Lake Huron

The lights dance on the water. My reflection waves at me. The water is so clear I can see pebbles at the bottom of the lake. The waves lap at my feet, the cold enough to startle me, but not enough to scare me away. Beautiful flowers line the shore, all different colors: purple, red, pink, white. I sit on the rock, watching the waves and listening to the sounds of Lake Huron.

Mermaids Exist

Mermaids exist, and they are evil. The sailors are on their ship, unprepared for death. They hear something unusual: a beautiful song. They follow the sound of the voice, mesmerized by the lilting sound. When they find who is singing it, they are amazed: a mermaid sitting on a rock. She sings higher and higher and then jumps into the ocean. She pops her head up and whispers, “Come here.”

“Come here.” her voice echoes in their heads, even her voice is beautiful. One sailor gets off the ship to talk to her. He looks around, but the mermaid is nowhere to be found. He turns around, and there she is. Red hair, sharp blue eyes, a light laugh.

Before he can say anything, he is yanked underwater, struggling for freedom, breath leaving his body.

The mermaid smiles wickedly at his pain. He soon realizes that mermaids are not as beautiful as he thought. They are evil.

The rest of the sailors are clueless to what had happened until they see their friend’s corpse floating on top of the water. Mermaids come out from the water. The sailors know they killed their friend because one holds his watch.

The captain, panicking but afraid to show fear, steers his ship the other way. With shaky hands and fear written across his face, he steers his ship into a boulder. The boat gets a huge dent; it is made of old wood anyway, and is already poorly built. The sailors feel their beloved ship flipping over. They look to the captain for directions, but he just stands there, frozen in fear. They all grab onto railings or the nearest thing they can grab, but they can feel themselves falling regardless. Again, the singing, but this time, more voices, a chorus of beauty, singing in a minor key. High voices, low voices, combined into one. It is the mermaids. They are flipping the ship. How many are there? Fifty? Sixty? The mermaids keep singing as they flip the ship. The sailors, who are not great swimmers, flail their arms wildly in the water. They search for land, but they are in the middle of the ocean. Feeling themselves sinking, the mermaids tighten their grip. The mermaids pull them underwater. The captain finds a piece of his ship and steps onto it. He frantically paddles with his hands. “You’ll be fine, You’ll be fine,” he kept telling himself. But he wasn’t. A mermaid finds him, the first mermaid they saw that day.

“You thought you could get away,” she whispers. The captain looks down to see two grimy hands on the board pulling it out from underneath him. He is still blinded by her beauty: her wavy red hair and her striking blue eyes. She pulls him underwater. He struggles as she smiles. He slowly runs out of breath, dying a selfish coward. His main regret was not saving his friends.

Years later, more sailors come to that part of the ocean. They hear a lilting song. They follow it, and when they see a beautiful mermaid with wavy red hair and striking blue eyes, they are stunned. They head towards her, mesmerized at the sight. She lures them closer, letting them treasure their last steps before she would end their lives. One by one, she pulls them underwater. They cry for help, but nobody helps them. No one survives.