Chapter Text
“Don’t go too far!” You hear your mommy call out to you as you wander away from the rest of your family, your little legs not moving particularly fast as your footsteps feel unsteady on the shifting sands of the beach.
“Don’t worry, honey.” You can hear your daddy chuckle, although you still haven’t bothered to turn around and look at them as you march slowly onwards. “This beach is fenced in all along the shore, and the kid is so scared of the water she won’t even go near it. Just relax and enjoy the vacation, I’ll keep an eye on her.”
Your daddy was right; you were terrified of the water, screaming at the top of your lungs whenever you so much as had a bath. They had absolutely no reason to be worried about you going anywhere near the waves lapping at the sand further down the beach.
You payed no attention to if you were actually being watched as your daddy said he would, instead your little eyes were turned towards the ground, making sure your bare feet didn’t step on anything hard or sharp, although you did occasionally stop and bend down to poke at random shells and feathers you discovered. After wandering for long enough, you even found little pools of water on the beach; small formations of rocks creating a sort of shallow bowl in the sand.
You crouched and peered into the clear waters of these shallow pools, feeling more comfortable near water that wasn’t acting like it was trying to grab you as you pointed out small creatures to yourself. You were so enraptured by your discovery of a tiny natural aquarium that is was actually a good few minutes before you noticed there were two long lines in the sand, leading away from the pool.
What could have made these lines?
You decided to follow them and find out, but got increasingly nervous as you slowly realized the lines were headed towards the ocean’s waves. You had only just begun to wonder if satisfying your curiosity was worth it, when you saw a small group of seagulls surrounding something and squawking loudly as each bird tried to squeeze past the others to get at the middle for something.
“Shoo! Shoo, birdies!” You squeaked as you ran straight for the crowd of gulls, who took to the sky as soon as they noticed you getting too close. A flurry of feathers blocked your vision for a moment, before you spotted two colorful little fishies on the sand; one yellow and red, and the other a dark blue and white, and each about the size of a kitten.
Entranced by the bright colors, you slowed your approach to observe them, only to realize they weren’t normal fishies when the blue and white one raised itself up on tiny, wobbly arms to look straight at you with a human-like face. It made a weak chirping noise and tried to cover the red and yellow one with it’s body. That’s when you noticed that both of the little creatures were covered in bleeding cuts all over their bodies. You walked up close enough to touch them, but instead crouched down again and looked at the pair inquisitively.
“I thought all fishies lived in the water?” You voiced your question, but didn’t expect an answer from the trembling scaly beings. The blue and white one made another chirp at you, before glancing to the waves that you hadn’t realized you had gotten so close to. Your eyes trailed back to the lines in the sand, leading from the two weird fishies back to the shallow pool you had started from.
“Are you trying to get to the water?” You asked, reaching a little hand out towards the blue and white one, only to have it lunge forward clumsily and latch onto your finger with it’s sharp teeth. You let out a yelp and shake your hand sharply downwards, dislodging your attacker and causing it to land a small ways off from the yellow and red one.
Speaking of which, the yellow and red one starts making chirps at you as well, but was instead reaching it’s arms out towards you. Not learning your lesson from the first one, you took this as an offer to pick it up; scooping the bleeding scaly thing up into your arms. You were so small still that carrying just one of the pair took both of your arms to achieve, and the hold was still awkward. The red and yellow thing then started to make very insistent chirps as it pointed towards the sea from your grasp.
You reluctantly obeyed the strange creature, starting to walk towards the water despite your growing fear, and the trek made slightly more difficult by the blue and white one now clinging to your little ankle. Against your better judgement, you soon find yourself knee-deep in the salty water as you drop the yellow and red thing into the waves with a plop, and losing track of the blue and white one that was no longer clinging to you.
The two brightly colored creatures peaked their heads above the water just a few feet in front of you, the red and yellow one chirping loudly and frequently, and even the blue and white one making a couple of chirps in your direction. You aren’t sure what they’re saying, but decide it’s probably a ‘thank you’ of some sort.
“You’re welcome, weird fishies!” You said back to them, waving your hand above your head to say goodbye as you closed your eyes to smile at them even wider.
Of course, with your eyes closed, you didn’t even notice the large wave coming towards you until it crashed into your little body, knocking you off your feet and starting to pull you with it; first higher up the beach, and then further out into the water where you could no longer touch. You couldn’t even scream as your head sunk beneath the waves. Your eyes now open towards the rolling surface of the water as you saw the two strange creatures swimming around you in what you could only assume was panicked circles as you moved your arms and legs ineffectively in an attempt to reach air again as you choked on the saltwater.
You closed your eyes as a distant-sounding splash could be heard, and you felt large and warm arms wrap around your small body and pull you up.
It’s hard to remember clearly what all happened after that, you only remember small bits and pieces from the rest of that day. Being very cold and coughing, a bunch of strangers asking if you were okay, the visit to the hospital, and your mommy yelling at your daddy a lot.
You also remember being very upset the next day when you asked to go back to the beach so you could see your new ‘fishie friends’ again, and your parents refused. You cried and threw a tantrum, even going on a hunger strike as your parents tried to dissuade you using distractions like food and games.
You don’t really remember this part, but your parents often tell people how you ran away back to the beach a couple days after you nearly drowned, and how they found you sitting just in reach of the waves and talking to yourself. Looking back at it now, you were certain you thought you were talking to that brightly-colored pair.
The day after that, your parents took you home back inland and forced you to take swim lessons so there would never be another drowning scare like that again. You had refused even attempting to swim almost the entire rest of summer, but when your daddy tempted you with the promise of going back to that beach someday, you threw yourself into learning.
You spent the next three years going to swim lessons regularly, and after graduating the highest level, you earned yourself a spot on the local swim team for many years after to compete. Your family never did take another vacation to that beach, but by the time you figured that out, you realized it was just another broken promise to pacify your childhood self. There were too many of those for it to have hurt as much as it should have.
Well, you were an adult now. You had quit the swim team when you started working, and you moved out of your parents’ home and into an apartment with friends a few years ago, but now you finally had an opportunity to fulfil a dream; you had gotten an offer at your job to transfer to a new location by that beach you so often longed for as a child. You would become the building manager and make good money, but it required moving out there, a long ways away from everyone you knew.
Despite it being a childhood dream, it still took some thought before you decided to accept the offer. Your mom and dad helped you with finding a nice house along the coast so you had access to the ocean to swim as much as you wanted, as well as helping you pack up the moving van, although you would have to unload it all by yourself.
The first week after arriving at your new home was spent putting everything away in its proper place. You kept busy for those days to not let the apprehension hit you; You had your very first house now, you lived so far from your family and friends, starting a job as a manager in a town you don’t know, with some distant hope to see a pair of weird fish you barely even remember.
It wasn’t even until the second week that you decided to take a break from all the stress by going for a swim in the ocean nearby.
You changed into a wetsuit and eagerly swam out into the salt water. What once scared you and nearly even killed you as a child now felt more like home. You allowed yourself to just float belly-up in the water, enjoying the feeling of the cool water swaying you and lapping at your chest where it stayed half-out of the waves. You closed your eyes in this position with a smile, embracing the calm the water brought you now.
You huffed a small laugh as you realized that floating here in the ocean, you could even hear the fish swimming in the water around you. There was the sound of something big and fast darting somewhere beneath you, but you couldn’t even bring yourself to worry about it… at least until a minute later when something grabbed your ankle firmly and you were suddenly being dragged through the water at speeds even you weren’t sure you could reach on your own.
You let out a scream as the water rushed higher at your sides, the water raising higher than your face, but the speed at which you were being pulled prevented most of it from trying to suffocate you. It felt like an eternity of panic before you suddenly felt a strong push from under your back, lifting and throwing you straight out of the water and onto a patch of damp sand.
You shakily hurried to your feet and tried to see what launched you like that, but when you turned to the water, you only saw brief flashes of yellow, red, and white below the surface before they vanished.
You stayed staring at the ocean completely dumbfounded for several moments. The colors evoked memories of that day at this very beach, but you couldn’t be certain the thing (or things) that grabbed you and the odd fish you saved that day were related. Certainly those fish would have died in these past years, right?
A little put-off by the experience and not wanting to risk an encore, you trudged yourself to your new home to change into warm and dry clothes and start preparations for your first day as a building manager.
Although you also pulled up a few tabs on your computer about any colorful scaly things grabbing people in the area.