300 Days of Writing
Day 15: Mythical Creature
Saltwater dripped onto her nose. She dabbed at it with her middle finger, before tasting it, like she was sneaking a bit of icing off a wedding cake. Her eyes rolled back into her head with pleasure when the salt hit her tongue.
Another drip fell onto her forehead. She opened her eyes to see the ceiling—white and stippled, a faint grey stain from the water damage above her like a halo.
She locked the front door and shut the blinds before she rushed up the stairs.
Their little beach house was small—two stories, just a bedroom stacked on top of a kitchen without a bathroom. She had learned to squat in the outhouse over the last year. It was her least favorite part of living on land. The outhouse was dark and filled with flies that buzzed in her ears when she shat.
Tearing off the bedding, she searched under the mattress. She emptied the wardrobe, heaping the clothes in piles around her icy feet. They were always cold, but that was when she realized they were also damp.
The clothes were growing darker as saltwater seeped into the cotton. She kicked them out of her way before clawing at the floorboards. Her nails bled and splinters became embedded into her palms, but she didn’t stop until she ripped one of the rotten wet planks off the floor.
Buried in the floor was her old life, and her heart swelled like a wave. Her legs pinched together with excitement, her body vibrating from her womb to her head.
It was cold to the touch and slick with moisture. When she pulled the seal skin out of the floor, water went gushing across the bedroom and flooded down the stairs.
The ocean was calling to her.
The selkie bride stepped into her skin, and for as cool as it was on the outside, it was warm on the inside. Her feet relished the soft hot innards of her old body. She wriggled down deep into the skin, allowing it to stitch and seal her up inside.
The ocean water that pooled inside her house made it easy to slide down the steps. She wasn’t very graceful in her body, not yet, she had lost her old coordination, but she still unlatched the lock with her nose. When the door swung open, she flung her body toward the beach. She barked aloud, awkward honking calls, her voice cracking as if she’d forgotten how to speak in her old tongue.
The selkie made her way to the sea.
Сайхан Бичээрэй!
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