MidReal Story
Mermaid of Shadows: Love's Mysterious Transformation
Scenario: Dad, I am so sad. I turned into a black mermaid. It is said that people without love will turn into black mermaids. People with love will turn into golden mermaids. One in ten million people will turn into colorful mermaids. What kind of mermaid will you be?
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I woke up and discovered I was a black mermaid.
My father had told me, the day before he died, that I would know if I’d ever been loved because my fish tail would turn black.
I was an unloved black mermaid.
I was not capable of love.
The only way I would ever become a golden mermaid, like my roommate Lily, was to love someone.
The only way to become a golden mermaid was to have love returned.
I would never be a golden mermaid and I would never be capable of love.
Lily was my best friend.
She was also a mermaid, but her scales were the color of gold.
She was happy all the time.
We grew up together swimming in the same schools of fish and playing on the same coral reefs.
I never had the heart to tell her that my scales were not gold.
I just let her assume that they were when she wasn’t looking too closely.
No one knew my secret, except for my father and he was gone now.
The ocean floor, which had always been so warm and comforting to me, felt cold and foreign against my dark scales.
I stood up and looked at myself in the mirror on the wall of our cave underwater home.
My hair was just as black as it had always been, but my scales were definitely not gold as most people assumed.
My scales were as black as the night sky.
In two days we were all going to swim up to the surface and watch the moon rise from the sky over the water.
The full moon had been a time-honored tradition for as long as I could remember.
I loved swimming on the surface in the moonlight because it was the one time that I could be happy.
Something about the moon made me feel at home, even though my tail was always black and not gold like Lily’s.
I knew she would ask me about it this time when she saw me swimming above her with Coral, our close friend who had every color of scales you could imagine covering her body.
I have to get rid of this tail before then.
As soon as I woke up and discovered my new tail color, I decided that I needed to keep it a secret from everyone else.
It wasn’t going to be difficult to hide from Lily and Coral since they only saw me from the front when we swam together.
Only my father had seen me from behind and known my secret.
He was gone now and I didn’t want anyone else to find out about it either.
I jumped into the water and followed Coral and Lily, who were already headed toward the surface for the full moon rising ceremony.
Lily glanced behind her and saw me swimming underneath her with my black tail moving back and forth against the water as I swam.
She gave me a big smile and waved with her delicate fingers as she said, “Hi, Marina!What’s taking you so long?”
“Nothing,” I replied, trying to swim faster so she wouldn’t notice how my dark tail contrasted with hers.
“Are you sure you are okay?”
I’m fine,” I replied, waving her off as I tried to swim faster away from her, but she was too fast for my black tail to race away from her golden one.
She swam a little faster, then turned around, grabbed me by the arm, and pulled me next to her as she asked, “What happened to your tail?
Is it dirty or something?”
“No, no!”
I said, trying not to panic as she swam up next to Coral who was waiting for us near a large coral reef that was teaming with life beneath the water’s surface.
“Something is wrong with it,” I said, “but I don’t want anyone else to see it.”
“It doesn’t look any different than it always has,” said Lily, as she glanced behind her at my black tail, “but I’ll go ask Coral about it.”
The golden mermaid swam away from me and over toward Coral who was floating around near the surface of the water as she waited for us to swim toward her and join her so that we could all watch the moon rise into the sky together.
Lily swam up next to Coral, who was still swimming around in a circle while she waited.
She pointed behind her as she said excitedly, “Coral, Marina’s tail is turning gold just like mine!”
Coral stopped swimming in circles, then turned around to look at me.
She stared at my black tail for a few seconds as she said, “Oh my goodness!This is the first time I’ve ever seen anything like this before!”
I felt my cheeks turning a bright shade of pink as I tried to swim away from them.
“Oh no you don’t!”
said Coral, as she caught me by the arm with one hand and held me in place while she wrapped her other arm around my waist.
“We need to go talk to the mermaid who knows everything about this kind of stuff.”
“I’m not ready to see anyone else!”
I screamed, trying to break free of Coral’s grip, but she was too strong for me to get away from.
I felt like I was going to cry when I heard them giggling behind me as they swam away.
Lily shouted over her shoulder that she would be right back after she talked to the woman who knew everything there was to know about being a mermaid.
I swam underwater after them, but their tails were moving too fast above me for me to catch up to them.
I didn’t want anyone else to see my black tail because that would mean that I would not be able to keep it a secret anymore.
That would mean that they would know that I was an unloved mermaid who was incapable of loving anyone else.
It had been 500 years since anyone had seen a black mermaid before this one.
I swam up to the surface after them and saw them talking to each other near a large rock outcropping that was sticking out of the water.
“You are going to make Marina happy?”
I heard Lily giggling as she nodded her head at Coral.
“Okay, I’ll take your word for it!”
Then Lily looked at me and said, “What are you doing down there, Marina?”
I looked down and saw that I was moving my arms and swimming in circles really slow.
I guess I didn’t realize that I was doing that.
I tried to smile at Lily, but it was hard for me to do that because I was feeling so depressed and sad.
“Come on, Marina!”
Lily said, as she took off swimming into the dark part of the ocean.
I didn’t want to go after her because I didn’t want anyone else to see my black tail, but I also didn’t want to be left alone.
I started swimming after her and soon caught up with her as we swam through the dark part of the ocean back into the light part.
We burst out of the water and into the air on the surface when we saw Coral standing on the rock outcropping above us looking down at us.
She giggled then said, “So you caught up with us, huh?”
I looked up at Coral and saw that she had turned into a red mermaid.
She had changed colors again just like Lily had!
She must have been a pink colored mermaid while we were underwater talking to each other.
I also noticed that Lily’s tail was still gold, just like it had always been before.
It wasn’t turning black at all!
I started swimming over to the rock outcropping where they were standing as Lily jumped off the rock and back into the water.
She took off under the water and disappeared from sight.
I looked around for her, but I couldn’t see where she had gone.
“Where did she go?”
“Why are you so sad?”
Coral asked me, putting her hand on my shoulder for me to help me feel better.
She was being nice and sweet, but I could tell that she was just trying to get me closer to her so she could see my tail change colors again.
“You’re not even smiling?”
she asked, then grabbed me by the arm and started dragging me toward the rock outcropping.
“Why is your tail black?”
“No reason,” I said, trying not to sound too upset about it all as she dragged me closer to the rock.
“Why don’t you smile?”
she asked me again as she looked into my eyes.
Then she looked at my tail as she said, “You’re not even trying to change colors this time.”
“I’m trying!”
I shouted at her as we swam around in circles in the water until she finally let me go then took off swimming after Lily again.
“How do you change your colors faster than me?”
I screamed after as she swam away from me then climbed up onto the rock outcropping next to Coral.
“I don’t know!”
Coral giggled as she changed colors again into a blue mermaid then jumped back into the water after Lily.
“Come on!”
she shouted as she swam circles around Lily then started dragging her toward the rock outcropping where they had been standing before.
“You’re not going to do anything strange or anything like that if I come over there, are you?”
I heard Lily ask her in a sweet and innocent voice that made Coral fall in love with her even more than she already was right then.
“Of course not,” Coral lied to her as she started swimming toward her in the water while dragging her by the arm.
Lily giggled and said, “Okay!”
as she went along with Coral as she dragged her over toward me and the rock outcropping.
As they got closer to us, Coral changed colors again into a green mermaid then pushed Lily up onto the rock outcropping where she had been standing before.
“Why are you doing that?”
Lily asked her as she climbed up onto the rock next to her then sat down beside her.
“I just wanted us all to be closer together,” Coral said as she put her hand on Lily’s shoulder then looked at me while smiling with her big white teeth.
“Isn’t that right, Marina?”
she asked me as she stood up then took a step toward me in the water next to the rock outcropping where I had been standing this whole time.
“Of course it is,” I said, trying to sound happy about it, even though I was feeling really sad and depressed right then.
I didn’t want anyone to know that I was feeling this way, or to know the truth about how I had changed colors, but I didn’t want to lie to them about it either.
I wanted them to feel better about what was happening to me, but I didn’t want to tell them something that wasn’t true, either.
“What’s wrong?”
Lily said, looking at me with a big smile on her face.
“What are you so happy about?”
she asked me, then put her hand on my shoulder and looked at me with those big, beautiful blue eyes of hers.
I couldn’t help it when I broke down crying right then and there in front of them both.
I bent over, put my hands over my eyes, and tried to hide my face from them so they wouldn’t see that I was crying.
But I couldn’t stop myself from crying no matter what I did.
I hugged myself around my body then looked down at the black tail that was wrapped around my legs.
It was really hard for me to look at it because it made me feel sad and upset inside about how much things had changed between us since we were little kids.
I put my hands over my eyes and tried to wipe away the tears that were running down my face as I kept on crying.
But the more I tried to wipe them away, the more they kept on coming out of my eyes then running down my face.
“Why are you crying?”
Lily asked as she put her hands on my shoulders and looked at me with those big, beautiful blue eyes of hers.
I couldn’t stop myself from crying no matter how hard I tried, but I didn’t want them to know why I was crying or to see the truth about what had really happened to me.
So I did the only thing that I could think of doing at that moment, which was to swim away from them and hide myself in the shadows of the deep part of the ocean where they couldn’t see me anymore.
I swam down into the water and disappeared from sight as soon as I could.
But as soon as I did that, Lily went up onto the rock outcropping, turned golden colored again, and started glowing as she went swimming after me.
She glowed so bright right then that she was able to light up the whole dark part of the ocean all around us and show everyone where I was hiding at.
