CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The air that filled her lungs was thick and warm. She knew she was awake and that it was futile to try and go back to sleep now, but she kept her eyes closed. She reached for her duvet, wanting to roll over and wallow in her feelings for a few more minutes before either she fell back asleep or her aunt came in to wake her up.

It was not just the fact that she couldn't find her duvet that startled her and caused Mimi to open her eyes in a panic. Her aunt! Mimi remembered dropping Jyou off after their driving lesson and then getting back to her aunt's apartment. She remembered making herself hot-chocolate and settling down onto the couch to watch TV. She remembered her aunt getting home from work while Mimi was getting ready to have a shower, and just as she was brushing her hair, she thought of her butterfly clip. Her most favourite accessory. Mentally retracting her steps Mimi had decided it was probably at the beach, so she waited for her aunt to get to bed before deciding her own car was still drying off in the underground parking, so her aunt's car was the next best thing.

Mimi remembered the drive. She remembered her favourite song had played twice on the radio and she remembered how the roads were almost empty and the glowing 11:00 on the car radio. She remembered that she parked and ran down the steep hill until she got to the sand. She dug forever, her hands raw from the wet sand, the rain pouring and the lightning. But she didn't remember finding her hair clip. She didn't remember driving home. She didn't remember going to bed.

She sat up and looked around her, a foggy glow prevented her from seeing clearly but she felt sand underneath her hands. Did she fall asleep on the beach? Jyou would not be pleased to hear that she had done something that she predicted he would call reckless and unsafe, typical Jyou words.

Mimi's body felt unnaturally light as she tried to stand up, losing her balance and preparing herself to fall down on the sandy ground but she did not. She floated. She pressed her thumb on top of her ring finger and flicked her finger forward, watching curiously as bubbles escaped.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw something move. She turned her head quickly to catch it but saw nothing but the murky fog. Again the same shape crept up again and as she turned her head to catch it, again it fled. A third time she saw it, but did not turn her head. Instead, she reached her hand behind her and grabbed it, only to realize it was her own hair. Floating?

The sand. The bubbles. Her hair floating and looking picturesque like it did when she was in the swimming pool. She was underwater!

This didn't make sense. Mimi wasn't holding her breath, although her instinct was to do so after she figured out where she was, she soon let herself breathe. The thick air filling her lungs was not air, but water. She waited to start coughing and sputtering like she did when she drank water too fast and it would go down her windpipe, but it did not happen. The salt that she could taste on her tongue did not burn her eyes or her lungs as she breathed it in. Had she turned into some strange underwater version of herself? Mutated into a Digimon?

The murky water, a product of her moving around in the sand, slowly cleared. She could see a metre in front of her, seaweed flowing in much the way her hair did. More water cleared and she could see six feet in front of her, coral formations, colourful like the ones on cartoons or the 'before pollution' pictures on documentaries. Then all the sand settled and she could see for miles. It was beautiful, like some painting. The water was blue-green, there were rocks of every color that Mimi imagined rocks could be. She could even see fish swimming by her, none like any she had seen before.

When the beauty of her surroundings registered, Mimi bent her head back and looked at the surface. It was quite a ways up: twenty, maybe thirty feet. The whole thing felt so weird, and although Mimi knew she should be scared, she wasn't. It was quiet, but she didn't mind. She felt safe.

Safe because when no one was here, no one could leave her. She had this whole ocean with fish and beautiful plants that she could explore like it was a department store in New York City. But there was no one here to break her heart. No one to get her hopes up and proceed to destroy them. There was a difference between being alone and being lonely, and the latter was unbearable.

She thought of Jyou, hoped he was safe. She thought of Sora, her best friend. Half of her missed their girl talks and sleep-overs, but another part of her was furious. Sora was more fun when she liked Taichi. Mimi'd never ever tell her that, but the red-headed girl had become obsessed with Yamato, almost like one of his screaming fans. Part of Mimi's reasoning was based in a tiny crush on the blonde she'd fostered during the last couple years. But he thought she was psycho. Too immature, as she'd once overheard. That day had crushed her crush, so to speak, but she always had a soft spot for that boy.

Taichi was too… Taichi to notice any of Mimi's hurt feelings. He was oblivious, part of the reason Sora had chosen Yamato instead. And then there was Koushiro. Izzy. Stupid, insensitive, jerk faced Izzy. He wasn't her normal type, Everyone had said that when they started going out. She knew it, he knew it, the whole school knew it. It was nice for a while, but he would say things, she would cry, and he would leave so she could "get it out" alone. They fought. They fought more than army men, Takeru once said. She knew her friends hated it, they had all chosen sides and that had strained more relationships than just hers and Izzy's. So they broke up and hadn't had a decent conversation since. But Mimi hoped he was okay too.

This wouldn't be so bad. She could swim to her heart's content, get lost in the ocean and her thoughts. She didn't need anyone. It was too hard to be left, so this was the peaceful alternative. She wished them all the best, but this was what she needed. To be alone with herself instead of being lonely amongst people.

Maybe when she was over this and had found peace with herself, she could go above on the surface and find a handsome sailor and they could live together in an underwater castle. She didn't know if she could pass her new superpower onto anyone, but for the moment, she didn't care. Alone was nice.

Mimi wondered what she was, a Sea-Maiden maybe, a witch? Somehow had she tapped into some ancient digimon power? No matter, Mimi decided. It was time to explore the ocean. Her new department store. Her new home.

She was still floating, weightless. With an uncertain arm she pulled herself forward, a weak half -front crawl. She moved forward. She did it again and moved even farther. This was easy. She got comfortable and began spinning, using her hands to pull her forward and sideways around the water. She felt like she did at the beach yesterday, free. Dancing on the sand was nice, but dancing in the water was better. Quiet. Graceful. Magic.

She stopped mid-spin and looked above her head, the light from the sun reflected on the surface and shone beams of light into the water, making the ocean twice as beautiful as it had just been. Mimi decided she would look above the water and see what was around her, but as she made the motion to kick, she couldn't.

She hadn't used her legs yet, Mimi noted. She tried to kick again, but it felt weird, like her legs had been bound together. Mimi looked down, and illuminated by a beam of water-distorted sunlight where her legs should have been, was a lime-green mermaid tail.