"Hey, wake up!" Said a garbled voice.

Jessica sat up and opened her eyes, regretting it immediately. Salt water leaked in and stung so badly, she cried out. Once she stopped rubbing her eyes, she tried prying them open again.

It wasn't as bad the second time, and she was already starting to adjust. In front of her, the darkened form of Phinley hovered. No, not hovered; floated.

Dark water surrounded them.

Jessica immediately stopped breathing, trying to stop water from entering her lungs. Or mouth. Or anything. She shut her eyes again.

"Hey!" Phinley shouted again. "Would you calm down? You can breathe, you know."

Jessica started to become lightheaded after a few minutes, so she was forced to suck in some water. And the strangest sensation filled her lungs. Some sort of pressure rushed out from either side of her ribcage and through her t-shirt. It tickled her arms. The inside of her chest felt light and heavy at the same time.

But she could breathe. Underwater.

When she finally decided to open her eyes again, she could see clearer.

The water around them was silty but calm. Twisty black rocks rose from the greenish-white sand. The rocks coiled and arched on themselves like branches or roots. It created the illusion of multiple tunnels surrounding them.

Thousands of bizarre neon fish swam around them. Some had stripes of green and blue lights running along their backs. Others glowed warm colors from inside, like they had swallowed a flashlight.

Jessica flinched away from the fish as they brushed past.

They were in the ocean. Alive, and breathing under the ocean. Above the distant surface, light faded as the sun went to bed. It was dim down here, even with the luminescent wildlife.

"Why are we all the way down here?" She whispered. And how can we talk under water?

"When you dove in, you immediately fainted," Phinley explained. "It didn't help that you hadn't changed yet either, so it took a few seconds before you could actually breath. I thought you were going to drown. So, yeah; you kinda sunk to the bottom."

"Changed?" Jessica asked.

Her vision finally adjusted to the darkness, and she noticed something else.

Phinley had a tail.

It was tan, the same as the khaki shorts he had been wearing. The fins were a deep brown like his shoes. And the tail shimmered with scales. Phinley was a mer...person. Merman? Jessica didn't know about the 'man' part; the spoiled boy was hardly manly.

Merkid, she decided.

She jolted from her thoughts when she realized what this meant. Looking down at where her own legs were supposed to be, a tail waved gently in the drifting currents. It was the same light blue as her jeans had been. The fins were dirty white, like her tennis shoes.

I have a tail, She thought, gears clicking in her head. She looked up at Phinley.

"...I have a TAIL?!"

Phinley nodded, smirking, and he did a quick back flip, arching around in a circle, before replying, "Makes navigation down here a breeze."

Jessica tried to stay calm. She sorted through the millions of questions racing through her mind. But she settled on the most pressing one.

"How long does this last?" She asked.

Then she froze. A bright red fish twice the size of her head, with soul-piercing eyes, drifted between them.

"Twelve hours I think?" Phinley watched the fish go by with detached interest.

That should be enough time to find this Mud person, whoever she is, Jessica thought, prying her eyes off of the fish.

She stayed sitting on the rocks, tentatively swishing her new tail through the sand in front of her. Little clouds of dust swirled around her.

She frowned up at Phinley. "Where's your sweater?"

Phinley was only wearing a white tank top now. He motioned to a dark blue pile at their 'feet', half-buried in the sand.

"Took it off," He said. "It was just weighing me down; it created too much drag and was uncomfortable in the water."

He looked away, mumbling offhandedly, "I didn't like it much anyway."

Jessica didn't have anything to say to that, believing it would be too awkward to ask any more questions. But she was surprised. And confused. Phinley used to be very vocal about keeping his clothes nice. He complained all the time about even the slightest rip or stain.

She tried not to let her eyes wander, but they landed on the tear in the side of his tank top. It exposed the bandages still around his waist where he'd been lashed by the Lava Toad.

At least there was no blood seeping through anymore, but the salt water couldn't feel good on the wound.

He caught her staring and cleared his throat.

She whipped her gaze back to the sand, but decided not to bring up the mountain situation just yet. They needed time to have a proper conversation about what happened. She felt it was necessary to make her apology count. But they were on a time crunch now, with their mer-hood lasting only so long.

WIPs

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