As the sun shines through the clear, blue water, it illuminates the world below the surface. I swim as fast as I can, feeling the currents rush past my skin. I see fish of different, vibrant colors look at me with surprise as I quickly swim past them.
Today the water is warm and perfect for taking a nice long swim through. As begin to enter the clear area of the reef, I see Coco the dolphin swim over to me. Coco is a small, grey dolphin who loves to play, and even though she's young she is very, very fast. "Do you want to race?", I ask. She squeals and nods, indicating a yes.
With a bolt of energy, I swim as fast as I can into the open reef, but soon see Coco close behind me. I tried to distract her and start swimming in a zig-zag line. She soon finds out my plan and begins to leap into the air and back in the water. I do the same and within minutes, our race has turned into a contest of who can leap higher. With every leap, I can feel the fresh air shoot through my long, brown hair and rush through the tiniest pieces of skin separating my aqua and teal scales. I can feel myself being propelled into the water and the sweet ocean currents filling my lungs with fresh oxygen.
I begin to tire out and turn my gaze to Coco. She seems to still be full of energy, so I decide to take one more leap. As I gather all my energy, I swim as fast as I can, determined to make this the biggest jump of the day. As I propel myself into the air, I hear Coco squeal in horror so loudly that I stop focusing on the leap and on to her. She begins to swim away and I look and see a ship. It's too late for me to come down, so I just have to go through with jump.
Once I am in the water, I turn around to see the human vessel only a few feet away from me. All my life I've heard terrifying stories about humans. They torture and kill any mer they find and they don't have any mercy. I've heard tales of humans called scientists who trapped living things and torture them because they are different. Thinking about all of this is making feel so terrified that I swim left thinking maybe, just maybe I can get away. Out of the blue, a scratchy, sharp mesh engulfs me and I begin to thrash through the mesh but only manage to get myself tangled more. I suddenly feel the mesh start to lift me in the air. I can hear Coco squealing as if to say Lilliana! I will save you! promise! But we both know there is nothing she can do. My struggling soon turns to trembling as I am being placed on a hard wooden surface. I can faintly see humans through the holes of the mesh and I begin to shudder.
"Wow! Looks like we caught a big one!" I hear a human yell. I begin to see a man come close to me with a sharp metal object. I cringe but he merely cuts through the mesh. As he reveals but torso and head I see that there are only about eleven humans, but they all stare at me with wide eyes and small smirks.
"Is... that... a ... mermaid?!?" One human asks. What does he mean a mer-maid? I am a mer. I think to myself. My thoughts are interrupted by all the humans grabbing me and they start to pull and poke at my tail. As I struggle to escape, one human grabs my hair and puts my head in front of his. I see that he is strong and masculine as he stares at me with wide eyes and a smile that yells killer.
As the human roughly pulls my head closer, I whimper in pain and hear him whisper,"we're going to have some fun." As he drops me to the floor, I feel about four humans grab me and hold me down"get the sedative!" One yells. I see a human run into a room from the corner of my eye, but I am distracted by all the intense stares given to me by my captors. As I struggle, I see the human run out of the room and over to me please let me go! I mentally beg. As he comes uncomfortably close to me, the woman holding my arm down let's go and he roughly takes a hold of it. He stretches out some skin and injects a needle into it which causes a liquid to flow into my system.
I begin to see black spots dance around my vision and feel the humans let go of me. I try to move so I can maybe escape but my limbs go heavy and I begin to feel drowsy. I can faintly hear a human say,"what should we do with it, maybe a lab or aquarium?" Then the world goes black.
