A very melodious humming contrasted on a background of rhythmic chanting tickled Kai's ears. He strained to blink away the bright light as he woke up and sat upright taking support of his hands.

"Gabby?" He hushed, pressing his pounding head, at the plump silhouette sitting right beside him, "is that you? I can't feel my legs."

"Yeah...tell me about it." Gabby rolled her eyes looking at something happening at a not-so-far distance with a hint of boredom on her face.

Kai glanced at her face, then her body and lastly, her legs. What he saw made him jerk and jump in shock. Instead of a pair of plump legs, Gabby now had half a dozen of very flexible legs, 'tentacles' to be precise. "What's happened to you? You...you look like an octopus!"

"Calm down kid, have you seen yourself?"

"What do you mean? Don't tell me I am an octopus too," Kai squeezed his eyes tight and examined himself with his hands. His legs felt unusually hard, fused, rough with a chitinous texture of some kind. "Oh god."

The chanting suddenly became so loud and sharp to his ears that he had to swiftly turn around to see what was happening. There was a humongous light orb nestled at the center of a dancing red kelp forest, leaves of which were entwined into each other like a honeycomb. Right in front of it laid his father's lifeless body surrounded by women with undulating and light studded fishtails he had seen in the book the other day; the woman he had encountered while drowning in the maelstrom.

"Dad!"

"Shh...shh. It's okay Kai, he is going to be just fine." Gabby assured him, preventing him from wrecking the ritual. "Calm down."

"Where's Chip? Sheila and Zaren? And Tibby and Bo?" He asked breathlessly, his eyes widened as some bubbles escaped his mouth while he talked. He unwillingly accepted that he was very well alive, breathing underwater, with a fish-tail that almost looked - funnily enough- like a lobster's tail.

"They are alright..." Gabby waved her fingers reluctantly standing on her tentacles. Kai fumbled to fathom her appearance as he struggled to gain the balance with his new found body. A hooded figure of thousand colours floated flawlessly like a shooting star across the dark sea, only to twinkle and stop right in front of him.

Kai shut his eyes and fled the attack by turning around. But much for his surprise, instead of running away or wade across the water with his fins, he landed on the sea bed on his sharp and pointy legs that protruded from his back. "What the hell?"

"Awesome isn't it?" A familiar voice whispered into one of his ears. He instantly turned to her and what he saw took his breath away.

Sheila. Her hair had turned into a hood of sparkly colours, her body was now a night sky studded with thousand stars and from waist down, there was an undulating skirt like mane. Long strands of light flowed down from her hood and arms as if they were a jelly fish's stingers. Kai stretched his fingers out to touch her magical face, but she instantly flinched away from him.

"Why? How? Where are we?" Kai didn't seem to understand anything​ whatsoever. "Are we in the heavens or something?"

Zaren's laugh echoed across the abyss. "Welcome back Kai, you turned out to be quite strong for a lad after all."

Glancing all around him, Kai saw a silhouette of a man with fish tail approaching him, swimming in swirls and spirals. "Zaren? You've got a killer look with those fins."

"Thanks. You see, I am a killer whale," Zaren waggled his eyebrows and swirled like a bride admiring her brand new wedding dress. His tail was black with a strong fin, anterior part of his body was spotless white with a black pattern encroaching it from behind like a cloak. He grinned and sicced bubbles at them in happiness.

Kai looked down on his body, it was orange, a very shiny orange from waist down. He, now, completely accepted the fact that he had three pairs of lobster legs sticking out of his back and a pair of strong claws projecting from his shoulders. He shook his head, "Chippie?"

"Kai!" Chip's voice struck his heart, he frantically started searching for her. And there she came, his little mermaid. Her tail was green and blue blending into one another, as if it was a lush forest meeting the blue sea. She swam pushing her tiny hands through the water to reach him.

"Owww!" Kai mumbled as he buried her completely in his arms. "I was so scared."

"Did you see my new tail? Now I can swim and not drown like the other day." Chip chirped giggling and brushing fingers on her brand new tail.

"It's...it's beautiful. Just like you." Kai nodded and booped her naughty nose.

"Ugh! Good old dramatic re-unions again." Zaren threw his hands up before crossing them tightly against his broad chest.

"Look. Look there." Gabby patted on Kai's shoulder with one of her squishy tentacles as she pointed towards the light orb.

All of them swam in unison towards it, as all the jelly fish priestesses surrounding Sal's body raised their arms to summon the power and waved their bodies to the melody of their music. The light orb shone more brighter synchronising with their chants so much so that it blinded their eyes.

A dandelion of light separated from the orb and began to float slowly across the calm water towards Sal. It softly landed on him like a feather and sunk into his chest. Sal's body jerked and shook vigorously, increasing in intensity with every chanting hymn. Finally Sal's body was still, neon bright stingers from a priestess's body stung him on his legs, neck and chest.
A bright streak of light tore his skin apart from inside out, on his neck and chest. His legs started to fuse, each tendril binding into another until it took the shape of a fish tail, very much alike to others, but still a little different.

Sal finally gasped and opened his eyes. Kai hastily went over and leaned to caress his hair. Just a while ago his dad was as humanly as before. But now, Sal had become a merman with the tail of an eel-fish. As soon as Kai touched his hair, a wave of current lurched his hand away, "ouch!"

"Beware my child, for an eel is not a good companion," said a voice that was as serene as it could be. Kai raised his eyes up to witness the jelly-mermaid in front of him.

"Who?...I mean how?" Kai stuttered to compose himself in front the goddess' beauty. "But, why?"

The high priestess rose up as other priestesses parted their ways from the orb of life. She chuckled before she began, "I finally found you, my boy. The prophecy was always true. It was a little late. But, better late than never."

"Huh?"

"Come. Come with me, children of sea. I have so much to tell you about," she abruptly started to hum a familiar song, "the blue moon sings the song of the sea, tell me my sailor, can you hear it?"

Chorus to the last few lines of the song coming from a bunch of stranded pirates took her by amusement. "How do you know this?"

"Everybody knows it. It's a lame lullaby that ladies sing to calm their annoying sleepless children, thats all." Zaren grinned the heck out of his teeth as he mock-explained suggesting his eyes towards Kai.

"But it's not lame. It's our song. It's the story of 'us' and our ancestors. It's YOUR story now." The high priestess darted to and fro changing her colours, as she admonished him.

"Prssh!" Zaren raised his brows and blew bubbles out of his mouth.

The high priestess frowned at the killer boy's ignorance, she cleared her throat and stiffened to check the note of her throat, "aaahhaaaaaa..." Her enchanting note echoed across the abyss. Remaining five other priestesses, who almost appeared as pretty as herself started to float with shining colors and arranged themselves in a pattern right behind her.

The humming of the tune, was so enigmatic that it felt dauntingly beautiful. The sea kelp and coral reef of sea bed seemed to have life of their own, as they waved and danced to it.

"On a wintry night of summer solstice,
the infinite dark skies thundered thrice;
with it arrived the twin stars,
one - a bright soul and another, so full of scars.

The tree, the bird, the dolphins praised the bright one,
for she never let them down;
Seasons went by nodding their heads to her lullaby,
only to be woken up by the sinister twin's hushabye.

She was a phoenix who raised from ashes,
for she brought the wrath of drought to undo the heiress;
Jealousy, treachery to vanquish everything that came her way,
turning blood to brine and bones to sand with a heart of grey.

The sea goddess hummed the lullaby of her lifetime,
'sleep my children, we shall dream of springtime.'
She slept for ages and set her soul free;
she left her spirit with 'us', we are the children of sea."

As soon as the song faded and the haunting silence of the sea returned, Kai and his mates stepped out of the trance. Kai felt an amalgamation of inexpressible emotions curdling his heart after listening to the song. When they were wide awake, they witnessed a kaleidoscopic city of lights surrounding them. The brightest of the bright blue and an aurora of thousand other colours were sparkling untill the end of the abyss.

There were so many merfolk staring right at them, many similar to Sheila and many indifferent from Zaren. Kai could even spot a few of his own lobster kind with claws sticking out of their shoulders.

"Weeee..."
Tibby and Bo swam across the city with Chippie to stop at them. They were exactly like Chip, but with a zebra like pattern of orange and black colours on their fish tail. 'Are they clown fishes?!'

"Come, my ignorant children," the high priestess hinted a look towards Zaren and invited them stretching her arms wide, "you belong here. Every person who flees to the sea heiress, she shall accept them as her own. Come, my dear."

"Are we going to stay like this forever?" Sheila shrieked, "I mean, I want to meet father for one last time, Zar."

"It is what it is, Sheila. I...I hope he is alright." Zaren looked away with a saggy face.

"Of course he is alright. We didn't ship wreck to kill anybody. We just needed to get you people stranded." The high priestess explained in a very self defensive way.

"You are as evil as the sea witch!" Kai shouted, "you are selfish, you didn't see what would happen of us."

"No, my child. You don't understand, the sea witch wants the opus and with that she'll get all the powers. And the prophecy says---"

"I don't care about your prophecy, because of you many of us suffered. And, let me inform you, the sea witch indeed has the book." Kai ground the anger in between his teeth; unknowingly, his new claws started snapping in rage as if they wanted to rip the high priestess's hood away.

"Oh my sea heiress. You shouldn't have done that." The high priestess started darting to and fro, with a worrisome face hidden under her shining hood.

"I definitely don't want to stay as an octopus all my remaining life." Gabby bleated, examining the suckers on the underside of her tentacles with a look of disgust.

"Me neither." Sal was now up and wondering at his scale less fleshy tail of an eel fish.

_____________________________________________________________________

That'd my Sheila. Show her some love. :)

Thanks for being here!

Word count - 1995.