Deep Sea Treasures

Like many other women before, she found herself bound and broken, bleeding from many wounds afflicted to her. Why? Because she was different. She spoke up for herself, she knew how to heal her ailments. And those who did not understand called her a witch.

A wheezing breath was all she could really hear around her, her body had been beaten so badly she couldn't even see properly. Between the smell and taste of iron there was something salty, and the call of a seagull nearby. The words of God barked around her, before her chained body was kicked off the cliff.

The impact into the ice-cold ocean was a blessing and curse at the same time. Whereas she knew she would feel pain for the last time, her last moments would also be a struggle. A stone tied to her feet dragged her down into the depths, darkness started to envelop her. Her lifeline in form of bubble escaped her lips, and with it the life she once led.

In the dark her fading eyes could not see the many others who had followed the same fate. Nor would anyone wish to give her that sight. Rotted bloating bodies, half eaten by fish and other feeders. But something else lurked around them, something much larger and more intelligent than a predator. From the dark a soft glow illuminated her surroundings, the woman who was drifting off into her eternal slumber could feel hands press against her numb body. Death's embrace, she thought. Instead she felt gentle lips against her own while her heart stopped, but the dreaded and yet welcomed void would not come for her.

In stasis she floated, hovered, left with thoughts which felt less and less like her own. How long has it been? Why was she still here, stuck as a corpse at the bottom of the ocean? Days, months, maybe even years. But as slow as this drifting was, changes were felt. Tugging of her flesh by animals laid way to scales more brilliant than any dress she had worn in her life. Her wispy blonde hair turned a brilliant gold. Each day a little more of her old shell flaked away. She could feel muscles move, her bones change. It was excitement in this nothing that was her undeath. Torn away eyes filled anew as if pearls from a seed of sand. Lungs reformed and broke through her neck as gills.

More and more this woman became less human, and more... serene. An ethereal being of water, indistinguishable from gender. Shimmering scales reflected the slight glow of tendril-like fins, the more she grew the less restricted she felt. Others like her had long left their rebirth spot, left behind were tattered fibres and a rock clinging onto a piece of rope.

A dull thump hit the water above, a once familiar sound now long forgotten. But instinct pushed this beautiful creature along the waves, to carry on the burden of the innocent. The cycle repeats, and another woman enters the coven of the mermaids.