Final Hunger Games Entry: The Necklace

Authors Note: This is based on a short story I wrote and rewrote several times from when I was 6 to when I was 8. I have altered this a lot though. Mainly spelling, punctuation, and the ending. So Enjoy

Before

She swims as fast as she can, her tail beating ripples through the water. But the boat chases after her just as quickly. Four boats chase after her to be exact. And Then she feels something in her back. She hears a boom, like a bomb but not quite. And suddenly, her blood pools around her in the water. She knows the sharks will be after her soon, so if the humans don’t kill her, she’ll be eaten alive. She doesn’t swim any more, her tail is curled next to her waist and she stops struggling. Then the final shot goes off, and she sinks.

As she sinks, a few scales fall of her tale and descend to the ocean floor. Each of them forming a weird circlet around it. It looks like the chain to a necklace but it is made of no precious metal. It is made of the water from which she died.. And one curious scale is brought by the tide to a shore line. A shore line by which one very curious girl will have her life, or death, changed forever.

Today

“Kirsten! Catch!”I turn my head just in time to see a kick ball hurtling at my face. As I catch it, I step back in the sand to steady myself. I feel something pierce my foot and I cry out, dropping the ball. I gingerly lift my foot and examine what I stepped on. It appears to be some kind of necklace with a scale on it. As I pick it up by the chain, the scale shimmers in the dying light.

I turn my head to the source of the kickball. Charli stands there looking at me oddly. She cocks her head to the side and shrugs her shoulders.

“Something wrong? We were all going to play kickball down the beach a little. You up for it?” I shake my head.

“No, you go ahead. My Mom likes me to be home before dark. You know how she is.” Charli smiles apologetically and waves at me before running to join her friends. I don’t typically like spending time with the others, just Charli.

I walk back to my house, examining the scale as I do. It looks fragile, but it actually feels quite strong in my hand. I see that the chain is some kind of weird shimmery metal. At first sight, I thought it was silver or platinum. But I know it isn’t. As I tilt the chain and run it between my fingers, it almost feels like water, and it casts rainbow shadows on my skin.

I unhook the clasp, and I slide it behind my blonde braid and around my neck. As I adjust the necklace so the scale is in the front, I feel a strange tingling sensation in my feet. It reminds me of the pins and needles feeling when your foot falls asleep. But this is different, somehow. I wait for my feet to turn numb, but it doesn’t happen. Instead, the tingling sensation travels up my calves, and my thighs, until it reaches just below my belly button. I look down at my legs A weird green coating is growing from my knees and traveling towards my feet in one direction and towards my waist in another. What is this?

As the green coating finished, I lose feeling in my legs and I fall into the sand. Two fins sprout from my feet, and scales begin to rise from the surface of the green coating. The scales are different shades of blue, green and a murky purple. I blink. Several times. It doesn’t matter what I do. This keeps happening to me. The tail isn’t going away. Then my lungs get tight and webbing begins to grow in between my fingers. I gasp for air, but I can’t breathe.

I claw my way along the sand towards the salt water. Every primal instinct in my body is begging for it, but I don’t understand why. The sand chafes against my tale and gets caught on the fabric of my t shirt. As I reach the water, I put my head under and breathe in. It surprisingly works. As I find relief with breathing in and out, my brain goes into panic mode. I’m a fish.

Holy crap. I am a mermaid.

I draw in a big breath and lift my head above water. There are people coming. They’re too far away to see me, but they’re headed in my direction. A girl with a tale is just a little conspicuous. So I pull myself into the water and swim just far enough from the beach to be unseen. Then I decide to go further. It’s not like I have to worry about the rip tides because I have a tale. I freaking have a TAIL.

I squint as I go deeper underwater and into the coral reef. There are some creatures out in the water, others that aren’t. I see so many different kinds of fish and coral but they look sinister in the dim light. Then I feel something tighten around my neck. I choke and I swim up towards the surface, but it doesn’t work. The chain of the necklace has tightened around my neck and is strangling me.

I claw at the chain and try to get the clasp unhooked, but it doesn’t work. I see spots, and I lose the energy to keep myself above water. So I sink like a rock. I feel the water slowly rush around me as I descend from the surface. Then I see flashes of life. Not flashes of MY life, but flashes of A life.

I see people swimming underwater, ocean people. People that look like me. I see smiles and laughter, and I also see tears and sorrow. The last memory I see is the most prominent in my mind. I feel fear and urgency. Rushes of adrenaline course through me from the memory and then a gunshot sounds. I realize that these memories are of a mermaid. A mermaid who once died. And as I watch the final moments of this mermaid, her scales drift to the floor. And then I know why this is happening.

She was murdered by my kind. So now, her kind is murdering me.