Eventually, as I felt the waters gradually getting warmer and softer, I reached Atlantica. But I was not prepared for who was waiting for me.

As I was carried softly to the halls of my room, father was in front of the cloth that covered our privacy.

His complexion was deeply worrying, his skin a little ashen, his lips an odd colour and his scaled tail becoming duller by the day. Even though he restricted me and the girls to do a lot with our lives from mother's death, I love him with all my heart, and it scares me to think he won't be here one day.

Then his ice cold stare turned on me, his white hair and beard wavered, his staff in his left hand had a glow of an angry deep gold.

"Ariel..." His voice trailed, his brittle voice, even with a whisper, always had a power to it. And by just saying my name, it gave me chills. "Attina followed you."

With that, I cursed to myself and looked away from him, coming only 4 tails away from him.

I only went to the surface, how could Attina follow me so quickly?

"Daddy, I-"

"I don't wanna hear it," His booming voice sent a chilling wave through the waters that I jumped. "I don't want you in danger, and here you are, willingly swimming to the surface? We have rules not to go up there because of the dangers-"

"But the possibilities are endless, daddy." I managed to squirt out, giving him one quick look and the expression on his face made me look away since it almost broke my heart.

"Your mother-"

"I know mother died because of humans and their contraptions," I braced my hands together and scrunched my face, my frustration and plea coming out in sudden bursts of words. "But, there can be friendships made! We can learn from humans, they can show us things that we never even knew would make sense or be believable!"

"Ariel." He said softly, clearly tired of my outbursts and behaviour lately. His head dipped and so did his crown he had to hold it up from it not slipping. "Humans cannot be trusted, you know that. It's just too dangerous to risk you, my family, and my people!" His voice, again, boomed through the hall and even made the cloth to the girls room shake.

He gently swam past me, and I had an urge to turn around and make my point a bit more clear. But he was having none of it. And when my red hair settled around me, my eyes caught movement in front of me.

There, moving the cloth out of the way, only 3 of my sisters were watching me with sad faces. Attina, Aquata and Alana. Aquata's big brown hair like a puffer fish on her head, but her biggest feature was her round brown eyes, and they were miserable, as well as her sad little pout. Alana and her middle parted black hair swept along her shoulders as she moved away from Attina and Aquata, her sadness the most noticeable as she stared at me, her large blue eyes almost popping out of her head.

Then there was Attina, her brown hair, almost red was down and messy, guess she was in the middle of doing it before they all heard the yells.

"Ariel..."

"Don't." I stopped Attina short; I didn't even want to look at her. I love her, I love all my sisters, but Attina followed me, and even reported back to my father. "I just..." Alana reached a hand out to me but I turned 90 degrees away from all three of them. "I just wish he would understand, wish all of you would understand. I want everyone to be happy, instead of living in the blue, not knowing what can await us." I pouted at Alana, who just awkwardly winced.

"Me too," Alana croaked, rubbing her arms and looking back at Aquata and Attina, but they were avoiding her gaze. "But you know as well as we do, nothing good can come from humans-"She said painfully at the end, but I was getting really sick of all the 'nothing good can come' and the 'it's dangerous' crap.

"No, I don't know." I faced them; I could feel my brows meeting in the middle of my forehead from anger. "Because I am always told, commanded not to go up there. So I'm always not in the know." I turned my hurt gaze on Attina. "But when I went up there, I saw something that would've blown everyone in the water away, literally."

I had the satisfaction to see Attina's pained face before I left, but I regretted making her feel that way.

I sat on a flat rock for hours, just staring at the different fish that swept past, their smiles were genuine, but my fake smiles felt too painful to return, so stopped. And as I stared at the glistening surface above that was so hard to spot because I was so far down, everyone was so far down, I wanted to go back up again.

I wanted to feel that gusty force, the water that dropped from the skies, and that flying machine, and that boy that I saw. If there were only more humans, how amazing it could be to interact, to see if they can understand, and know if they can help us face any possibility...

With such little thought, I looked around to see no one around to know me personally would follow me. And with my mind made up, I began to swim away from Atlantica, out of the border and as I was out of sight from stranger mer-folk, I started for the surface.

The closer I got, the more I felt alive, the clearer I felt about my choice and opinion of the help we could get. The waves weren't as hard as before, they were gentler as I reached the glistening top. I even saw the ripples of the water above.

I smiled to myself as I was just an arm away from the surface; I stayed still, the calm waters softly moving me side to side. The water rippled, and I genuinely saw the sun. It stayed still, and even from touching range of exploding from the water, I felt its warmth. And I didn't want to not feel it ever again.

And cautiously, ever so slowly, I allowed my big head to crack the surface, my hair splaying around me like blood, and just as my nose was out of the water, I peered up.

My neck arched and eyes wide as I stared in utter awe of the bright sun. It glowed a white but its aura a faint yellow I couldn't make out because I had to squint from its painful rays.

"Whoa..." I gasped, the absolute beauty of the sun was enough for me to cry, but the fluffy things around it I believed were called Clouds were so cute and looked edible I wanted to reach out and pluck it from the light blue sky.

Then I looked at a high cliff point and saw a large building, made of wood by the looks of it, and around it were large and very long lines coming out where some metal machines rested.

I swam along the surface, passing along seagulls and other birds that awkwardly turned their heads at me, squawking and picking at fish beneath them. My hair trailed behind me and I kept my tail beneath the surface just in case.

Once I had moved around the high land, I seen the land got steeper and steeper until I saw a golden low point at the very end which was miles away.

Heaving a heavy breath and stretching my arms stupidly, I got underwater and swam as fast as I could. But once I was powering my way to the other end, I felt objects hit my face and body as I swan past. Little bottles and paper my father would call them, since they drifted to the bottom of our land.

But once I was sure I made it to the lowest area of the human land, I popped my head out of the water and had to duck immediately from a flying board with a young boy on. About 10 years old and smiling like a happy child, and he was heading for the low point which was actually a beach, covered in golden sand, and it looked so warm.

It wasn't crowded, but I kept my distance.

I had told father that they could be an answer to help us make friendship, but now that I was here, staring at people, (humans!)I was too scared to approach anyone. Father was right, that humans can be dangerous, some. Some humans can be dangerous, some can be sick. But also some humans would be my friend, right?

And just as I said that, I seen something higher from the beach, the young lad I had seen the first time I broke the water, carrying a crate or box, and he was taking it to a building that was the colour of shells.

Near the ledge of the cliff, I realised I could manage to climb it, sort of.

I glided there, taking notice that humans on the beach were happy. The smiles and laughter was a joyous moment I took in, and I was out of sight of them and a shadow of the Cliffside towered over me.

Okay, the opaque colour of the cliff was a little higher than I expected, but thankfully there was a rock that was raggedy for me to climb.

I began to hike the rock, my fingernails getting cut, scraped and covered in dirt, my hair a wet mess behind me, my fringe sticking to my forehead and cheeks I felt so ungraceful. What an eyeful for first impressions, huh?

I managed to get so high until I had to hang on for dear life when the gusty force barely pushed me off the rock. I sat uncomfortably on a jagged flat area, and examined my tail. My green scaled tail was dotted with red where I had cut it, even my tail end, which is soft as silk was torn a little I could cry. But it would heal in time, I think.

Then I was close enough to grab the edge of the cliff, but when I did, I grabbed something spiky and retracted my hand to find I pulled out a wad of green vegetable looking stuff. I sniffed it and licked a flake. Hmm, it wasn't poisonous.

I chucked it and grabbed again, this time, grappling higher and managing to sloppily drag my body up. But there was a wall, no, some sort of wooden barrier. It was cool; I hadn't seen anything like it before.

My head was over the Cliffside, and I saw hovering machines, flying past so fast like sharks. Humans walking around, some even had metal parts attached to them, some were just fully metal!

My eyes jerked to some of the buildings, made of the concrete floor like my land, but in many different colours like yellow, bright green, red and shell. Some were so tall like rocks on my land, and some had massive attachments that looked odd. I reached for the wooden fence and pulled myself up some more, out of breath from so much work.

Then I heard a noise to my right.

There, the boy. He was empty handed this time and I ducked my head down a little more, so he wouldn't notice me. His hair was a soft brown and eyes a big blue. I smiled to myself since he's the first cute human boy I've seen. He wore bulky black boots and large pale green pants and dirtied pale top that looked a little big for him.

I struggled to move my fringe from my eyes as I watched him intently walk over to a flying machine that stayed still. Its back, I think, was facing the building and the boy and on the back was box's I see. He hefted one and began walking back to the shell coloured building with shiny spaces in the walls and I seen fantastic looking things I couldn't describe what they were.

But in the window was something that made me gasp and bug my eyes. It was a slimy looking blob of bulge with a vest on. It was a fleshy colour and had beady black eyes, no nose but a snout looking...Thing on his face.

I couldn't help myself, I gasped so loud and drew back a little that I heard a loud crash.

I snapped my attention back at the lad, whose big blue eyes were on me, and boy where they huge. The box he had been carrying was at his feet and more fantastic stuff was on the dirty, green ground, some even broke. It was glass, which I believe were the shiny spaces in the walls of the building.

What do I do? What do I say? Should I dive back into the water? Should I help, somehow? He's staring right at me! He's just standing, mouth agape and chest heaving as if he were having some sort of attack. I feel bumps on my skin and my whole body go warm and tingly, and it was not the sun. Oh damn, damn, damn...

"Um, hi...?" I winced. I awkwardly smiled, but I knew I looked stupid from the way I felt my top lip reach my nose. I'm gunna die.

Okay, if this is getting boring/tiring, critisize me! If it's getting better/building up, tell me! I love a littel encouragement! ;) Btw, I used '4 tails away' instead of '4 feet away' because...well...mermaids dont have feet and wouldnt use a sentence like that :')