Sarah cried into her arms as she laid in what used to be her secret hideaway. It held all of the treasures she had collected from her diving trips underwater. But her cruel older sister had found it and decided to trash the place. So many things were broken beyond repair.
"Why... What did I ever do to deserve this?" Sarah asked herself. She hated her life. Being human. Having an older sister that tormented her day in and day out. She had enough.
The girl started to run away, she had to get away from here, from her house, her family, just from… everything. Sarah continued to run until she felt the sensation of soft sand around her toes. She opened her eyes to a familiar, but welcoming sight. The one place where she truly felt at home, the beach.
The sound of the waves soothed Sarah a bit as she wiped her tearing eyes and began to calm herself down.
She looked around, noticing she was the only one on the beach. With nobody around, Sarah began to slowly strip herself of her clothes until she had nothing but a two piece pink bikini on that revealed the petite form of her body.
With the salty air ticking her nose, she began to walk slowly towards the water. She stopped and let out a sigh of relief when the cool water touched her toes.
"At least you won't hurt me." Sarah whispered to the water.
The girl always felt safe when she was near the water.
What she really wanted more than anything in the world was to be able to live in the ocean. Swim like a fish, free from all of the miserable restrictions of life on land.
"But I can't." Sarah reminded herself as she began to sob again. "There's no such thing as mermaids."
Suddenly, before she broke into another fit of crying, Sarah saw bubbling in the beach water, and its movement looked as if it was heading straight for her!
"Ahh!" Sarah yelped as she jumped and turned around, startled. The scared girl ran towards a giant boulder and hid behind it, with only part of her head peeking out, expecting to see a normal middle aged swimmer who happened to rudely interrupt her thoughts.
Instead, what she saw was enough to take her breath away.
What popped out of the water was a boy, and a rather attractive one. He had blonde hair that fell past his ears, blue eyes that kept her captive, and, what surprised Sarah the most, was his torso. The boy didn't seem to be any older than the seniors of her high school yet his upper body looked very muscular, way more well built than even the top student athletes that her school would have pep rallies celebrating.
For a moment, she wondered if the boy was swimming his entire life until she suddenly saw a sight that made her mouth drop.
The boy, using his powerful arms, pulled himself up and laid his body on the rocks. In the place of where his legs should be was a large muscular royal blue fish tail!
Sarah gasped, almost falling to the ground in shock. This swimmer wasn't an ordinary boy, he was a merboy!
Regaining her balance, she rubbed her eyes and pinched herself, making sure that what she was seeing was real. Sarah opened her eyes and the merboy was still there, this wasn't a dream.
The girl was baffled at the sight at first but then she began to look at his body more carefully.
The merboy's body was adorned with jewels, especially with the gold bands around his wrists and the gold bangles around the end of his tail. She wondered if the merboy was merely well off for his kind until she saw a small crown on his head.
"Is he… a prince?" Sarah thought.
Little did she know that right in front of her was Prince Arthur, the son of King Damon and Queen Scarlett of the Merkingdom. Admired all throughout the kingdom, he and his sister left their home in order to pursue a mate.
Prince Arthur, in particular, was curious if he could find a human girl to be his mate - Similar to how his mother, born a mermaid, turned his father into a merman to be with her.
Sarah looked at Prince Arthur more, half out of curiosity and half out of her just wanting to check out his muscular body until her eyes moved up to his face.
To her surprise, Prince Arthur's face didn't beam of the confidence she expected of such a handsome looking man of the sea. Instead, his eyes were filled with longing, as if he was looking for someone on this beach.
The girl couldn't help but feel a sense of sympathy for him. Even with his fantastical form, he looked truly lonely at this moment.
Sarah felt her heart beat harder and harder, she was genuinely curious if she should talk to him.
His image was forged into her memory. That golden blonde hair. The sparkling blue color of his tail. His body, oh that dreamy body.
Wait, what was she thinking? Sarah slapped the thoughts out of her head. Was she falling in love with this guy? I mean how would something like that ever work out? He was a merman, and she was a human.
Besides, even if he was a human, would he even want her?
The boy looked incredibly handsome, powerful, and rich. Compared to him, Sarah was nothing. A nerdy girl whose only redeeming quality was that she got good grades.
Even her good grades, however, we're quickly feeling like a burden more than a benefit. Her parents were dead set on her going to a great college so she could get some fancy high class job. Sarah's dad didn’t like her hobby of diving in the ocean, and saw it as a waste of time. Time and time again she would fight him on the subject and every time he would never listen.
Really, a merman of his looks would look perfect with her bully in his arms. Victoria was captain of the cheerleading team, the prettiest and most popular girl in school. She had even been elected prom queen.
What would a bookworm like her have any business to talk to a boy like him, let alone a boy who was a merman of all things?
Yet, Sarah couldn't help but look at the merman with caring eyes. Everything about his expression told her that he wanted companionship, a person to share a life with, anything to make the sight of an empty beach less painful to see. The girl just couldn't help but want to reach out and embrace him.
Her only other redeeming quality was her hideaway filled with treasures from her underwater dives, no doubt a merman would be interested in seeing some of the amazing things she found. But then her sister had to come and ruin… No, she couldn't let herself fall into despair yet.
Maybe there was a chance for her.
Besides, if it was truly hopeless for him to love her because she was a human, then why was this merman seeking a mate on the surface rather than in the water - where there were likely thousands of young mermaids more than willing to give him schools of merbabies without a second thought?
Plus, there was another reason she wanted to be with him. The fact that this half-boy half-fish was alive and well in front of her confirmed one thing: that mermaids and mermen were real.
"Just maybe," Sarah thought. "Maybe he could turn me into his kind. Yeah, if I turned into a mermaid, then everything would work out perfectly. I’d be swimming in the ocean every single day with him, and I'd honestly have no problems with that. The ocean had always felt like more of a home to me than the land ever did. A mermaid, swimming around without a care in the world. With that dreamy merman by my side..."
Soon, she found herself blushing hard. Quickly, she shook her head and looked at the cute boy one more time.
Prince Arthur's face was still filled with longing but now his tail fins were starting to twitch and flap against the rocks, as if he was getting impatient and was considering getting back into the water.
Sarah looked at her own body and found her foot tapping, almost like how he flapped his tail. The girl stopped her foot. She was running out of time, she had to make a decision now.
She thought about it long and hard. She could very well end up heartbroken if she got rejected by the merman, which would only make the pain she was already going through that much worse. But this was also her chance, probably her only chance, to get everything she wanted. Leaving her old life behind. Living under the sea as a mermaid.
To be a mermaid would be a dream come true. She'd be able to swim every day, and she would never have to worry about school, her grades, or parents, or her horrible sister ever again. And with that merman by her side…
Sarah took a deep breath and let out a large sigh.
She was going to talk to him.