Alana kicked at the stone with the tip of her high heel as she looked at the red and brown bricked house. It was a modest two-story house. It wasn’t really her style anymore. She was getting used to the finer things in life. But this house would always mark a milestone in her life. Ten years ago, she had mysteriously turned up on the doorsteps of an A&E of a hospital with cuts all over her legs. Despite losing so much blood, she had survived. It was no less than a miracle, and her doctors and her therapists remind her of that up to this day. While she had gone on to achieve more and better things, that day had marked a pinnacle of success for her that she could never forget.
The last thing Alana remembered was swimming laps in her two-hundred-metre-long pool as the sun shone down on her. The water was cold, yet it felt as if she was bearing the wrath of the entire universe on top of her back. She had sighed and basked in the heat of its temper, savouring the tingling sensations that ran down her back every few seconds. She clearly must have fallen asleep in the water, because here she was trying to pry open her eyes when it felt like someone had glued them shut. She winced as her eyes adjusted to the harsh light of the fading sun, the dust particles surrounding her feeling like grit and sand to her corneas. She was lying on her sun chair which had little pieces of hard plastic jutting out of it like it was ready to spike its next victim through bone and flesh. There were pieces of glass all over her backyard. She remembered the gigantic mirror that had accidentally slipped from her hands as she was lugging it away to the bin that morning. She had been too exhausted to clean up the mess, vowing she would do it later. She frowned. Strange... She had never gotten out of the pool. So, how had she ended up here, on the sun chair, more than a couple feet away from the pool... “Ahh.” A low groan slipped out of her mouth as the skin on her thighs stretched painfully, dreadfully dry due to the arid environment. Her hands immediately went to scratch the skin to relieve the itch that was growing like a wildfire across her thighs and her legs. Her nails dug deep, and the groan turned into a sharp scream as she pulled her hand away to see it tipped in slime and red, fading to a disgusting ochre colour. Her eyes flashed to her legs and she choked on her saliva. Instead of her olive- skinned legs, that were littered with several dark-brown scars - marking the years of abuse and torture that she had done to her own body – along with her short stubble, sharp enough to keep the wandering gaze of a human male far, far away, laid shimmering green scales. The drooping sun lazily reflected on them as she caressed them in pure astonishment. The myriad of red, orange, and golden blinding light fought against the green of the scales, which shone no less against the onslaught of colours that it was forced to tolerate. The scales curled and looped out from the top of her waist to a nice little band, stopping right below where her longest toe should have been, before elaborately fanning out into a two feet long tail, making her sure that she laid somewhere along the spectrum of snorting pixie dust and smoking cocaine. She attempted to push herself up, hoping that what she was seeing was a mere concoction of hallucinations and the strong sun. But the minute she tried to stand like a normal being, her body fell to the grass, her left thigh ripping across the plastic seam that was jutting out of the sun chair. Pain scorched through her lower body and her stomach hollowed out, a sure warning sign of incoming nausea. She laid her forehead against the cool grass, trying to catch some oxygen into her lungs. But the more she tried, the more her lungs burned. The small bead of water lying on the tips of the grass blades was quickly absorbed by her dried- out skin. What was going on with her? With her muscles tense and her heart pounding behind her eyes, Alana closed her eyes and half-twisted over to assess the cut on her right thigh. Her green scales were coated with a thick layer of blood and when she thought it couldn’t get worse, the strong smell of iron rising through the air nearly knocked her out. She needed oxygen. She had a tail. And out of all the preposterous things running through her thoughts, her mind only went to one thing: fish. She ran her blood-coated hands across her chest and her neck, only to come across two small little tears on the left side of her neck. Gills. she had gills. She had never known how strong the urge to live could be. Not when she mutilated herself daily by choice. But somehow that day, her heart sped up and tears sprung into her eyes, as she army crawled the few feet to the pool that laid right in front of her. She felt almost betrayed. All this while, she thought she had one thing that she could control in her life: her death. But when that choice was also taken away from her, she had never wanted anything more than to live. The tiny pieces of the glass that she had forgotten to sweep were slowly cutting one tiny slice into her scales at a time, reminding her of the time when she freely used razors on her skin. The non-existent oxygen in her lungs reminded her of the time she had forced her body to stay underwater for a few more seconds, while black spots had danced in front of her eyes. The feel of the slimy scales reminded her that just last week she had thrown her shoes off in anger and ran to the main road, only to be nearly assaulted by a car going fifty miles an hour. Did everyone contemplate their life choices on their dying breaths? Or was it only her? She didn’t know, nor did she care. The only thing she wanted more than death itself was that water sloshing gently, like waves, in front of her.
Flopping into the cool water was akin to ice being poured down her burning back. She would hold on to this feeling - the feeling of oxygen flooding her lungs and her body lapping it up like a thirsty lion; the feeling of both warmth and cold sliding down her arms and most importantly her tail; the feeling of relief, from finally saving herself, from facing death and having the courage to say no, from surviving a path of glass pieces and slimy scales. The water around her exploded into different shades of red as blood continued to pool out of the cuts on her thighs. Blackness clouded around her vision seeping in, crawling inch by inch, overtaking her life. Right before it pulled her down, she smiled in the chaos of her personal heaven of red. It was a nice memory to say bye with.
Alana walked around the house to get to the back of the house. The pool was still there, albeit without the water. The grass was taller, nearly reaching up to her knees. No one had bothered to cut them. She ran her hands through the blades and was surprised at the soft feeling of the plant against her skin. They were no more glass pieces scattered around. She gazed at the dangling sun that draped over her, casting her in a warm glow and filled her mind with a numb haze. Out of the corner of her eyes, something winked at her. She stepped towards it. Her hands shook, and her breathing laboured as she picked up the scale. The tiny green thing had curved into itself, forming a shell, hardened and withered from the harsh climate. Goosebumps popped onto her arm, racing down her legs, right to the ends of her smallest toes. She held the scale a second longer before crushing it hard between her thumb and index finger. The scale dissolved into a fine green powder, coating her hand just like her blood had years ago. She wiped her hand against her jeans on her outer thighs and gazed curiously at the sun as it seemed to come closer and closer to her, peering at her, questioning her. She smirked at it and walked away from the house, shutting the gates of her past forever. She knew not to poke and prod. Not at whatever that had saved her life.
She knew after all that some things were better left for the unknown.
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