Introduction
A green mist begins to creep over the water surrounding the large island and its small neighbor, closing in on the shore fast. Little bright flashes like lightning spark inside the body of green, hissing and crackling with electricity. The moon above shines upon it, looking down onto its moving and expanding mass, and begins to tug at the blood of one of its chosen, one that had been touched by the sea and accepted as a One. She wakes from her deep slumber, a sharp breath of air shooting down her aching throat; she’d been close to waking herself with a cry from her nightmare, a nightmare where something dark and dreadful has returned, worse than Damian could ever conjure up himself.
She makes her way into the chilled night air, her eyes searching for a sign, something to tell her everything is okay, that it was just a dream her unconsciousness had summoned from all the important issues in her life at the moment and from all the horrid things of the past. Everything was at perfect ease now, everything was okay. Lily-flor, full responsibility of the young girl now fallen upon her shoulders, sleeps soundlessly inside, a soft pink glow illuminating from her ivory skin as she dreamed pleasant dreams while Tamir breathes softly, the once warm spot beside him growing cold as the world outside with her body’s absence.
But a sense of dread is like melting ice in her body as it trickles through her veins and into her throat as the green glowing fog below the edge of the cliff from which she stands tumbles up the steep rock’s slope, its electricity making her hair stand on end. She goes to cry out, forgetting of her great powers, only a gasp escaping her chest. Before the fog can touch her, she remembers herself and thrusts her hands before her, willing something to protect her and her tribe. A blue glow is casted over the village as it expands outward, pushing the green cloud, once it’s close enough, away and upward. Like a wave it crashes over the invisible barrier and distorts the One’s vision of what it touches and what it’s doing.
From out of nowhere, a long, thick red wisp of fog rears up in front of her and freezes just outside of the magic’s force. It crackles with both green and red lights, its shape taking on more of a serpentine feel as the green fog rushes around it.
It lunges.
The dome Cressa-la had created shatters around her and the heavy fog falls elegantly atop the houses scattered upon the flat rock she has lived on her entire life. After four years of simplicity, everything as it should, with the account of relocated merpeople, her gift has weakened with her lack of need to use it.
The red wisp knocks her to the ground, surrounding her body until it chokes the air from her lungs and she’s left gagging and gasping, black appearing around her vision as she stares up at the pale glowing moon, red in the fog taking her over. Her arms and legs are pinned down to the frigid ground and it feels as if there is too much weight to lift from her chest pushing down on her. Through the silence, the only reason for it because of the strange phenomenon occurring, she hears a whispering voice twisting itself inside her ear canal.
...Cressa-la... Fear the sea... Fear the moon... Fear them all...
Suddenly, the fog is lifted from her body and she chokes on her breath as she breathes it in, sitting up and leaning over as a reflex.
...Trust nobody...
The haunting voice is gone within the blink of an eye, as if it were never there at all.
And so is the red and green fog.
~
Do you know how humans survived the Flood, child?
It came many years ago, during a time when the world had counted each passing year. We’ve long forgotten that dreaded number, the last number before the waters took us from the world we’d grown accustomed to, and started back over at zero. The night that baby had been born, the One-Hundred, it was year SEA - 122,354—one hundred and twenty-two thousand, three hundred and fifty-four years after the Flood.
Humans were wiped out, but they would never be gone. The mermaid population prospered due to the entire Earth almost being completely submerged for several hundred years. However, not all mermaids have mermaid babies. Sometimes a human is thrown in the mix.
One in every one hundred thousand mermaid births end in the result of a human baby because mermaids have so many human characteristics and body parts. There isn’t any magic involved, as many used to think all those years ago of mermaids, just survival. On the contrary, there has been a tale crafted over the years telling of a silent magic floating about among the waves, granting wishes and giving miracles, and five years ago, a girl named Cressa-la found out it was true. A year later, she defeated the darkness and transformed him into something that couldn’t ever do any harm to anyone or anything else in the future.
But she forgot about the other side of his story, the one that would do anything for him, search for him until she reached the ends of the Earth. And she found him.
There is an estimate of 3.4 births every second and 86,400 seconds in a day, resulting in 296,760 births per 24 hours over the entire mermaid population. That means there are about two human births each day. Not all the mermaid Clans are as merciful as the one who spared a one-hundred, the one hundred thousandth baby born to that clan, especially those that are part of the One-Hundred. Most of them kill the human children on sight, knowing they could potentially be dangerous and destructive if they put them on land, as well as the fact that human babies would not survive underwater. The mermaid population knows evolution is nonexistent and that the humans could never swim with them as surely as the sun beats onto the surface of the water.
The Clans that spare these babies, they hold knowledge of places, mountain peaks that stick out over the water. It is enough to hold a city of saved humans.
That is where they are sent, every human baby. Grown adults that have learned to survive against the weather and the animals, and they take care of the one-hundreds. There used to be a slim chance of making it past the one-year mark for the children, and an even slimmer chance to make it to two. But since Cressa-la’s victory, things have been easier on land. However, the human babies are still being killed as they come out bearing legs.
You know the story of the girl who made it to sixteen, who touched the water, and who defeated the King of the Unwea Clan, ridding of the cursed clan forever.
Until he rose again, bringing something even more powerful to the table.
Do you want to read my books for FREE before they’re available to anyone else (Wattpad and Radish included)? Join my Advanced Readers Army!
What you get:
FREE books about a month before they’re released
Two free ebooks of your choice upon joining
A small community of like-minded people
Behind the scenes exclusives
Sneak peeks of book covers before anyone else
What you need:
An Instagram so you can stay in the know!
A gmail so you can access the free ARCs I’ve released.
Message me on instagram to join (@kweikelofficial). All I ask for are reviews in exchange for the free book!
🦋🌸🕷🌸🦋
