Riley had been near the shore. She should not have been, but that had never been much of a deterrent before. She had learned from her youth never to venture close to the shoreline if the water was too shallow for an easy getaway – that could get her into more trouble than even she cared for – and she always avoided the people who lived on the land. There was not much love for humans among the Mer and Riley was still leary of them as well. Just recently, she had come across a dead reef, with coral white as bone and so brittle it snapped beneath her touch. Everything that had lived there either fled or perished, and curled, hollowed shells of crabs rocked on the sandy bottom like soulless watchers, forever guarding the decay. It had been eerie, and caused by the soured things the people of the shore polluted the waters with. It seemed they weren’t even aware the height of their own destruction, but despite the risk they posed, they still had beauty to offer and Riley was still addicted to their music.

Mer music held only sour memories for her now and made her heart squeeze to hear. But the people of the land had such a unique and varied musical sense that Riley could draw no bad connection to. Some of it was loud and grated on her ears, or sounded like the singer would have a very hoarse throat afterwards, but Riley loved it all regardless. It was what kept drawing her to the shore, to boats out on the water. Despite the risks, Riley always hoped they might be playing something she knew or something she did not. So long as she maintained some level of caution, she deemed it worth the risk.

Her trip to the shore had held an unexpected surprise, however. She had found a group of humans loading up boxes and gear onto a boat. They were going out to sea. It had made Riley grin, thinking she could follow them, until she had heard a name called out.

“Oi, Katie, can you grab those last two air tanks? We’re about ready to ship off!”

“Alright!” The voice that had called back sent a shiver through Riley’s core. It had changed a little – it had been a long time – but she remembered it from several cycles past.

She risked a peek above the surface from the shadow of the boat and watched as the girl walked down the pier carrying two airtanks. She did not look much different – just older – and her scent rang with familiarity. Riley never forgot a scent. She had never anticipated she would have ever seen the girl again, the only human she had ever interacted with.

Katie had cut her hair short while Riley had let hers grow out, and she now had purple streaks through it that Riley definitely did not remember from the past. But it was most certainly her old friend.

That glimpse had been all Riley had needed to begin following their boat. She wanted a chance to see her friend again, if a chance arose.

Now she wished her former friend had stayed ashore. Their boat was stalled and the engine kept making an awful sputtering sound every time they tried to make it go. It seemed like they were trying to fix It, but the dark, stormy clouds were what worried Riley. She knew human boats were okay in the rain, but the instinct deep in her gut whispered of weather far worse than wind and thunder. The same instinct was urging her to swim deep where she would be safe from the storm. The bait should be docked and these people safe in their homes.

“I don’t like the sound of that,” one of them reported as the first growl of thunder rumbled across the sky. The wind had picked up, and the water illuminated with the sharp flash of lightning as it darted across the sky above. Riley shuddered. “Everyone had better get below. I don’t want to risk any accidents when the deck gets slick. I’ll radio the coast guard and we'll sit tight until then.”

Riley pressed her hand to the smooth hull of the boat to keep steady as the churning waters began to jostle her about. She didn’t like this at all, and wished the boat would start. It had been several cycles and she had only interacted with Katie for a single turn, but she could not bring herself to abandon the boat without knowing her friend was safe.

It should have been okay, but when the engine made that gurgling noise once more, the boat shuddered and then Riley’s eardrums were ringing in the wake of an explosion that shoved her down in the water.

She shook off the shock of the blast and twisted around in the water, her lips parting with horror as she saw the gaping hole in their boat, where bubbles were streaming away as water began pouring in. She could hear the humans above shouting, and their small ‘emergency’ boat was lowered into the water a few heartbeats later.

Giving her head a shake, Riley swam closer to the surface so she could better hear what was going on. They had gotten the smaller boat into the water, but the people aboard the sinking vessel were still climbing down onto it. “Paul! Katie! Let’s g-ah!” The man’s voice was cut off as another ear-splitting explosion sounded from the boat. The force pushed the small boat sideways in the water as the larger one tipped on its side and went crashing down. The various beams and blades on the boat nearly came down on Riley’s head, and she had to dive deep to avoid them, but her heart was thudding widely in her chest. She thrashed her tail and launched herself into the sinking fray of the ship in desperate search of her old friend.

As she swam through the rapidly descending wreckage, she came across a man with sandy blond hair and sightless brown eyes. His clothing was rippling in the water almost peacefully, but a slender rod from the ship’s rigging was skewered clean through his neck and revealed the violent nature of his demise. Riley winced and skirted around the body – she assumed this was the Paul the others had called out for – there was nothing she could do to help this man.

Every heartbeat it took to find Katie felt like one too long when she knew the human girl could not breathe the water, but finally, she spotted her. Katie was being dragged deeper by a beam pinned across her chest. She was struggling weakly, and while Riley did not know why she did not simply swim out from under it, she wasted no further time in darting down after her. She was wearing some strange, puffed up orange vest, but there was a handle protruding from the back of it, so Riley grabbed hold of it and yanked with all her strength. As soon as Katie was free from the pole, the vest began to pull her up towards the surface. Riley followed its example by wrapping her arms around Katie’s middle and rushing her limp friend up to the surface.

As soon as they broke it, Katie began to cough and shudder. She spat out a mouthful of water before Riley heard her raspy inhale. She coughed a few more times, and then her gaze drifted up to meet Riley’s and her brows knitted together across her forehead. Riley shook her head and squeezed the half-drowned girl more tightly. “I made a promise,” she whispered. “Hello.”

Before Katie could respond, a large swell broke over both their heads and Riley shoved her fins down to push them back above the water once more. Katie coughed and more water flowed from her lips. “R-Riley?” she croaked after a moment. “A-are you real…or am I just hallucinating because I’m drowning?”

Riley frowned and shook her head. “I am real,” she confirmed. “And you are not going to drown.”

Katie coughed again. “Where’s Paul?”

Riley winced. “He did not survive,” she admitted.

Katie’s face sunk and her head bowed. “What about the others?”

That was right. Riley had almost forgotten about the smaller boat. She twisted around to look for it. Katie needed to get out of the water, but the small vessel was nowhere in sight. Riley set her jaw. If she could not get Katie to the boat, she would take her back to the dock they had launched from. “I think they got away,” Riley answered. She released Katie just long enough to duck underneath her so that Katie was slumped against her back. “Hold onto me,” she instructed. “You need to get to shore before the storm gets any worse. I do not know if I can outswim it, but I can try.”

She waited until she felt Katie’s arms curl around her neck before diving forward. Her instinct was to propel herself deep into the ocean where the weather’s effects would not be so severe, but she could not with Katie on her back, so she resisted the urge and began to tow Katie forward.

It was hard work. They had to battle the raging winds and rain in their faces, and swimming over each swell took far more effort that simply diving through them. It did not help that the water kept cresting over them and even Riley was beginning to wheeze from switching between water and air so frequently. She could not imagine how this felt for her friend, whose lungs only accepted the waterlogged air.

“I began to believe you were not real,” Katie spoke up after a long stretch of silence. “That I had imagined you. It’s been so long…I didn’t think I would ever see you again, much less that you would remember me.”

“I never forgot you,” Riley assured her. “I wanted the chance to see you again, but not like this.”

“How did you even know I was out here?” Katie asked between coughs as they both got drenched by another wave at their backs.

“I was near the shore when you boarded your boat,” Riley admitted. “I was following it. I wanted the chance to talk to you. But what were you doing out in the middle of the ocean? You had to know there was a storm coming?”

Katie coughed again, and then her head plonked down between Riley’s shoulders and she sighed. “We did,” she agreed. “The group has been following a pod of pilot whales. Studying them. They wanted to see how bad weather affected their behavior. I’m apprenticing as a videographer. But the engine broke down, that’s what stranded us. No one expected it to blow like that. I…I was so afraid, when the boat tipped and then I could not get to the surface…I don’t want to die.” A sob broke Katie’s voice as she spoke and Riley shook her head.

“You are not going to,” she vowed. “I am going to get you to the shore and you will be fine. I am sorry about your friend, but you will not be joining him in death.”

“But…it…is…so…far,” Katie whispered.

She was shivering and shaking so badly that it was making Riley shudder too. Worry squeezed at her heart and she rolled onto her back to search Katie’s face. “Katie, are you hurt?” she checked. She felt foolish for not checking prior. Katie shook her head, but her shaking worsened. The wind howled and blasted Riley with frigid air. The Mer winced as she realized. Katie was soaked and now up in the cold air where her body could not regulate. She was not made for these elements and she was freezing to death. Riley had never witnessed it, but she had heard tales of Mer who had gotten too cold and their bodies began to shut down. She imagined humans were no different.

“I’m g-getting t-too c-c-cold,” Katie stammered as if she had known Riley’s thoughts. “Hy-hypothermic.”

“Hypothermic?” Riley echoed. She wrapped her arms around Katie’s back to hold her as she rolled. The bulky orange vest the girl was wearing made it rather difficult to shove her into the water, but she knew that it would still be warmer than being up in the wind.

“It’s a term we u-use to explain wh-what happens when the b-body gets too c-cold. It starts to slow down and stop functioning, and you get re-really ti-tired.”

Riley clucked her tongue. It was harder to propel them both through the water this way, but there was not much of another option, so she pressed on, despite how hitting Katie’s legs slowed her strokes. “It would be dangerous for you to fall asleep,” she stated. She searched her thoughts and memories. Mer naturally radiated a small amount of heat to keep themselves warm in cooler, open waters, but even she could feel the chill of the storm starting to sink into her body. That natural heat would be useless to Katie now, but she had to try something. If anything, at least it would make it easier to swim.

“Katie, I need you to hold onto me more tightly,” Riley instructed. “Can you wrap your legs around me? Do they bend that way at all?”

Katie continued to shiver, but she nodded after a moment and then her legs hooked together across the small of Riley’s back. That made it easier to move her tail, though she worried that her scales would scrape Katie’s skin open. There was nothing she could do about that, however. She opened her gliders and wrapped them tightly around Katie’s body. She did not know if they would do much to keep the other girl warm, but at least it was something.

“Just hold on, okay?”

Katie nodded, but did not respond, and she was still shaking.

That concerned Riley and she gave her human friend a jostle. “Katie, you cannot sleep,” she reminded. “Talk to me…umm…tell me what this is.”

Katie coughed and shrugged. “A life jacket,” she muttered. “I suppose it’s not making your job easier, but they’re designed to keep you from sinking.”

Riley had assumed as much. “I meant this,” she stated as she lifted the small, red object off the jacket. It was secured by a tendril.

“Mmm?” Katie’s brows furrowed together and she squinted. “Oh. Umm, that’s a uh…a flare g-gun.”

“What does it do?” she prompted.

“You p-point it up at the sky and p-pull the tr-trigger, and it makes a loud noise and sh-shoots a bright light into the sky. It’s so ships or helicopters can see you from the air in an emergency.”

“A helicopter is one of those flying things that makes all the noise, yes?” Riley checked. She vibrated her jaw in a best imitation of the sound and twirled a finger in the air to mimic the motion of its strange wings.

Katie nodded.

“That sounds useful,” Riley agreed as she released the flare gun.

“Uh-huh,” Katie agreed. Her eyes were drooped and her form limp, so Riley jostled her more as she swam.

She was getting better at keeping them above the swells, but the rain was still icy against her skin. She could not imagine how numb her friend must be. “Katie, stay awake,” she urged. “Talk to me.”

“About what?”

“Anything,” Riley pressed. “I have not seen you in a long time. Tell me about what has happened for you in that time.”

Katie coughed and groaned, before she shrugged her shoulders. Her head was starting to loll, so Riley squeezed her closer. “I’ve gotten into the hobby of taking pictures,” Katie answered after a moment. “But other than that, just….school, life, the usual.”

“Oh, the usual?” Riley mocked. “Because I would have a fantastic idea of what the ‘usuals’ in human life would be.”

The sputtering in Katie’s laughter made Riley’s heart squeeze. Her friend was a dead weight in her arms and looked exhausted. There was not much Riley was going to be able to do to keep her awake for much longer. She glanced up and parted her jaws. The storm was inhibiting her senses, but even still, they were far from shore.

She winced and pressed on. “What are pictures?” she inquired.

Before Katie could answer, a massive swell crested behind them and Riley squeezed Katie to her as she was tossed head over fins. The storm was bad at the surface, but it was just as rough slightly below it, and every wave pulled them in a different direction until she was dizzy.

Riley ground her teeth together in her skull and slashed through the water towards the surface.

The roiling waters had her spitting water and struggling to breathe the air as she finally broke through the skin between ocean and sky. Katie hacked and retched in her arms, and water flowed from her lips before she began to gasp for air. All Riley could do was rub her friend’s spine and hold her tightly as she fought to push on.

“Riley,” Katie wheezed after a moment. “Th-this is ge-getting dangerous for you too. M-maybe you should go d-deeper wh-where the current won’t be so bad.”

Riley shook her head. “You cannot breathe the water, we have to stay up here.”

There was more coughing, and Katie’s shivering continued. “Riley, I am so cold and so tired…I probably wouldn’t even feel it…right? It’s okay.”

Riley bared her fangs and hissed. “No,” she growled. “You are going to live. I am going to get you back to land and you will be fine, so hold on to me and stay awake!”

“I…I’ll try,” Katie murmured. She was hard to hear over the raging typhoon, but Riley squeezed her closer and pressed forward on the desperate hope she could deliver on her promise.

***

Riley could see her breath. She occasionally experienced bubbles from her gills if she exhaled too quickly or forcefully, but she had never seen fog puff from her lips. Her chest was heaving and her tail felt heavier than stone as she strained the burning muscles to keep moving. Katie was limp in her arms and had been silent for a little while now, but Riley refused to quit on her friend. The chill of the wind and rain was beginning to affect her too, and she was not sure if she could keep on like this for much longer. Her skin felt like ice and she was beginning to shiver just as badly as Katie had been.

It was one of the most taxing things she had ever endured. Just keeping both their heads above the water was hard enough. Katie had her floatation jacket, but she was practically unconscious and it was ineffective in the crashing waves. Riley gritted her teeth together and kept swimming. She gazed down at her unconscious friend as she moved. Katie’s short brown hair was plastered to her face and neck, and she looked pale and tiny in her vest. Though their torsos were pressed together, Katie’s skin was frigid, and there was only the faintest heartbeat lingering in her chest.

Riley shook her head. If she did not find a way to get Katie out of the water and somewhere warm soon, she was going to die. Though Riley had not spent much time with Katie in their youth and had not seen her for years, it tore her up inside to consider losing Katie’s life now.

But loathe as she was to admit it, Riley could no longer feel her fingers. Her face had stung from the torrential rain, but that too had gone numb. She was losing distance with the wind and currents tossing them around, and it was getting harder and harder to swim. Katie kept slipping from her grasp, and her gliders wrapped in a tight hug around the girl were the only thing that kept her from being torn away in the storm.

It had been a very long time since Riley had cried, but she felt her eyes begin to sting and a tsunami of sorrow swelled in her heart. Despite her desire to scream out against the fate, she was beginning to accept that she was going to fail. Even if she could reach the continent once more, she was fairly certain Katie will have frozen to death by then, and that weighed on her heavily.

She took a breath and tried to dig deep for any last reserves of strength she might have. There would not be enough. Her face was too splattered with rain to know for sure, but she was fairly certain there were tears making steady streaks down her face. “I am sorry, Katie,” she murmured, but the words were lost even before she finished speaking them; torn away by the galls.

But one sound did cut through the howling wind and the cracks of thunder streaking across the sky. It was faint, but Riley could hear the loud, whirring chuck-chuck-chuck of a human flying contraption and hope ignited in her once more. “Katie,” she urged. She shook her friend desperately. “Katie, wake up!”

She fumbled with the cord on Katie’s vest. The flare gun was a strange little contraption, bright red in colour and just bigger than her hand. She wondered if the water was going to have wrecked it, but she hoped not. The flying contraption sounded like it was getting closer, but there was no chance the humans within would see them in the dark, churning sea.

Following the instructions that Katie had given, Riley found the little ‘trigger’ and curled two fingers around it. She raised the small contraption into the air and braced herself as she pulled on the latch. There was a deafening crack, followed by a whistling as a bright red light went shooting up into the sky and exploded into a bigger red light.

The noise seemed to rouse Katie a little, because she groaned and her eyes squinted open. “Whassat?” she slurred. She was shivering again, so Riley pulled her even closer.

Near them, a bright light switched on and cast out over the water. A moment later, the ‘helicopter’ came into view, so Riley waved an arm in the air as the light passed over them. It was hovering, so she assumed they had seen them. “Your rescue,” she told Katie as she refocused on her friend.

Katie shivered again, but craned her neck back to look. Riley was treading water to keep them afloat – a difficult task with how tired she was and how the water was raging – and to ensure they stayed in the same place. “Riley…you have to let go now.”

Riley shook her head. “The storm is too furious and you are exhausted. If I let go, you will get swept away again and they may never find you a second time.”

“But they’ll see you!” Katie protested. She seemed more awake because she tried to shove Riley away as if that would urge her to dive. It would not. “You can’t be seen. Please, not because of me, not after all you’ve done to help me. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

Riley shook her head and pressed a finger to Katie’s lips. “Hush. It is okay. It is too dark for them to see. They will pull you up and I will dive, and they will think nothing more of me than I was lost to the depths. Now stay still, save your energy.”

Whether Katie wanted to keep arguing or not was irrelevant. The girl simply did not seem to have the strength to sustain a disagreement because she fell limp against Riley once more. Her fingers curled into some of Riley’s long blonde locks, and her legs were still wrapped around Riley’s waist. Above them, someone was shouting, and there was a human beginning to descend on a rope. “Please don’t disappear, okay? I want to see you again…properly this time.”

The feeling was mutual, so Riley dipped her chin and smoothed back some of Katie’s hair. “I will not leave the area, Katie. I will return to the dock your boat was moored at and wait for you. Meet me when the sun has just about set, when there will be far fewer people around.”

Surprisingly, Katie shook her head. “No,” she refused. “I-I don’t like the idea of you being in the marina like that, anyone could see you, anything could happen. M-my f-family lives on the water…we’re west from that marina…I…I’ll find a way to signal you, but you’ll have to travel the area.”

Riley grinned and squeezed her friend tightly. “Play music,” she urged. “On your device. Sit out with your feet in the water…it will be like when we first met. I will find you,” she vowed.

There was no chance for further planning as the man descending from the helicopter reached them. He glanced over them both, and then gestured to Riley. “Come on, you first,” he urged. He had a loop on a second rope with him, that Riley presumed was to be worn to hoist someone up into the belly of their flyer.

She twisted so that Katie was closer to him. “Take her,” she urged.

“She’s got a lifejacket. You need to come up with me first, we’re going to get you both,” he assured her.

“Katie is hypothermic,” Riley argued. She was glad she had gotten some of this information out of Katie earlier. “She is barely conscious and will get swept away if I leave her. Take her first, I am stronger.”

The man looked like he wanted to argue, so Riley fumbled with the buckle of Katie’s float-vest. She pulled it off her friend and looped her arm through one of the holes. “Now I have it,” she insisted. “Please, just get Katie out of the water. She needs to see a healer.”

The man gave her a strange look, but nodded. He lowered the loop closer to the water. “You have to get your arms through that,” he instructed.

Riley held Katie steady so that she could pull the loop around her chest beneath her arms.

“Hold onto the rope,” the man instructed. He reached down and grabbed hold of Katie just as their ropes began to pull up and it tore Katie from Riley’s grasp and up into the air. “I’ll be back for you in just a moment, hang tight,” the man called back down.

Riley craned her neck and watched until Katie was pulled inside. She sighed with relief. They would take care of her, get her warm and well again, and Riley would see her friend again soon, under better circumstances. She glanced down at the floating vest still looped around her arm and scoffed. Perhaps she should not have taken it, in case Katie needed it, but she had needed to get the man to help her friend. It was useless to her though, so she allowed the water to carry it away.

“I will see you soon, Katie. Be well,” she whispered into the wind before another wave broke over her head. This time, she did not fight it as it dragged her deeper. Instead, she dove until the water was no longer ripping at her fins. Riley was heavy and exhausted, and eager to rest, but it had all been worth it to know that Katie was alright. Riley had secretly yearned for cycles to see Katie again, she would not have been able to stand it if the girl had been killed this night.

Riley’s fingers drifted to her waist and the small pouch she kept tied there – ever since she was a child – and she smiled again. Soon did not feel like soon enough.