Chasing The Tides

Dusk Shine looked into the hidden sea cave’s pool, about ready to dive in.

When he had first discovered this place, he was more than eager to take a, purely scientific, expedition. While he was doubtful there would be anything like magical artifacts, he was hopeful enough to believe that he was the first person, if not ever, in a long while to discover it! Honestly, if Dusk hadn’t been collecting fern samples for a biology report, he doubted he would of stumbled the caverns entrance in the first place. By that he wasn’t paying attention and almost fell to his death. A minor inconvenience in the name of science. He explored more and eventually found what looked to be a grotto at the end of the cave that likely lead out to sea. Now, a week later, he was back with some additional equipment to explore further.

“And seven,” he told himself after another breath. “Alright, I suppose that’s good enough!”

Unfortunately, since he was a poor college student, and his major wasn’t related to marine biology, a scuba equipment wasn't in the pile of equipment. So instead, looked up and read all he could in free diving on free diving. Which seemed simple enough to him. While Dusk wasn’t stupid enough to call himself a professional, he at least felt confident enough that the additional help would buy him a few extra precious minutes under.

Just as he was ready to hop into the water, his phone buzzed. With a role of his eyes, Dusk pulled the device out of his backpack.

Bubble Berry: hey, dusky! Free tonight? I may have a ‘friend’ who would ‘love’ to meet you at a party I just happen to be throwing! ;) <3

Dusk rubbed his forehead and replied.

Dusk: I’m a bit busy today, Berry. Sorry, but thanks for the invite.

He waited a moment to see if Berry would reply.

Bubble Berry: Oh… well, we’ll be eagerly waiting if you can come!

With that out of the way, Dusk gave a knowing smile and put his phone down. After that, he slipped on his snorkel, googles, a pair of flippers, and dove in. He debated for a moment to grab his additional water proof camera and writing pad, but decided to hold off on the first dive. Wanting more to see how deep the pool went, and if he could reach the bottom.

He lowered his head in the water, pleased to see the visibility was decent. Looking around, he guessed the hole was about twenty to twenty five feet, and at about each six to seven foot was a cave that he couldn’t see from the surface where they went. Eager, and with no signs of anything potential dangerous living here, he began his decent

“Entrance one of three,” Dusk spoke to himself when her surfaced again. “Nothing but a hallowed out wall that goes about three meters back. Although thinking on it, it was a rather smoothed surfaced. Perhaps caused by natural erosion? Or maybe someone dug it out? Probably erosion. Still, always valid to explore every hypositics.” He sucked in a breath and dove back in.

“Cavern two,” he commented when he surfaced for a second time. “The passage that confirms that this cave, dose indeed, connect with the sea. Already hypnotized that from the water being salty, not fresh. While I could view the ocean, I’m not sure I would be able to safely swim the entire length. Still, a grand discovery nonetheless! Now for the grand finale.”

With that, he took in a longer breath, and prepared for his dive to the very bottom. Down he went, keeping his excitement in check at what he might find. While something like pirate treasure was a high improbability, that didn’t mean there couldn’t have been other rich discovery to be found.

His hand touched the floor, relived he had estimated the depth and his lung limitations correctly, giving himself about two, maybe three minutes before he’d have to surface. Which was good, cause the sight in the third cave nearly took his breath away.

Inside, was some sort of humanoid statue. No, Dusk realized. It was a statue, of a mermaid. Marble white, the mermaid stood with one arm stretched out, her face an unreadable expression that had long been eroded by time. In its hands, sat some sort white orb that was likely meant to be a massive pearl even if it wasn’t actually one.

While Dusk should of just gone first, he couldn’t help but immediately swim up to it, thinking this would be the most incredible find from the trip.

Wonder who built this? he thought to himself. For that matter, how did it get here? Tides and currents? Then how’s it in one piece? Unless someone put it here, at the very least that arm would have snapped off in the journey!

He first started to reach for the orb, but paused upon seeing the statue sat on some sort of pedestal. Turning his attention to the base, he noticed that there was some kind writing on in. Swimming up closely, he realized the words scribbled on was some kind of Latin. Not that he could be sure without additional references, but he felt sure that this was a lost or even unknown dialect. Which, the good thing about latin, is that if you knew the original, from there, you could most likely figure out any other langue that it evolved from. With the knowledge Dusk did have, he thought he could make out at a first glance words that translated to change, days, and love.

He rolled his eyes at that last part, feeling a pain in his chest that reminded him it was time to rising up for air. He would come back in the next dive with some paper and charcoal to etch the words for further study. There was no telling where this discovery would lead him! Those thoughts were interrupted when he hit his head on the mermaids arm.

A stream of bubbles escaped his mouth as he tried to make out what had happened through the pain. Not thinking once about it, he flailed around, grabbing onto the first thing his hand touched for some support. In this case being the orb free statue was holding.

He rubbed his head with his free hand, and started up, pushing off of the orb for extra propulsion. However, instead of zooming upwards, he was pulled back down.

What the?! his eyes widened in panic upon realizing his hand had stuck to the orb. He tried yanking free, but to no avail. It was as if the thing had been coated in some kind of glue. Just as he was about to seriously panic and debate trying to cut his arm off, the orb began to glow bright green.

He felt a spark of electricity run through his body, and the next thing he knew, the water around him started to swirl, forming into whirlpool. If he wasn’t mor worried about drowning or what was with the green light, he might of noticed a condensed miniature vortex was forming around his legs that seemed to be picking up a faster speed than the main one around him. Although he soon felt something was going on to his body, most notably in his lower half. Looking down, he saw the cyclone and he began to kick around to try and break free. His flippers flying of past the current, but his feet unable to escape.

There was a flash of light, and Dusk closed his eyes to a sharp pain in his chest, and an even worse one down below as his swim trunks were ripped apart. In another series of flashed, each of his legs pulled themselves upwards to his chest, and when they shot back down, his human skin had been replaced by a sleekly substance, and his foot spread out into a flipper. After both of his legs had been changed, there was another flash, and the magic merged them into a singular limb.

Once done, the vortexes started to die down, and the orb released its grip of Dusk’s hand. Thinking only of not dying, he took the freedom to rocketed to the surface, his breath still held until he breathed. It wasn’t until, still breathing heavily, and having pulled himself up out of the water, did Dusk check to see what had happened. Although he already had, as impossible as it was, a wild guess from the inability to wiggle or feel his toes. With that in mind, he didn’t even dare put the words to thought, until he lifeted up to eye level, his purple mermaid tail...

🧜‍♀️

Merman? Mer-person? Or was there some other kind of classification/pronunciation? Sure, some might of questions his priorities, but it still seemed important to figure out to him!