She'll never see red the same way again.
The flowers in her garden still bloom crimson, but where she used to see life in their color, she now sees blood splattering down her legs, dripping onto her feet like splashes from the sea – but so much thicker. So much warmer.
Then she remembers running. Drops of blood flicking from her legs as they sliced through the air. Leaving a trail of red petals behind.
At first she thought she'd never make it to the edge of the deck. Each jolt of landing brought a silent cry of pain, air spewing from her mouth. (The humans always considered her prone to sighing and short of breath; they never imagined the pain.)
But each step grew lighter, the knife-jutting feeling fading away.
She fell just before she reached the edge. Legs sewing themselves back together, the sturdy trunks she stood on flattening into a long fin.
There was a moment when she considered staying there. She wondered what it would look like. The blood, the knife in his chest, the fin. She could say it wasn't her fault. Something had come over her – and then transformed her. Perhaps they would believe it their duty to fight some grim battle for her soul.
But she has no soul.
She realized then and there it was useless. It was his life or her life before the sunrise, and she'd made her choice. There was nothing for her there, but in the sea was her family, her garden, and three hundred years of life.
Life – it was what she clung to desperately – the instinct to go on. Instinct that brought the knife down through his chest. Instinct that made her arms drag her leaden body across the deck, each wooden splinter scraping at her tail until at last she reached the edge and tipped herself overboard.
She looked up as she drifted down, watching leagues of water rise above her as the sun grew farther and farther away. Looking to the sky as she sank to the deepest place on earth. Somewhere up there was heaven. A place she knew only from the longing for it – the gold of sun on ocean, flowers growing toward the sky even from the depths of the sea, the warmth of human hands. The humans possess a majesty they don't realize.
His soul is there now. She sent it far before its time. He must see it all so clearly now – and she wonders what he thinks of her – is it hate, or are all base emotions drowned in the glory of everlasting?
Her sisters were overjoyed to see her, of course. Wrapping her in slippery embraces as her fingers brushed the severed ends of their hair – severed for her, so she could stab the one she loved and live. "It'll grow back," they said, swatting her hands away, then linking arms and pulling her home.
Her grandmother adorned her tail with oysters, covering the angry scratches from the wooden deck. Lilies were placed in her hair once again. Everything is as it should be.
But she finds she cannot accompany her sisters to the surface to watch the human ships, and she finds no joy in the human treasures that fall into her garden. She knows each of their names and purposes, but there is no use now.
Even the statue she once loved, she cannot help but think of now as dead – a corpse standing in her garden, amid the blood flowers.
In the bleakest moments, she wonders what she got out of it. Not what she wanted, surely. She is as soulless as ever, here where no creature can shed a tear for its sorrow. No soul. No voice. And no warmth here in the depths of the sea.
Only life – three hundred years of life in front of her. But what is life without a soul? Already she feels as nothing – nothing more than the foam of the sea.