THE BEGINNING

When I had not ever been there, never existed, there was just a man and a woman. They loved each other, but the woman had a secret. A dark secret that could never be exposed, to anyone except those worthy enough to believe. Soon the woman was pregnant, a child just beginning to form inside of her. That was me. She felt she had to tell the man her secret, for fear of him finding out in an awful way and leaving her forever. But when she told him he only laughed harshly and called her a liar, only trying to draw attention to herself. But when she proved, he was not suddenly sorry that he had doubted her, rushing back into her arms and begging for forgiveness. No, he was frightened. He ran off, with her begging him to listen, and nobody had ever seen him since. The woman grew ill, yearning for her lost lover. Every day she woke with the false hope that he would return to her, and every day she was bitterly disappointed. She began refusing to eat, growing thin and frail. Meanwhile, her stomach was growing larger and larger as every week passed. On the night the baby had arrived in the world, the woman tok the child in her arms and ran away to a fountain, needing to see if her child had been cursed as she herself had. She doused the child in water and was horrified by her own carelessness. She knew now why the man had left her so many months ago. She could see through his eyes, at what a monster she was. She dried the baby, turned to a passing stranger and placed the baby hurriedly in the strangers arms. Without another word, she ran off to the harbor, dissapearing into the waves one last time becuase she was a mermaid.