You know that you're not supposed to be here. You're not even supposed to be in this state, but here you are, slinking into your family's summer cabin with the spare key. It makes you feel like a thief in the night as you slip into the vacation cabin and turn on the lights. The cozy place hasn't been used in months but everything looks to be in place. Coming here is bitter sweet in a way. It brings up memories of summers spent in the sun and out on the water. If your parents knew you were here, they would probably chew you out. It is finals week back in the city and... well, you haven't been doing well in some of your classes. Not failing, not quite, not yet at least. Still, you're not sure that you're cut out for university life. Your 5th grade teacher memed you in to pursuing a career as a marine biologist, but the reality of that career choice has been a bit unexpected. Really, you're not sure that you're cut out for this path, or for academia in general. That's why you felt you had to come out here. To be away from the chaos of the city, to just sit by the lake and let your thoughts coalesce in to some kind of reasonable course of action. "It will just be for a few days," you say out loud to yourself as you toss your pack into the one bedroom of the cabin and head to see if there's anything left in the fridge. You open up the fridge and see a six-pack of beer sitting there on the bottom shelf. Something left behind from the last time your parents visited here. Nothing like a few brews to calm your fried neurons. You grab the six-pack of beer and your smoking supplies and head out towards the lake. It's some time past midnight but you don't care. Most of the cabins by the shore are unused in the off season anyways so you figure you will probably have the whole lake front to yourself.
It feels good to be back here, feels good to feel the creaking wood of the dock beneath your sneakers as you plod along the aging dock. The sky is partly clouded over but there is enough moonlight to see by. The fishy smell of the lake and the soft sound of the lapping waves brings a wave of memories flooding back to you. It is a melancholic feeling that fills you as you sit on the end of the dock, light up a cigarette, and crack open one of the cold beers from the fridge. You look up, watching for the moon as it peeks through the thick cloud cover in little flashes of eerie light. It is peaceful here. You hear the wailing calls of frogs along the muddy shore as you take a drag from your cigarette and look out over the dancing moonlit water. Already you can feel the worry melting from you. The problems of the city seem so distant and so petty now.
Minutes pass and your depressed introspection goes on, until you hear a very distinct splash from somewhere nearby. You turn to look, expecting to see the ripples of a bass that had jumped in the water, and freeze when you lock eyes with a human floating in the water. Their eyes seem to glow with an almost animalistic shine and in the dark you can barely make out the basic silhouette of their head floating just above the surface of the water. You lock eyes with the person, staring at them in silence for some time.
"Dude, can I bum one of those beers?" the person asks in a croaky kind of voice. It sounds high and feminine and you relax a bit as you realize that this is probably just some girl out for a midnight swim on the lake. It is strange, though, that you hadn't noticed her approaching, or that she hadn't said anything up until now. You were pretty caught up in your own world there for a minute. Not surprising you wouldn't notice some hippie chick swimming up to the dock.
"Uh, sure," you say somewhat awkwardly as you take a beer from the six pack and place it on the edge of the dock for the girl to take. The girl swims up and practically snatches the brew off of the dock. Though the night is dark you could swear that her hands looked webbed as she grabbed the beer can. As she cracks open the beer you confirm it, getting a good look in the dim light of the moon of the translucent membrane between each of her fingers. Is it some kind of new rich kid swimming aid glove? It's the only explanation you can think of at the moment.
"Yo, thanks bro. Been a few moons since I snagged a cold brew," the odd girl says as she swims right up to the dock and looks up at you with very big, and very reflective eyes.
"No problem. I'm Guy. What's your name?" The girl floats serenely, seemingly able to almost hover in the cold water.
"Gillian," she says plainly before finishing the beer you gave her in one, long, uninterrupted swallow. You watch perplexed and fascinated as she crushes the can against her head and throws it up onto the dock you are sitting on. She lets out a wet belch that echoes out across the silent lake before speaking. "Do me a favor and throw that away for me? I hate people who litter up the lake."
"Yeah, no problem. Me and my dad used to spend a day or two each summer just picking up trash on the beach. I guess some of his lessons stuck," you say as you take another drag of your cigarette and stare at the weird girl still just floating with only her face above water.
"That is cute as hell, my guy. My dad only taught me how to gut snapping turtles, and how to grab ducks before they fly away. Boring shit, you know?" Gillian says as she backstrokes away from the dock. You can't help but ogle the girl a bit, despite the dim light. Her breasts are round and perky, her hips tantalizingly wide. You can even pick out the feminine swell of her stomach as she swims slowly back towards the dock. "Dude, you think I could bum one of those smokes? They're hell on my gills, but super worth it," she says, as the clouds break and the moonlight illuminates her fully. Your eyes go wide as you see the full details of this strange girl floating in the lake before you.
Gillian is not human... or if she is then she is wearing the best special effects costume you've ever seen. Her hands really are webbed, and clawed by the looks of it. Her skin is scaled but smooth and glimmers with an odd iridescence in the pale light. You can see powerful muscles working beneath that strangely beautiful skin. She has fins as well, long, streaming ones that flow behind her and remind you of those little Siamese fighting fish sold in chintzy pet shops. Gillian seems to sense your sudden unease and flashes you a very sharp toothed grin before almost slithering her way out of the water and on to the dock. She sits immediately, soft bottom squishing against the hard wood of the dock deliciously. She kicks her webbed feet off the end of the dock in a playful, almost childish manner, and stares at you with an unsettling intensity.
"What's the matter, guy? Never seen a mermaid before?" she asks as she snatches your cigarette from your hand and takes a long pull from it. You watch, almost spellbound as she inhales the thick smoke, holds it in, and then exhales it through the frilly gills on either side of her thin neck. She then passes the smoke back to you and you take it with a shaky hand. Everything that she is goes against everything you have been taught at college. Hell, her mere existence practically invalidates, or at least discredits, your entire major. If your marine bio professor could see the heavy chested fish girl sitting next to you right now, he'd probably have kittens. Shit, you'd probably get some kind of award just for documenting her existence.
"N-nope. Never," you say, still more or less frozen by the surreal nature of the situation.
"Well, you've seen one now. Now the big question for you is this. Do you want to be a sad sack and mope on the dock all night? Or do you maybe want to go for a swim with me?" the fish girl asks you as she stares at you with her big, dark, utterly unblinking eyes. She grins at you with a mouth full of razor sharp teeth that glint in the moonlight like glass daggers. You can't help but recall the ancient tales about sirens, and harpies, and mermaids. All said to be beautiful and all said to lure men to their gruesome and untimely deaths. Gillian is beautiful, but those clawed hands and sharp teeth tell you on an instinctual level that she is a predator. She seems to sense your apprehension and gives you a taunting grin. "Don't be a faggot, my dude. Either let me bum one of those smokes and tell me what's eating you, or come for a swim with me," she says in a tone that both irritates and entices you at the same time.
So what will it be? Will you accept her offer?