[ WP ] Turns out the superstition was right after all

David pauses in the waves and turns to look at me with a wrinkled nose. `` Christ, Claire, seriously?'' 
 
 The grease runs from my fingertips down my slender wrists, glistening rivers of cooking fat that tickle the fine hairs on the undersides of my forearms. I take another bite of the hamburger and let out the tiniest of grunts. `` But *Dave, *'' I exclaim, through a half-mouthful of ground meat. 
 `` Goddamn. It's *good. *'' 
 
 `` You're polluting the ocean,'' he says, disapproving. His hair rustles gently in the breeze. `` You're gon na... I dunno. Kill all the fish or some shit.'' 
 
 I take a few buoyant steps in his direction. The sand is soft under my toes. `` That does n't even...'' I pause for a moment, swallow the food in my mouth, continue. `` Make sense, David. They're *fish. * They probably want some of this burger-y action I've got goin' on here.'' I pop the last morsel into my mouth and start chewing. `` But they ca n't have any,'' I continue, winking. `` It's *all mine. *'' 
 
 `` You're gon na get a cramp and drown,'' says David, turning away from me and glaring. `` You're supposed to wait, like, an hour or something.'' 
 
 `` That's just a superstition!'' I tell him cheerfully, lurching forward and diving into the salt water. 
 
 The ocean envelops me like a blanket; my blonde hair fans around me and every breath I take is laced with salt. Delicious. I love it. 
 
 I let the tide carry me until the shore is a glistening yellow band in the distance. David is a few hundred feet to my right, diving towards the ocean floor for a few seconds at a time, emerging wet and glistening and *powerful, * like an animal being reborn. It is unbelievably sexy. After this I think we'll go straight back to our hotel room and -- 
 
 The faintest suggestion of pressure on my palm. I go stiff in the water and pull my hand out from the waves. *Ah, shit, * I think, toes tingling, *there's an animal out here. Oh, fuck. It better not be a fucking shark I swear to God -- * 
 
 My other hand, still warm and cocooned in the water, is abruptly pulled a few inches forward. I let out a strangled cry and lash out with my feet, but they do n't hit anything. David is still underwater. He ca n't hear me. He ca n't see me. 
 
 `` Oh my God.'' Kicking like I am I'm able to stay above the waves, but *something has my arm. * It's the strangest feeling, moist and rough all at once. Whatever it is the water is too murky to see. 
 
 To my right, David emerges. `` David!'' I shout, and my voice is thin and reedy. `` You got ta help --!'' 
 Another tug on my arm. This time I ca n't fight it. I go under. 
 
 For a moment my eyes sting and smart as they adjust to the gloom. Air bubbles stream from my nostrils. I squint and peer out through a fringe of dark eyelashes. 
 
 It stares back at me. 
 
 Oh God, oh God. The eyes. The *eyes. * Huge, massive, luminous discs that rise from the darkness below. Bigger than dinner plates, bigger than my goddamned *head. * Fixed on me with a dull sparkling *intelligence* behind them. 
 
 Its head is so massive that I could lie across the forehead and have room to stretch my legs. Below it is a mammoth fleshy trunk of a neck and a vague approximation of a torso that stretches away into the darkness below. I do n't even remember floating so far out. I can just about make out the rounded slope of a shoulder. Oh God, the arms must be *meters* in length, maybe longer. Oh God. 
 
 *Mermaid, * I think. 
 
 It smiles at me placidly, and in that smile are rows upon rows of jagged, pointed teeth. In between one set I can see a human arm waving sadly, fingers splayed and falling apart in the water, skin hanging loosely and floating with the current. Beyond the teeth is only darkness and a cavernous mouth so vast that I would n't be able to touch either cheek with both of my arms extended. 
 
 The tongues come coiling from between bloodless lips, so many tongues, as thin and whip-like and delicate as the tongues of humans, scenting the air, stirring the water. One is wrapped around my wrist. As I watch, almost fascinated, it runs itself along one of the grease trails on my skin. It shudders, worm-like, and pulls a little tighter. 
 
 I begin to descend. 
 
 I'm thrashing now, screaming uselessly, and the air pours from my desperate lungs. *Where's David where the fuck is he oh God oh Christ oh* no -- 
 
 The smile yawns and opens and all I can see is teeth, teeth everywhere, teeth as big as I am. And the tongues are pulling me down, down, licking me, *scenting* the grease and liking the taste. Even as I pass the first row of teeth I can see the eyes fixed on me, the savage stupid delight in them at the taste of something remembered and cherished. 
 
 I stare up at the red ribbed roof of its mouth. The jaws begin to close and the teeth glint in the water. 
 
 I should n't have eaten, I think. 
 
 EDIT: formatting
