Flash Fiction Friday: "Flashes of Inspiration" No. 12

Prompt: "This magical place is all under water! Where does it lead? Who lives there?"

#12: "The Park"

I hopped off the bus and searched for her. In a sea of brown, black, and grey heads, hers was easy to spot. All I had to do was look for the waves of mauve streaked with indigo and aquamarine.
She raised her hand and waved, the rows of shells and coral and wood beads clacking against one another around her wrist.
"Stella!" I called.

"Hey there, stranger," she murmured as I came over to hug her. She always had a breezy, salty smell in her hair, like she spent most of her time on the beach. Her arms around me were firm and strong. "How was your trip?"

"Long," I answered. "And boring." I glanced around the bus depot, about the only building for at least a mile radius. "So what is there to do around here?"

Stella grinned and her impossibly-blue eyes twinkled. "We could go to the park," she offered.

I squinted at her as we walked away from the depot. "A park? The isthmus isn't that big; how do they have room for a park, with all the water around?"

She gave me a mysterious look. "You'll see."

We walked a little ways into a thick forest of bamboo and palm trees. I could feel the humidity hanging in the air like an invisible blanket of moisture that left a shiny film on my skin. The deeper we got into the forest, the darker and cooler it got.

"So..." I said with a shiver, adjusting my big heavy backpack on my back. "Where's this park you're talking about?"

Stella stopped at the edge of the bamboo thicket. "We're here."

I came to stand next to her and squinted into the space in front of us. I could hear the soft lapping of water, and as my eyes adjusted to the light I could see a few clumps of sea reeds waving under the surface... but there was one major component lacking.

"You said this was a park."

"I know." Stella didn't seem confused or ruffled by the discrepancy at all.

"So..." I rubbed the back of my head as I glanced up and down the pool. "Where's the park?"

She stared hard at me, her eyes almost glowing in the semidarkness. "It's right in front of us," she maintained, pointing to a flight of stairs leading off to the side.

"Oh." I almost felt like a dummy for not noticing, but then again, I had never been to this part of the continent. Who could blame me, really?

I followed Stella down the steps, carefully blinking to force my eyes to focus--until suddenly I realized that Stella had vanished without a sound.

My heart catapulted into my throat. Where did she go? She couldn't have fallen. Surely I would have heard her. Was she hiding? Was this some kind of joke? The only thing near the stairwell was more plants. The water muffled all other sounds.

"Stella!" I had the odd sensation of my voice ringing back in my ears, reverberating off of something close, and carrying no further from me. I took a step further.

My boot splashed, filling with water almost immediately. The pool! Why did the stairs take park visitors straight into the water, with no warning? What kind of park was this? There was no point in me sloshing all the way back in waterlogged boots, and besides, I had yet to find Stella, so on I went. The water came up to my waist, and then my chest, but the stairs still continued. By the time it reached my head, I began floating slightly, making it hard to stay on the steps. I took a deep breath and eased myself under the water, gripping the railing to hold myself down. Once my body adjusted, I opened my eyes--and I couldn't believe what I saw.

Straight ahead of me, a wooden pathway stretched on, winding through the maze under the water. The plants I had seen from the surface stretched far overhead, and down much further than my eyes could discern, like tall, narrow trees. As I followed the wooden path, fresh bursts of coral provided splashes of color in this astonishing place. It was a park, all right--one like I'd never seen before!

I set about trying to discern if I could see Stella swimming ahead of me, on the path. The longer I held my breath, the harder it was to stay anchored and upright under the water. Instead, I stretched out parallel to the wooden bridge, coasting along the railing like a diver.

Something rammed into my side, and I lost my grip on the railing. Desperately, I flailed, hoping to propel myself back toward it, but the more I moved, the more my body slowly floated in the opposite direction. My lungs were beginning to burn. I needed air! I glanced toward the surface, now twice my own height over my head. How had I gotten so deep already? I fought my way upward, but my oxygen-deprived brain also recalled why I had gone down there in the first place. From this "overhead" view of a large section of the underwater park, I searched for any sign of Stella. A flash of purple hair drew my eye. There she was! I forgot myself all of a moment and, like an idiot, opened my mouth. Water rushed in, and in the space of a moment, I couldn't get my lips closed again. I flailed my arms, hoping that she would see me before I passed out and couldn't respond to her.
The purple hair drifted closer. I could hear her voice, muffled as it was in the water.

"Dan?"

Dark spots danced before my eyes. No! Must--retain--conscious...

Stella's face hovered over mine, and I felt her arms around me.
"Hang on..." I heard her whisper in my ear.

Something cupped over my mouth, and all the water fell away in a heaving rush. My lungs cleared, but I still didn't have the wherewithal to take a breath.

"Close your lips, Dan," Stella directed.

I was barely awake, but I did. The cup thing moved away, replaced by a glob of something soft and sticky. It covered my whole mouth, and by then my brain was screaming BREATHE OR DIE!! So I did. I opened my mouth as wide as it would go and inhaled the biggest breath of my life.

When I recovered my senses and opened my eyes... I was still underwater. Breathing normally. The glob of slime still clung from my nose to my chin. It let air in, somehow, but it kept water out.

And Stella? She hovered next to me. Only it wasn't exactly Stella. Still the same purple hair, yeah. But her skin was silvery grey like fish scales, and her feet ended in wide, wavy fins instead of toes. She saw me gawking and waved a webbed hand at me.

My girlfriend was a mermaid.

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