Mira

They saw the cannon before they felt it. 

Then they felt it. 

It slammed into the ship driving straight into her skeleton. A groan echoed through the night joined with screams and the roar of the tide. The ship was taking on water, and quickly as the ocean tore at her sides, rushings its way into the vessel. It smelled the blood and fear that clotted the air, it smelled the weakness. 

The ocean was merciless. 

It rose up with tongues of water and seized hold of the damaged ship, like a snake after an injured bird. The ship flapped its wings in vain, fighting against the pull of the water. Then, the snake grasped it and with one foul hiss the ship vanished beneath the surface of the water, and into the belly of the snake. 

And then the snake, satisfied and full, lied down again as if nothing ever happened; and the rumble of the waves simmered down to a whisper. 

Hundreds of feet below the surface, two heartbeats resonated through the murky depths of the ocean. The only peculiar thing was that only one was human, the other, was not. 

~~~

Mira watched him drift downward like a snowflake. Of course she would never know what a ‘snowflake’ looked like, she heard stories though, she could imagine they would look something like this, peaceful.  

He looked peaceful, his facial features were softened by the water into a loose, sleep-like expression, limbs dangling above him tangled with the garments he once had on his body. He was slowly undressed by the tide, and by Mira. 

Her curious fingers glided over his body freezing on a divot in his torso. A slice stained with a red substance, blood. A feral part of her stirred, Mira fought it as she was far too intrigued to feed now.

Where had he come from? Mire assumed she knew the answer to this question, she had heard a loud blast and watched hundreds of pounds of debris come crashing through the surface of the water, somewhere he had been mixed in. 

Mira wanted him.

Mira was going to take him. 

Turning off her sense of smell and wrapping herself around him, she swam away with a sense of urgency. The scent of blood was like a beacon, she had the leave before the two lone heartbeats became thirty ravenous ones. Speeding off in a random direction, she was left alone with her thoughts, and realizations...

Humans needed to breathe air. Mira knew that, Mira was intelligent. Mira also knew that they were not in the air. Mira was intelligent. 

She would have to go to the surface…The surface was a menacing place, home to the demons of Earth, humans. But she happened to have one attached to her, and demons can only survive in hell. 

So they were going to hell. 

She exhaled in a flurry of bubbles and moved with newfound determination, for the first time in years, she turned away from the ocean floor, and up into the unknown. 

~~~

The longer she swam, the more exposed she felt. Unable to go faster for she was lugging a 100-some pound weight behind her, she flicked her ears nervously. Eyes wild, searching, and waiting. Waiting for some creature to see, waiting for some creature to smell…Mira risked a few seconds to stop and study the human. He didn’t look...alive. Although his face was sleep-like, it was more of a sleep you didn’t wake up from, one whose hold you couldn’t escape from. 

Will he survive? 

That thought echoed through the miles of empty ocean along with their heartbeats, and the presence of blood. 

And then, she felt something...warmth.

Heat curled around her in an uncomfortable way. It wormed into every crevice of her body, it’s murderous beams cutting it’s way through all her defenses. She didn’t like the way it wrapped around her, the foreign tingly feeling it left like a trail of fire. 

She hissed, a low grumble in the back of her throat, but pushed on. She was in the water, she was safe. 

Safe, safe…

The howl of the wind was suddenly audible, the rumble of the waves crashing against a distant structure. Mira could see the distorted images reflected on the water...and she could see the air. The tide was stronger up here, everything was more violent. Mira could handle it, but the human could not, this was quite literally not his element. 

Although she couldn’t see it she knew what else was there, what was above her...Her body recoiled at the thought of it, but she fought her natural instincts for the second time because of this human. 

What did that mean? 

Mira decided not to think about it, and instead started the process of reviving the human. Mira unlocked her tail, and grasped the human in her arms. He was deathly pale. Panic surged through her body and she unlocked her sense of smell for the first time in twenty minutes. The metallic scent of blood flooded her nostrils for half a second before she slammed them shut again. He was still alive, blood doesn't flow after you die. Mira knew that from experience. 

Now to save him. 

Mira could sense the water in his lungs, and she knew it was the problem. Her fingers gingerly propped open his mouth. She hovered her hand over his chest and focused on the water she sensed locked in there, and in a few seconds, water poured through his mouth sucked by an invisible force. 

His lungs were empty. 

Now to fill them. 

Mira gritted her teeth, flickering her tail back and forth. She knew what was to come...it wasn’t stalling, it was preparation. 

Her eyes flickered to the surface and she inhaled sharply.

This was about to be painful.

She broke the surface and screamed.

(I didn’t finish And my submission is under the limit I am so sorry, I had a really busy few weeks I’m submitting this two minuets before the deadline help me help me he