one

alia

„Alia! Are you ready? We have to go!"

„Coming!" I grabbed my light blue bag from the chair next to the mirror. One last look, one last pull on my dress - it was dark green and quite short, but it was how my aunt wanted her bridesmaids to look. It didn't matter whether I liked it or not, and I knew that. But I still hated it. It barely reached the middle of my thighs, the color reminded me of the forest and I - unlike my aunt and her husband - hated the forest. It always seemed as if someone was calling me, but not in a good way. More like it was coming for me, planning to hurt me.

I shook my head and with it my thoughts off. I practiced my smile, the fake smile I would have to put on in order for my aunt to have her dream wedding. Why couldn't I just play sick? It's not like she was my real aunt anyway, she was just the sister of the woman that adopted me.

I never knew much about my parents. My adoptive mum found me on the beach, right by her house, when i was a baby. There was no one around, and she decided to keep me. Raise me. She did, but not for long. When I was about 7, she disappeared in the ocean. The waves brought me back to the coast, but she never came back. Something pulled her down. A shark, perhaps.

Since then, her father Joey took care of me and I stayed away from the sea, even though I didn't want to. I don't know, a part of me feared the sea, but another part longed for the water to splash against my feet, to drown out all the sounds from above. The traffic, the leaves in the wind, the birds singing their songs, all the sounds that I hate so much.

The door opened. Joey looked me up and down. „Wow", he mumbled, staring at me. „You look all grown up."

It was true. I was 15 now, my body had changed quite a lot. Long legs, defined curves, skin paler than ever. But my body wasn't the only thing that had changed since my birthday a few weeks ago. There was this voice inside me - it talked to me, told me to do this and that, to go swimming. Sometimes, it became so loud, I was unable to fall asleep. I took a bath then. With my head under the water, everything became quiet. Calm. Peaceful.

I hadn't told anyone about it, not Joey, not my aunt, not my friends... Not that I could even tell them. They already thought I was crazy, not going into the water, but always drawing it during class. Drifting off and not hearing when the teacher called my name, because I was too busy staring out of the window and watching the waves splash against the cliffs.

I went up there a lot. My adoptive mum, Chloe, she spent a lot of time with me there. We would go camping on the weekends, making a fire and staring at the moon's reflection in the water below us.

I didn't remember much, but I remembered listening to her stories, stories about everything one could possibly think of, princesses, witches, unicorns, but what I had always loved the most: mermaids.

After her... disappearance... this was the place where I felt most at home. Connected to her. I loved her, I really did. When she disappeared, it felt like the hole in my heart became about five times the size it already was.

I had longed for my real parents back then, but she was always there, therefore it seemed like it wasn't that important to find them, because I had her. But now...

„So... Are you ready now?"

„Yes Joey, let's go." I rushed through the door past him and down the stairs, just praying the day would be over soon.