It was just supposed to be a walk.
Anna was a college-aged woman who was exhausted from the brutal final assignments her major gave her. So she felt it was time to spend her newfound free time taking a walk to the park.
The park was a bit shady and Anna was a bit suspicious when she noticed no sounds of children playing coming from inside. But she walked in front of the ordinate steel gates and slipped in.
One walk through a path next to a “No Trespassing” sign later, she was now at a beach with nowhere to go. The path she entered the beach through was gone and her only options were to either climb up a cliff or walk along a beach.
Not wanting to risk her life right now, she decided to take a walk around the beach.
“Oh god. What have I gotten myself into?” She whispered to herself.
She wanted to pull out her phone and call for help but something compelled her to only save it as a last resort.
“Well, I have a beach all to myself. Might as well enjoy it for a bit before I call anyone.”
Anna noticed a line of rocks that go out quite deep into the ocean. She decided to hop on the rocks and rest for a while. She dipped her toes into the water and sighed.
Just as she was becoming fully relaxed, Anna noticed the water bubbling near her feet.
Immediately, she brought her feet out of the water and gasped, thinking she might’ve found a shark or a piranha. What she found instead surprised her even more.
It was a man, and it wasn’t a bad-looking one either. He even had a swimmer’s body that made Anna’s cheeks fluster a bit. But what made her mouth drop in shock was the man’s lack of legs.
In the place of human legs was a large, long fish tail.
“N-No. It can't be. This has to be a costume. Merfolk aren’t real… Are they?”
Anna stretched out her hands and stroked the scales that covered the man’s lower body. Almost immediately, she pulled her hand out in disgust upon feeling the slime on the belly of his tail. It was real, all right.
“Ewww! That’s so gross. What are you? A…” Anna’s head becomes blank as she saw a large red bruise on the merman’s face.
“Oh god… You poor thing.” Anna said she slipped herself off the rocks and onto the sea.
She quickly swam to the merman’s aid and gently caressed the bruise. It was red and warm, as if the merman was in a fight and lost just moments ago - It would explain why he was floating belly-up to the water’s surface like a goldfish.
As a person who once avidly watched fantasy movies as a kid, various scenarios played in Anna’s head on what could’ve happened.
Did he try to kill a shark and fail? Maybe he tried to woo a mermaid and got harshly rejected? Was he a sea-king violently overthrown by his people? Was he in some underwater bar fight and lose? Maybe he tried to defend his homeland against sirens and was knocked out in a battle, making him a lucky survivor?
Anna’s spiral into imagination was cut off as she heard the merman coughing and spitting out water. Anna looked down to see the merman slowly opened his eyes, it was then that his eyes met with hers.