It's been over a month but I'm back with chapter eight. Enjoy!
Summary: Zac visits the grotto and things take a downwards turn.
The sun rose, the sun set, the moon rose, the moon set and the sun came up again.
All of which Veridia only knew because other people told her.
Time didn't pass the same down in that cave. She turned the lights off when she knew it was night but it never felt like it was. Without the natural waking and sleeping of the world with each wave of the ocean, she was stuck in a timeless void.
If she left Rita's side, it was never for more than a few minutes. To force herself to eat, to get new kelp wraps, to make a pain-easing cream. She changed Rita's bandages each day; the wounds were closing, scabbing over more each day.
The Mermaid had moved occasionally, a slight flinch here, and the odd shift in her breathing, but she gave no indication of waking up.
Her recovery was never going to be quick but it shouldn't be taking this long. It varied from a day to three days at the very most. The last two cases she'd witnessed had seen the victims awaken the same day as the Moon Energy was taken away. They'd received immediate treatment though. Rita hadn't. Rita had been left for a day first.
Veridia had to leave soon. The Full Moon was only three days away and she swore to return before then. But that was when they thought this would be a simple fix. Her Pod had to come first though,such was the way of her place at the head of the council. Duty comes first. As soon as Rita woke up, she'd leave.
A voice in her head kept telling her she wouldn't though. She wouldn't leave straight away. She wouldn't be able to bring herself to leave right away. If she couldn't even leave Rita to get a proper rest, how could she leave to return to the Pod?
It would be night soon. Nixie had said she'd stay up and let Veridia sleep.
But something in the very front of her mind wouldn't let her sleep. Whenever she tried she was reminded of her first Moon Ring 'Electrocution' case - the one where the victim never woke up. Adrielle slept from the day she got struck, to the night her body turned to seafoam under the full moon.
Veridia heard the hitch in Rita's breathing and the slight whimper as she moved. This time it wasn't just a flinch that could've been her mind playing a trick or a misbreath that could've just been her hearing things that weren't there. Veridia saw her shift slightly onto her side, the uninjured one.
Veridia placed her hand over Rita's.
"It's okay. You're okay," Veridia said softly and stroked her thumb over the back of Rita's hand.
Her breathing settled again, but Veridia didn't let go of her hand. It was a gesture of normality amongst the chaos of the last few days. She'd wake up soon and then everything would be fine.
It was just a waiting game. One more second and it could be over.
Until the seconds stretched to the minutes.
And the minutes become hours.
Then hours join up and soon it's another day gone and nothing's changed.
In the worst way possible, there was nothing quite like watching someone you love suffering.
And the waiting made it so much worse.
Zac peered round the edge of the grotto doorway. Last time he'd come here the council Mermaid had been there and Lyla had frantically shooed him away before the Mermaid could turn and see him. He hadn't been back since. That had been three days ago, the day Lyla came to visit him at night in the canal.
It felt like he was a killer, visiting a surviving victim. Or at least how he'd imagined a killer would feel. The sour guilt. The disinterest in food. The way sleep evaded him as all he could think about what he did.
This time, it was only Nixie in the grotto. Well Nixie and Rita, but the latter wouldn't know if he was there or not. Taking a breath, Zac stepped into the grotto and Nixie's head immediately snapped round. She relaxed only slightly when she saw it was him.
"What do you want?"
For this to be over. For this to never have happened. To stop feeling like shit.
"I just came to see how Rita was?"
"No change."
"Oh," Zac put his hands in his pockets, "that's not good."
"Really? And here I was thinking it was fantastic," Nixie retorted. There was a shake in her voice.
"Are you okay?" Zac asked.
"I'm perfect. Now if there's nothing else, you know where the door is."
Zac wrinkled his brows. Nixie had been on the cold side towards him since 'the Moon Ring incident' but this was full on Ice Age.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing. Everything is fine. We're never going back to the Pod. The Council will permanently banish us. Rita's never going to wake up. Everything's perfect."
"Wait what you do mean never going to wake up? She'll be fine, you said she'll be fine. She has to be fine."
Killer. Killer. Killer.
"So did we. But according to Veridia if she doesn't wake up soon, she won't. The longer she's out the less likely she is to wake up."
Killer. Killer. He held that ring out so tauntingly. He thought it was so funny how the Mermaids scrambled to get it back.
It wasn't funny now.
Zac lifted his eyeline to meet Nixie but the Mermaid had her head down looking at Rita.
"Has she shown any signs of waking up?"
"Just go Zac," Nixie's voice was thick and strained. The voice of someone on the verge of tears.
"Bu-"
"Go."
So he left.
He turned on his heel, walked as calm as he could out of the grotto, then once he was out into the corridor he bolted down the stairs, throwing himself into the water when his foot missed a step and he fell, the full force of his weight slamming into the water like concrete.
Sirena took a seat near Evie's shop and looked around hoping to catch a glimpse of David. He'd been her saving grace these past few days, his sweet nature made him believe the best in her and being around him helped her forget that horrid wiggly feeling in her stomach that bothered her whenever she thought about what had happened. Being around David helped her forget what had happened. And for that she was grateful.
It was her powers that activated the Moon Ring. She was behind it. And Rita was still unconscious with those cuts all across her. Sirena hadn't seen the wound since Rita had been changed back into human form and moved into the grotto under Veridia's care. Only Veridia had treated the wound and only Veriida knew how bad it really was. And she wasn't saying anything.
Sirena was scared of being around Veridia. The Pod leader was was intimidating enough and she that that air of authority that kept Mermaids under her control. Sirena couldn't handle sitting in the grotto in the silence with Veridia who refused to leave.
"Sirena?" Evie appeared in front of her, breaking Sirena's thought, "you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm good," Sirena flashed the smile that usually convinced everyone everything was okay.
It didn't convince Evie.
"You don't look good," Evie took the seat beside Sirena," is this about your aunt?"
Zac had passed onto Lyla that they needed a believable excuse to explain Rita's absence from land school. They ended up going with the simplest - illness. It seemed to have spiralled though, with Zac reporting back saying people thought it was something serious like a disease called 'cancer.'
Sirena just nodded in response. She didn't want to talk about this, she came away to see David and forget about this.
"How is she?" Evie asked softly.
For a second Sirena just wanted to break and tell Evie everything - Zac was a Merman, they were Mermaids, that pretty ring Zac got her was a secret Mermaid power source and they used it to hurt Rita and now she was unconscious with little hope of ever waking up again.
She resisted and felt tears burn in her eyes. They hurt more on land. In the sea, the water washes them away, on land you're forced to feel the pain of the hurt.
"Not much better."
"I'm sorry, I imagine it's hard on you and your cousins."
"Thank you Evie."
"If you need anything, I'm here," Evie rested her hand on Sirena's shoulder for a brief moment before standing up and leaving Sirena to her stomach churning and wriggling and tears breaking free.
Veridia waited until Nixie left before taking out fresh kelp wraps and that soft gauze stuff she found. The younger Mermaid had been quiet and distracted and left easily on her own will without protesting, a dramatic change from the day before.
It was hard to know what to say, Veridia was wrapped up in her own head enough it was hard knowing how to comfort the Mermaids who were little more than hatchlings. They were here because she made the final decision about leaving them behind while the Pod left.
Maybe is she hadn't left them then this wouldn't have happened. She wouldn't be here, sitting on land with her skin starting to dry, looking after the Mermaid who broke her heart.
Veridia eased the blanket down and let the pooled fabric rest on Rita's legs before undoing the buttons of the shirt. She'd gotten Nixie to find a better top that the one Rita had been wearing, it made treating her wounds too … difficult.
Her hands shook slightly as she undid the last button and pulled the fabric down off Rita's right shoulder and the right side of her body. Veridia left the sleeve on the right covering Rita's lower arm. Goosebumps rose over the flashes of exposed skin between the bandages.
Green bands of kelp covered the majority of her torso, reaching from her hip right up to her shoulder, and down her upper arm stopping just above her elbow. More strips covered her collarbones and the lower portion of her neck.
Veridia set about unwrapping the kelp, starting at Rita's neck and working down. She tossed the old wraps to the ground and removed the gauze underneath. The wounds, like burns, were like lightning strikes all across her skin. The worst of the cuts had scabbed over, those across her chest, above her hip and over her shoulder. The smaller ones jagging over her collarbone and those at the very end of the forks had healed over in pink lines.
It was progress. Treating injuries like these could be complicated, for every progression there was certain to be some degree of recession. Veridia had applied various healing salves and creams to minimise that damage the best she could.
At last there was some result.
There had been no sign of any infections, no new bleeds and little sign of any deep damage.
Veridia carefully wiped over the wounds with a soft pad of sea sponge, holding the sponge with her powers to prevent herself turning to tail. She cleaned the wounds and removed the water waiting for Rita to get her legs back before laying fresh gauze over the scabs and wrapping fresh bandages over the top.
All she needed now was for Rita to wake up and everything would on track.
The water was wrong. It was too still. There were no current, not even the smallest shift. And where were the waves? Even hatchlings can feel the echoes of the waves from below the surface.
The water was never ending. As far as she could see in any direction was just a void of empty blue fading to black.
There was nothing here. Nothing living anyway. Nothing swims in water like this. Only dead things dwell in the voids.
The tension, or Nixie supposed maybe tenison was too strong a word for whatever it was - awkwardness maybe? The awkwardness hung tense in the air. Sirena had gone to leave when Veridia came back but Nixie had put her arm around the blonde mermaid and kept her in place. Constantly running from Veridia was not the way to make things any better and if Nixie had to be honest - she wanted Sirena there for her own comfort, to keep herself calm.
When it was her and Veridia the mood wasn't tense but Nixie got the feeling she was only being tolerated. It wasn't a nice feeling.
Nixie let her eyes rest of Rita. The unconscious Mermaid had regained some colour in her skin, the ghostly 'dead' hue had brightened to a shade of living pale. The dark green of the kelp wraps did nothing to help though, the stark contrast only emphasizing the long recovery ahead.
The kelp wraps covered Rita's entire shoulder and reached down to her elbow and under the thin shirt and blanket there were more wraps covering the wounds - exactly how spread out they were she didn't know. Only Veridia knew the full extent of the external damage.
It took her a minute. Something didn't look quite right and it took her longer than she wanted to notice what it was.
Then she noticed it.
"She's not breathing," Nixie said.
Veridia didn't stop to think, she just reacted, dropping to her knees, grabbing Rita's wrist and pressing her fingers to the pulse point.
There was a pulse. It was weak but it was there. She was still alive. Veridia placed her lips over Rita's and ignored the tingling that was most definitely not from the healing magic passing between them.
Veridia pulled away and Rita took a shaky breath in.
"Make sure she keeps breathing," Veridia stood up and brushed off her skirt. She needed to leave, get away from Sirena and Nixie's watching and to get away from the Mermaid she still so clearly had feelings for.
The void lightened until it was like swimming in the soft coral seas around the island. The crushing isolation of the dark depths lifted and the lead weight on her chest dissipated.
The water seemed to have a surface now. Rays of light pierced in from above and it called like a Siren's song.
She went towards it.
I'm back with another chapter, sorry it took a while college has been hectic. Semester two started this week so the last couple weeks has been getting all the classes that are semester one only finished up and handed in. I've been writing when I can though and the next chapter is about halfway there.
Until next time!