blue slumber

As the girl stood and walked forward, she realized she was barefoot. She traversed through the forest while feeling the damp earth beneath her. All around her, there was nothing but forest. Just trees for miles and miles. Unchanging, identical, unmoving even in the strong wind the girl could only feel but not hear. She grew confused, wondering if she was going anywhere at all. Or was the forest moving around her?

All of a sudden, the young girl heard a piercing screech - continuous, sharp, but unmistakably sonorous. It was the sort of sound that felt like a calling and a warning all at once. The girl felt her body rise in the air, but when she looked down, her feet were firmly planted in the soil. An anxious feeling washed over her - and suddenly she was running.

The sound called to her like a mother her child. She did not have to think, she did not have to move her feet; the siren drew her closer to it. The trees blurred into cool lines, all pointing somewhere forward. She felt tears she did not cry on her cheeks. Her ears burned as though they were bleeding, but no blood spilled on the earth. The screech grew sharper and louder yet sweeter. The girl was drawn to it like a magnet. Her eyes grew heavy, her legs tired. She could not help it - she collapsed.

Something strange happened then. The hollow rushing of water had grown louder. She felt something lap at her feet, dampen the ends of her dress. She felt a sea breeze on her lips, sand between her toes. Her eyes opened to greet the deep blue of the ocean at night. She had been transported, somehow, to the sea coast.

When she raised her head, she saw something she did not expect.

There stood the most beautiful being the girl had ever seen. She was endlessly tall, with a presence that seemed to overwhelm while still being dainty. She had luscious, curly hair that ended somewhere beneath the ocean waves. Her skin was like glass - it seemed it would shatter from the sound that was coming from her very own mouth. Glitter covered her wet skin, glinting in the moonlight. She was dressed just like the young girl herself, and felt unmistakably familiar. Her legs, though, merged together into a silvery tail that bent into the sand.

The being bent down and planted a kiss on the girl’s forehead. It shimmered on her forehead, a silvery substance, then slowly slipped under the girl’s skin and through the inside of her skin. She closed her eyes, taking in the transformation. When she opened her eyes, she found that she had become the ocean that danced behind her. Images swam behind her eyes - days spent under the ocean’s blue embrace, happy and innocent. She opened her mouth and sang the sweet song she once knew as a child,

“I missed you.”