In a hot toxic sea of water like acidic bleach, Ariel wakes up with a dream, for she could no longer sleep. The much-polluted Sea had turned her into a chaotic mixture of two worlds that refused to mix, the realm of the land and of the sea, and it reflected in her rejection from both. Both realms refused to let her be, but at least, the creatures of the sea had more humanity than what the people now turned out to be. Divided into their own thousands of hateful communes, they were united in one thing, their hate for the world of animals around them. Perhaps it wasn’t hate, just disregard, regardless, that is what it felt like, each time they made things worse for the others they share the planet with, for a fraction of their own comfort. Ariel, was disturbed this morning, well, more so than most mornings, because she had dreamt something worse than what was now already true of her world. She’d dreamt that the Sea had dried, her expanse now a salt desert, abandoned, desolate, now desecrated by the waste that made its way to the sea, or at least what was the sea, each day. Her hands trembled, her gills burned and her skin was on fire, well, that was still better than what awaited her if her dream were to come true. Fear gripped her mind and she refused to be confined to the fate that awaited her, so she left at once for the realm of the witch Ursula, to see what could be done to undo this fated dream.
Things around her go from bad to worse as Ariel journeyed towards the abyss Ursula called home. Ursula only lived in the deepest, darkest trenches, for she despised all things alive, be it fish, polyps or mankind. She’d been wronged, betrayed, deformed in unimaginable ways, ostracised and villainized by the few that met her face to face, and this filled her with rightful rage, and like fine wine, it grew more potent and complex as it aged. She held no love, but for her revenge, vengeance was her lover, for vengeance would never put on a face, never pretend. She stays alive only to see the world die before her eyes, and that was the only thing she desired, her final prize.
Busy in her own world of imagination, contemplating, plotting, revelling, consumed by the genius of her own plan, only to be snapped out of it to disappointing reality, all thanks to the red-haired ruffian Ariel who walked in like her father owned the place. She thought of what she could do to this pompous princess, the horrors she could gift her, the torturous nightmares she could make real, and this princess of privilege opens her mouth and hands her the key to seal her fate and the fate of the world.
Ariel, all worried about her fate, pleaded for the witch to turn her human, so she could leave behind the horrors of the Sea, turning a blind eye, to the only realm that had been kind to her, but she was in no mind to think of the fate of others, only herself.
Ursula, saw what this to be a great opportunity to send to certain doom, the realms of land and that of the sea. She gave the innocent unsuspecting mermaid the one thing she wanted, in exchange for something, something she wouldn’t need now anyways, or at least that is what she wanted Ariel to believe. She wanted Ariel’s gills, her voice of the Sea, so she could never come back once she chose to leave.
Ariel believing this to be a gift, blind to the witch’s malice leaped at the chance to abandon sea for the land. She drifts asleep soon after and awakens in a strange place. Her eyes open to meet a world with no water, for she was now of the land, and not a princess anymore, only someone’s daughter. She wandered for a while, until her lips dried, her skin flaked, her lungs burned, and once again she was returned to the dream from which she thought she’d run. She could carry on no longer, she collapsed to her knees and before she could call for help, the light left her eyes and she was once again, asleep.
Faint whispers all around her and a blinding flash of light as her eyes open again and her senses attempt to return to normalcy. She finds herself, yet again in an unfamiliar place, but this time its different, its inside, its cool, her skin is not aflame and neither are her eyes. A man comes to her bedside, and she looks at him like he is the first of his kind, well, to her, he really was the first of his kind. He gives her a cup bearing a small colourless fluid and steps away. She stares, unaware of what she is to do, and in amazement and much to his amusement he asks “do you not have water where you are from?”. She realises that what lay in that cup, is a little bit of her home, well, what was her home, the Sea. She gulps it down, letting it cool her as it seeped inwards, finding that no matter where she would go, the Sea would always be part of her, and nourish her soul.
This handsome man of mystery had fallen for this sweet simpleton, for blinded and consumed by himself, that was all in her he could see. Ariel too had fallen, perhaps the best choice of words here, for she left her home, her conscience, her dignity and the little of her soul, all behind with her gills her voice and the Mer half that made her whole. The two planned of a “happily ever after”, with not a care for each other, let alone the burning earth, for each saw in the other, what they could take and not what they could give.
In this world of consumption and deception, the only recluse left for any truth, was in the land of her dreams, that had turned to nightmares, their nature extreme. Ariel wakes up once again form a dream she wished to forget, of agony, pain and death, Only this time, it wasn’t her’s, but of all that she(Sea) had abandoned. A tapestry of pure chaos, she saw what the fate of the Sea was, left unguarded to the realm of man, for she had forsaken her crown, her duties to her clan. She rushed back to reality to stop this certain fate, pleading to the man she loved to stop before it was too late. The man who claimed to love her, refused to let go of this race, he said he’d regret nothing, even if all of the sea was erased. Betrayed and in pain, she seeks the soothing Sea, she takes a plunge into the water, only to find she could not breathe. She’d traded her voice, her strength, her identity, all to be a half, to escape the fear of her fate, she’d betrayed the only real part, the part of her that was one. She drowns deeper by the moment, in her guilt, sorrow and the warmth she once called home, though her body rejected it violently, her mind was no longer torn. She’d decided this was her resting place, that her final breath will be of water, the same waters that grew her, the same waters she rejected will be the same waters that claim her, for be it guilt or sorrow or pain, in water, they all dissolve.
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