The Great Ningyo
Prologue
'Its all your fault you know.'
N-no. Not it's...it's not!
'it's all your fault they're dead.'
No, shut up!
'You killed them.' The voice laughs.
No!
I woke up screaming and sweating. I sat up and covered my face with my hands. I started to quietly sob.
'It is all my fault. They are all dead because of me.' I sobbed harder as my brain flooded with memories.
"Oh lord Kyofu, please let me marry you daughter, I beg of you." My head moved from its lowered state to look up at where the door would be. A sack had been placed over my head since I was born with a horrible physical deformity. My family was ashamed of me, even my little brother, Aito, who came to visit and talk to me every day, just so I wouldn't get lonely or go insane. Even he was ashamed of me.
My family had hid me from the world ever since and told everyone in our village that I was so beautiful that they couldn't show me to anyone. But once I had turned sixteen, every guy came ask my father if they could marry me. My father would yell at my mother about it every night, furious that she would even try and saying that he doesn't know what he would do if they all found out that I was actually hideous and not as beautiful as he said I was.
"You and everyone else, now leave!" My father sends every wealthy man away. He would be shaking and afraid.
My dad always talks about a great Ningyo sometimes. It's said that if you were to feast on its flesh, you would be eternally beautiful. He tried to capture and kill one for months, and just as he was about to give up, he killed one and brought it home. He had our cooks make it into a soup. I knew something was going on. My dad had stayed in the room while I took off the sack and ate. He never did that. He would always drop the tray on the table in the middle of the room and leave. While I was eating, I felt an enormous pain in my head. I stood up and screamed, but the pain only lasted a few seconds before disappearing completely.
I looked down at my father and he had tears in his eyes and a giant smile on his face. He handed me a mirror that he had brought in with him and when I looked, I didn't see me. I saw a beautiful woman. My once green eyes were now black and I had this mark on my forehead. There was a blue diamond in the middle with a bunch of other marks like snow around it. there were also Blue dots on my cheeks like freckles. My once black hair had turned a red-orange color and grew down to my thighs.
My father was thrilled, but I wasn't. This wasn't me. My family was so happy I was beautiful, that they had a celebration that night. That was the last time I saw them too. They all had drowned. I don't know why I didn't cry that night, but all I did was flee up to the snowy mountain and make me my own home there, trying desperately to forget all that had happened in just a few hours.