Despite Nikki insisting several times that she was fine, Elena was convinced that Nikki had a concussion and it was only after a tiring barrage of questions about what seemed like everything under the sun that Elena seemed convinced that Nikki was in a healthy mental state.
Even so, Elena insisted that she take care of everything, and so Nikki sat on one of the lawn folding chairs they had brought with them, deep in thought as Elena set up the tent, built the campfire and now was sharpening roasting sticks for the both of them. She had told Elena of her painful cramp that had almost caused to her drown, but altered the part of how she got back to the beach, making it sound like she had swam back to the shore and passed out. Elena had believed it all. That had been the easy part.
The hard part was Nikki coming to terms with what had actually happened. She swore that there had been aâŚwoman? That had rescued her and brought her to shore. She remembered vaguely hands on her, and when she had opened her eyes she had seen a woman with blue skin and the most violet eyes she had ever seen. But there couldnât just be a blue skinned woman just wandering around the lake, could there? Of course she couldnât tell Elena about this bizzare event, Elena would probably freak out and take her straight to the emergency room. She wouldnât have believed herself if she hadnât seen it with her own eyes.
As she munched half-heartedly on a hot dog that Elena had cooked for her, she decided that she needed to know if the blue skinned woman was real, that she hadnât been a hallucination from her near death experience.
It was nearly two before she could coax a very drunk Elena into the tent, the woman had been keen on regaling Nikki with several tales of events that happened back when she was in high school. While they were hilarious, Nikki was eager to get rid of Elena. It was as if the lake was calling to her, wanting her to know of its secrets.
Amarisaâs instincts told her to swim away, to get as far away from the lake as she could. She was certain the human had seen her. But after the sunset the darkness emboldened her and her curiosity drew her back to the shore. She had never seen a female human before, the brief times she had glimpsed a human being they had all been male, and their raucous laughter had kept her far away. She wanted to see the human female again; she was intrigued by the femaleâs anatomy which seemed so similar to hers.
This is stupid, Nikki thought to herself as she clutched a just-roasted hot dog in her hand, complete with bun and dressed with ketchup and mustard. She wasnât even sure if the mermaid, yes, she had decided the creature she saw was a mermaid, maybe couldnât even eat human food, but she felt like she need to do something for her rescuer. If there had even been a rescuer at all. Now she stood on the shore, waiting.
Even if the creature had been a figment of her imagination, the scenery was worth stay up for. The full moon had never looked so clear, shining down at its counterpart in the lake, and the sky shone with stars like a sprinkling of diamonds in the sky. Every once in a while, a shooting star would streak across an area, so fast that it was like it had not been there at all. She sat down on a boulder, admiring the night view, something that she could never see in the city thanks to light pollution. She took a glance back at the lake and then froze. There was a very distinct shape in the lake a few meters away, the shape of a head.
âYouâre real.â She whispered quietly, staying completely still, almost as if she was watching an animal and the slightest movement would cause the mermaid to leave. She stayed still for a full minute and was rewarded with the head moving closer to the shore, soon the mermaidâs shoulders and chest emerged from the water as she walked? along the lake bed, moving closer and closer to Nikki, whose heart was beating so hard she felt like she was going to have a heart attack.