The Mermaid Against the Light

The moment I rose to the surface, I was captivated by your pale face. The instant you collapsed into my arms, I could scarcely feel either of our hearts beating. The moment you opened your eyes, it was as if I had seen a pearl even more radiant than the treasures in the palaces beneath the sea. In that instant, I knew that meeting you would change my life. I am a mermaid, a hundred and thirty years old and newly past my coming-of-age ceremony. You, however, belong to a different kind of people: humans. When the light appeared against the darkness, we believed we would surely be together. They say mermaids are a noble species living thousands of miles beneath the sea. Among a million mermaids, only one is born with a special constitution. When a mermaid falls in love with a human, she must give up her life. I don’t care whether I live or die. All I care about is that he can go on living and see the warm sunlight of the human world.