The person finally made it to the bottom of the slope. Luce noticed that they brought a bright red umbrella with them. It wasn’t entirely weird to her, as she’s seen humans with them to block out the light, and today is an especially nice day. The umbrella made a pop as it opened. She could hear loud laughter from behind the trees. Sometimes she wished her hearing could focus for once, but the waves behind her were making quite a ruckus. She watched as they moved forward towards the shore. Surely, they must’ve seen her by now.

Luce gave them a small wave. They stopped. She couldn’t quite see their face. Everything was quite blurry from far away. They looked around for a second, hesitantly, before walking closer.

Oh, so it was an easy one! One where she could ask them for a hand and she would drag them right in the water! Those ones were particularly fun. Luce squinted to try and combat the blurriness of her sight.

Hold on. Were those red eyes? Fuck. Wait. Maybe they were just a really pretty reddish brown? No, as the other person walked closer she could clearly see it’s red. Just her luck. She stopped around two arms lengths away. Too far for her to crawl, to reach. Enough time for her to slip back into the deep water. She brought a hand up to her hair, curling it around anxiously. The yelling grew louder. Their own weird school, probably.

“Hey. You’re...a mermaid. Right?”

Wait, what?