Something wasn't right.

I felt suspended in a frigid, lilting bubble as if liquid enveloped me. Ice seemed to invade my blood, circling the frost throughout my body. Salt overpowered my nostrils with each shaky breath I inhaled. My eyes flew open to darkness.

Where am I?

I tried to sit up, through a viscous substance that resisted my arms and legs. Pressure strangled me on all sides, so forceful that I feared I might snap in two. Panic swelled in my chest.

What is happening to me?

Memories flooded my brain as I tried to figure out my location—and how I got there. I remembered hanging out with Lani, swimming in the ocean...until the waves picked up, the ocean turned against me. It was such an abrupt change. Yet when it occurred, I was too far from shore to get out of danger.

A realization settled upon me, so weighted that it alone could drown me.

I'm in the ocean.

I'm alone in the depths of the dark ocean.

And yet...I'm still breathing?

That wasn't right.

The thoughts in my brain blurred into a rapid, endless whirlpool. Was I dead? Captured? Rescued?

The classic pinch test should tell me if this is real. Maybe. My arm slowly floated through the water, and I finally felt the bite of my fingers telling me that my nerves were still in perfect working order. I forced myself to breathe deeply, especially now that I knew I could.

It's okay. Just don't panic. At least you're probably still alive.

For now.

I sighed. Now was not the time to be pessimistic. I needed to determine what to do.

The only word that came to mind was "brine." Lani always soaked our Thanksgiving turkeys in that, and they tasted delicious. I squirmed as sharks and other predators invaded my thoughts.

Don't think about that. Think of solutions.

But there was no way to develop a plan when I couldn't see my surroundings and I didn't know where I was. The ocean is an immense place. I could be near the beach, and a short swim would get me to Lani. Or ocean currents could have swept me halfway across the world. I was left, quite literally, in the dark.

"Are you awake?" a cheerful voice rang out.

Terror ripped through me. I whirled around to face the voice's direction. A faint pink light glowed in a piled-stone entrance. It intensified, just like my racing pulse, enabling me to make out the smooth, grey walls of a cave. I wanted to cry out, to run. But who would hear me in the depths of the sea? And where could I possibly hide? A whimper escaped my throat.

Is this really the end?

Every muscle in my body tensed. The source of the light stopped in the doorway. I squinted into the blinding brightness.

It was...a girl. A teenage girl. I stared at her dainty face, dumbfounded. She brushed her body-length honey-blonde braid over her shoulder, her small lips upturning.

What's going on? Who is she?

"Are you feeling better now?" Her voice oozed with warmth.

I glanced at the pink, scale-covered orb that glowed where her legs should have been. At the bottom, two silky fins flowed in the water.

That's...a tail. She has a tail.

My eyes went wide. "W-what?"

The girl's clear blue eyes watched me, her grin unfaltering. "Is everything alright?"

"Y-yes. But...your legs. I mean tail. I mean..."

I didn't know what I meant. My head spun faster than a hamster wheel.

"What about my tail?" Her head tilted to the side, and the rhythmic, back-and-forth movement of her tail made her bob in the water.

"You have a tail," I breathed.

"Yes."

"You're..." I stopped the word from tumbling out of my mouth. This is ridiculous. Mermaids are mythical creatures that don't exist.

"I'm what?"

My brow knit together. This wasn't making any sense.

"What are you?" I asked, trying to pull the groggy pieces of myself together.

"I'm a mermaid."

My jaw fell slack. "I-Is this a joke?"

"No joke, I'm a mermaid."

"But...how? How can this be real?"

"Come with me," she said, a mischievous glint in her eye. She swam out of the cave, her tail illuminating the path. I followed her out, pinching myself in a feeble attempt to wake up.

I froze in the cave's doorway.

Hundreds of mermaids and mermen swam in front of me, so many that the combined light of their tails brightened the sea. For miles, coral and rock formations rose from the ocean floor in the shape of walls and buildings.

I couldn't remove my eyes from the sight. It was like I entered a fairy tale. Part of my brain asserted that I was seeing an illusion, yet something deep inside me that believed it was real. What other explanation was there? I was clearly awake. And, without a doubt, I was seeing mermaids and mermen.

"Whoa," I breathed.

"Now, do you believe me?" the mermaid asked.

I nodded slowly. I swam forward, drawn in by the sight. Lani has got to see this.

"I'm Catilli," the mermaid said. "What's your name?"

"Kiara," I murmured. My eyes were still glued on the sea of shining mer-people. The ocean seemed to grow quiet as I absorbed it all.

This is too incredible to be real. And yet, somehow, it was.

"How did I get here?" I asked.

"My friend, Lira, found you unconscious at sea," Catilli said. "She was concerned that you might drown, so she put an air bubble around you and brought you to our world."

I lifted my hand to my face and touched my cheek. My brow crinkled.

"What do you mean?" I asked. "I don't feel an air bubble."

"You can't feel it, but don't worry, it's right there, helping you breathe. It also helps with temperature control so you don't die from the cold."

I shivered just at the mention of the frigid water. My muscles were stiff, threatening to seize up at any moment.

Catilli let out a laugh reminiscent of a chipper songbird. "Don't worry, you get used to the cold along with any pressure you might feel from the ocean."

"You mean the crushing weight that I feel all around me?" I asked dryly.

"Yup, that's it!"

I sighed. Freezing and feeling like I'm about to be snapped in half was not my definition of a vacation.

"So...how far am I from the shore?" I asked.

Catilli frowned in concentration. "I'm not totally sure, but I do know that you're in Oamer."

"Oamer?"

"Yup."

My brow wrinkled. "What's Oamer?"

"It's one of four Oceanic city-states."

"Four?" My eyes popped open. "You mean there are more mermaids and mermen out there?"

"Yeah, of course."

I paused, trying to absorb all of this new information.

"Do you have any idea of how I can get back home?" I finally asked.

"No," Catilli said. "But I know someone who can."

My face brightened. "Really?"

"Yes, follow me."

She dove into the water, the flits of her tail propelling her at tremendous speed. For a minute, I thought she would abandon me, and I'd be stuck in the middle of the ocean. But right before Catilli disappeared behind a wall of peach-colored coral, she glanced over her shoulder. She turned around and zoomed toward me. I edged backward on instinct, afraid she would crash into me.

"Come on!" Catilli exclaimed. She stopped short of slamming into me, gripped my wrist, and yanked me forward.

Catilli moved in powerful, continuous strides. Water rushed past in a torpedo-like funnel, the force pushing my hair back. I caught snippets of the bustling city as we passed: mermaids and mermen hunting for shells, collecting seagrass, cleaning coral, mining sea rock with axes, or simply swimming to their destinations. Schools of fish teemed around pink and yellow coral, while mermen with spears looked on, preparing to catch their prey. A shiver ran down my spine at the calculating look in their eyes and the sharpness of their weapons.

I certainly wouldn't want to get on their bad side.

I focused my attention forward to see a forest of kelp that climbed its way to the ocean's surface. Catilli darted inside.

"It's a shortcut," she said over her shoulder.

The thick green blocked any light except that from Catilli's tail. The kelp waved in the water, its slimy, cold tentacles brushing my bare skin. I suppressed a gag.

We burst from the eerie forest, and my gaze landed on a hefty creature that traveled swiftly toward us. He had the torso of a man, but had two claws instead of arms, and six crab-like legs.

Panic sparked in my chest, both at the strange sight and his accelerating pace. In a matter of seconds, our paths would converge. Granted the muscular build of the half-man, half-crab, I imagined Catilli and I would most definitely receive some sort of injury.

And I thought driving was stressful.

At the last moment, Catilli jerked to the right. The crab-man whooshed by, and the air in my lungs escaped in a steady stream. My skin still prickled with apprehension from the near collision.

That was way too close. The crab-man didn't even glow. If it hadn't been for the pink light from Catilli's tail, we would have crashed. My eyes shifted, watching the dark water in front of me for another surprise encounter.

It dawned on me that there were far greater threats than being crashed into. What lurked in the surrounding shadows? Sharks? Jellyfish? My muscles tensed. Something could attack us at any moment. My heart rate sped up the longer Catilli traveled.

Please, Catilli, please watch for other sea creatures.

A sparkle caught my eye. I squinted into the distance. Light filtered into the surrounding sea, like the sun slowly dispersing night. A castle rose from the ocean floor on a ridge, fashioned from weathered blue and grey stone. White coral spirals climbed their way high overheard, each one topped with a glossy, golden pearl.

"We're almost there," Catilli said. Her grip on my wrist released. I glanced down to see a red ring of skin.

She certainly has a firm grip. I didn't want to imagine what her handshake would feel like.

Catilli hurried up the castle's hill. My lungs sucked in quick breaths as I powered after her. The effort exhausted my legs and arms, even though it was a trite distance. How did those sea people do it?

Catilli was waiting for me by the time I finally reached the top. I braced myself for some sort of jab at my slow pace. But instead of speaking, she simply turned and darted through a line of doric columns in front of the entrance. I followed her trail of bubbles past a splintering arbor.

My breath caught in my throat. Rainbow hued flowers blossomed all around, their petals luminous. Trees glowed on the outskirts with black-striped leaves that swayed in the water, forming a barrier between the beauty within and the darkness outside. Marble statues of mermaids and mermen rose among the vegetation. A particularly large one sat in the center, under which three figures floated.

"Guess who's here!" Catilli announced.

"Oh, how wonderful!" a high-pitched voice said.

A golden-tailed mermaid rushed toward us. I blinked just as she appeared in front of me.

"I'm so glad to see you're awake," she said. "I was so worried about you. Are you feeling better?"

"Uh, y-yeah," I stammered.

"That's great! I'm Lira by the way."

"I'm Kiara."

Lira smoothed her shoulder-length brown hair. "I'm sorry if I look a mess. I wasn't expecting company."

"Don't worry you look just fine," a voice chuckled. An orange-haired merman with a navy tail sidled up beside Lira.

She grinned at him, then turned back to me. "This is Ayil."

The merman winked. "Nice to meet you."

"And I am Nitov," the last merman said as he swam over. He took my hand and planted a kiss on my knuckles.

My eyebrows knit together. Well, that was odd.

"I'm so pleased to meet you," he cooed. His blue eyes stared into mine, so vivid that they seemed to contain the entire ocean.

"He's my brother," Lira said.

I broke eye contact with Nitov to glance down at their matching golden tails. Now that I thought about it, it made sense.

"I-It's great to meet you all," I said. My head reeled from the sudden introductions.

"It must be so difficult to be down here without a tail," Ayil said.

"Yeah, a bit," I said with a nervous chuckle.

Lira's green eyes glimmered with concern. "Aw, you must miss your home."

"It is nice to be on solid ground."

"Well, don't you worry," Lira said. "We'll get you home."

Relief flooded me. "You will? You know the way?"

"Yeah, of course." She looked me up and down, regret filling her eyes. "Although, you might have to wait a few days. You were in critical condition when I found you. A few moments later, and you might have died from a lack of oxygen."

I wondered when Lira could have found me. I couldn't have lasted very long underwater after being tackled by the waves. She had to have discovered me soon after I passed out.

"We'll probably need to take you to the Oamaren healer a couple times to make sure you're okay before you go back to shore."

"Oh, uh, that's okay," I said. "We have doctors on shore that can handle that sort of thing."

In fact, they're probably better equipped to handle human injuries than you are.

Lira raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure? It's a pretty long journey, at least a few days."

A few days?

"How long have I been passed out for?" I asked.

"Twelve tides," Catilli said.

Tides? I was about to ask what those were, but Lira cut in.

"If you're sure that you want to go home today, I can take you. I'm just concerned that you might be too weak to last the journey."

"I do feel much better now that I've rested..."

Lira shrugged. "It's like I said: I can take you home if you really want to. But I would advise that you see our healer at least once just to make sure there are no underlying issues that need to be resolved."

I sighed. Maybe it won't be too terrible to rest another day, especially if I am too weak to travel.

Thoughts of my sister drifted into my mind. I crumpled from the weight of the memories.

Lani.

She had to be worried sick about me. Who knew how many people were out looking for me? I needed to get back before she had a panic attack—or called Mom and Dad.

A shrill blast reverberated through the water. I jolted from my thoughts.

"What was that?" I exclaimed.

"It's a bugle," Catilli said. "It tells us which tide it is."

"What's a tide?"

Catilli and Lira exchanged a glance.

"You don't know what a tide is?" Lira asked.

"No..." I thought for a moment. "I mean, I know what tides are in human terms. It's basically ocean currents."

Lira nodded. "Exactly. That's what we're talking about."

"Oh." I was still confused, but couldn't bring myself to ask any further questions. My entire situation was far too awkward and complicated already.

"It's second low tide now," Catilli said. "That's when we usually eat our third meal."

"Yes, why don't we do that now?" Lira suggested. "Then, Kiara, you can think about what you want to do. I don't want to pressure you into a decision."

The mere mention of food made my stomach feel empty. Time to rest, eat, and process what had happened was exactly what I needed.

I beamed. "That sounds good."

"Then come this way." Lira's tail flipped as she headed toward the arbor.

Though the muscles in my arms and legs screamed from the effort, I hauled myself after her.

This food had better be worth it.