[ TT ] You 're the last of the merfolk alive . The rest have perished from pollution , changing sea temperatures , and the mechanical beasts that traverse your waters .

As I ascended, the light was starting to shine through the water. That used to mean I was still pretty far from the surface, but lately you had to get a lot closer to the top. I tried to give a wide berth to this part of the water normally, but how could I stay away? It was where the ships were, and there had been precious few of those lately. 
 
 I could n't say what compels me, or those who came before me, to these ships. Only that just like the crew on these ships answer to my call, I must answer my internal call to find them. This, among other things, is why there are so few of us. The humans figured out we would come, and started to schedule ships to only go out at certain times, in groups. Of course, these trade ship armadas were heavily armed with weapons like harpoons. In spite of the breakdowns in communication technology recently, they had managed to coordinate this almost flawlessly. 
 
 I can not understand it, but they never seemed to try to find our home. So long as we stayed away from the human ships, we would survive the threat. I think they were trying to show us we could coexist. Looking back, maybe we could have learned a new way. It is n't like we needed the bodies of the sailors for survival. In fact, we did n't even eat them. 
 
 What we did eat, was fish. They were not as safe as they once were either. It was only a matter of time before I got a bad one. Eventually, I knew, it would come down to either that, or not eating at all. You could tell by their eyes, the ones that were tainted looked so dull. I noted that even my own scales had lost some of their shine. It probably would n't be long for me either. 
 
 The way I had survived was waiting to discover someone who was not travelling in the shipping groups. These types were usually desperate, marked with the open sores indicative of having succumbed to disease. These ones you had to be careful with. It turned out, whatever it was these humans were catching, we could catch too. It had been so long since I'd felt the satisfying crunch of bone between my jaws. Creatures of the sea just were n't the same. The risk of blood-borne illness just was n't worth it, but a lot of us had been unable to avoid the temptation. 
 
 Here it was. A freight transport ship, the sides marked with rust. It looked like it would as soon sink as it would float. I saw a woman at the front of the ship, her hand shielding her eyes with the sun. She was looking out on the horizon, presumably to check if everything was alright weather wise. I was in front of the boat now, and when she looked down, she saw me. We both called out at the same time. One of us was n't making it through the encounter. 
 
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 If you liked this, you can find me over at /r/saltandcedar for your daily sodium intake.
