porthole. Chloe lies there, chest heaving. The gashes in her arms, no longer bleeding. Her legs, though… Her thighs and the backs of her calves have a darkened, scale-like appearance. Her legs press together, and I can’t tell where the right knee separates from the left. It’s as if they’ve melted together.

As I watch, I notice the darkness spreading across her flesh as my vision fades.

I’m back in the cylinder. Feet dangling in the pool. I haven’t moved. Keira stares at me; a knowing look pinches the brow above her white eyes.

“In their search for a cure, the Natives of this planet became very… adept… at modifying biology. But nothing they did could save the Nights. Not until we came to this planet.”

I remember my dream—the spaceship descending to the planet.

“With humans, they finally had intelligent beings to splice with the Nights. They began taking us for experimentation. They altered the very same prion that killed the Nights to change our biology. To force our cells to incorporate Night DNA.”

“We always knew this planet was dangerous,” I whisper. “We always thought it was the storms.”

Keira nods. “At first, they took men and women, thinking we were one and the same, not comprehending the biological differences in sex. They thought we must be waiting on another species to join us for reproduction. It wasn’t long before they understood. The Night DNA spliced with men produced pitiful, barren creatures; an unending burning dwelt beneath their skin from the procedure. However, after a few mishaps, splicing with women produced a being similar to the Nights—close enough anyway. Our upper half remains mostly human in appearance. Though, there are changes in our bones and organs that allow us to survive the deep. Most importantly, we are biologically similar enough to the Nights for reproduction with the Days.”

“You breed with them?”

She nods again. “Nature drives us to. Though, reproduction isn’t like with humans. There’s nothing mutual about it. But that’s all in the past now. They’re dying.”

“Who’s dying?”

“The Days. One of the prions they altered in search for a cure now infects them. Infects the waters. They may be amphibious—capable of living on land for most of their adult lives—but they still require the oceans for critical stages of development. They’re nearly extinct. That’s why we needed you.”

“Dying!? I just saw one rip apart Chloe. Rip apart one of you. How can you tell me that thing was dying!?”

“What you saw was the Day’s final act of life. It gave itself to Chloe. Within its blood are the seeds of DNA, needed to spawn life in the Nights… and in us.”

For the first time, I notice her nails. Thick and sharp like tiger claws. Pale, spikey protrusions run along her outer forearm, starting small near the wrist but ending with a three-inch dagger at her elbow that blends in with her skin. “You rip them apart for their seed?”

“The saturated water enters our respiratory system,” she confirms. “Then blood system. Then reproductive system.”

She floats back in the water, exposing her stomach to the air. It’s bulging. Bloated. Pregnant.

“You’re carrying a Day’s offspring?” I ask, gripping my chest. I feel like I can’t breathe. Keira.

Shaking her head, she says, “What Chloe did was an act of pity. The Days are already dead. Some of the Night-hybrids she carries might live. None of the Day-hybrids will.”

“Then… wh—” I remember the night of my first dream. Not a dream.

“I told you. We needed you. I knew you’d be coming for me. Knew the path you’d take. Knew when you’d be there… We cracked the dome of a bubble city as you approached. Then I pulled you from the whirlpool.”

Not knowing what to say, I enter the water. It’s warm—inviting me further in. I paddle over to where she floats. The salt stings the gash on my nose, but I hardly notice. She takes my hand and places it on her belly. I can feel life squirming under the thick layers of skin. For some reason, I am proud. I’ve given rise to life.

“We needed a male hybrid,” she whispers.

I don’t care about the reason. I pull Keira into a tight embrace. I can feel her powerful tail stroking the water, keeping us afloat. I press my lips to hers. Salty and cold, I think I can warm them. I gently ease my tongue past her lips.

And find row after row of sharp teeth. What the—They clamp down.

Blood drains from my mouth, purpling the water as I pull away. Keira grins at me. A sanguine bead rolls from the corner of her mouth, down her neck, past her breasts, into the water.

“Sorry, Cairbre, my love,” she whispers. “Some of the Night urges are irresistible.”

Encircling us, a dozen shapes rise out of the deep. As they break the surface in reds, blacks, browns, and golds, I recognize them—women who disappeared out on the water.

I see Chloe. She grins at me, barring rows of needlelike teeth.

My hand tingles, alerting me to a message on my Palm Pilot. No doubt telling me help is nearly here.

It’s too late.

Looking again to Keira, I try to drink in her beauty one last time. But my eyes land on her swollen belly. A part of me will go on, I think as the first claws pull the flesh from my side and my tortured screams fill the air.

If you enjoyed this story, please consider picking up a copy of Beyond Atlantis by Dragon Soul Press. This is a collection of short stories inspired by Atlantis type civilizations and since this was only the second story I sold, the anthology has given me a little bit of validation to keep on writing. You can find it on Amazon here.

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