The Docile Siren

I hadn’t seen anything like what happened in the last month. One day to the next, keeping in a stable, yet safe and secure position will not be easy. I go jogging by the creek one morning, then find myself wobbling at the break of dawn on another. I find myself in an entirely new body I am unfamiliar with, and crawl under several trees in the shade on reflex until I can figure it out.

A horse like creature with smaller size than a real one and rather large eyes with visible whites and so forth talks to me in plain English after finding me by chance and tells me everything animate seemingly vanished for a brief period, and a very small number reappeared. The world is vacant, something I am very aware of, yet he tells me he suspects there’s more animals around, but they are keeping themselves hidden away from the weird aliens that now inhabit their world.

I didn’t know how much I should believe, but I know everybody vanished, I’m here, and in a totally strange body that came from nowhere. I’m guessing this guy is human too like me, as he has loose fitting clothes on. When he told me he’d be back with more help, I plead with him not to leave me. He may or may have not come back; a rainstorm washed me to the harbor. I don’t know what’s up with me, but the exposure gave me bad burns. It still stings whenever I crawl even the shortest distance.

For the first time since this happened, I got a good look at this body, and it looked nothing like me as I picture myself. I found a piece of hubcap on the beach, and “stood” in front of it. Even without the exposure burns, I’m making myself sorer by crawling about. The redness in my lower half was truly awful looking, and the bits that weren’t had a shiny silver shimmer to them. It was covered in hexagonal patterns from my mid region onward, save the end, which was clear looking, and bore several visible strands in them. Two clear appendages that were very wide and spread out.

Where it met the rest of me going up, there was a smooth transition where the scales got less frequent and tightly strung together and began to apace out more, until they gave way for smooth, bare skin which I thought would be more susceptible to burns. But with every dissipation, the smooth skin was less damaged than the scaly tissue strangely. The skin must be very thick from my torso up. Like leather or rubber. Maybe blubber.

I was very cylindrical shaped the way up, but very flexible, which aided in my crawling, kind of a hybrid between a crawl and a slither. ‘Cause my upper limbs are nothing but useless stubs, incapable of grasping anything, having no real joints or length, but just enough to get me around. Even that horse had more dexterity than I did, even if he could not do what he would have as a human. They aren’t arms nor legs, hands nor fins. I don’t know what to call them.

My reflection gave me a new view of a part of me I hadn’t seen until now: A head that looked some some miscellaneous mammal. It didn’t belong to a dog or a horse or any specific creature, but it had the features you’d expect on a mammal. Oddly enough, it seemed I had no cleavage, until I actively thought about it. Then I found it recessed in my lower region half hidden by the reptile/fish like texture. My eyes were still that of a human, or some other being with similar detailed eyes.

After not eating for six days going on seven, I could not help but try to eat something. I was hungry, but not nearly as hungry as I should be. Maybe I had increased body mass. Maybe my metabolism slowed. But my biggest hypothesis was I had been staving off hunger with indirect sunlight, and hadn’t been thinking about food, but rather exposure. There was a can of beans on the beach, but I had no limbs to try opening it with. I found a bag of nuts and managed to open it with my teeth. Gobbled the lot of them up, I did. My hunger was satiated, but my journey to the water wasn’t being in it where it was shallow somehow kept me hydrated, but by keeping my skin partially immersed.

I was never subjected to abusiveness, but I now knew what it felt like. The water wasn’t the worst. I got into it and took to it like a fish. Okay, not like a fish, maybe more like a dolphin. I wouldn’t know. I struggled at first, trashed awkwardly, but after mere minutes, I started to swim like I hadn’t ever before. I liked to swim, but not like this. It was like getting into an epson salt bath, only this was the ocean, a whole world of water. An aquatic environment. Enough swimming around told me all I needed to know: There’s not much fish here. I saw a few tuna, a few bass, and so on, but in very small groups. (Schools?)

After nearly a month of scrounging kelp, and taking it raw, something I did begrudgingly, I came back to the place on the beach where I’d been sleeping for much of this time, and found pawprints in the sand. May in fact there are animals here. But I missed them. I only came here at night so as not to get burned, but I would not sleep in the ocean. I wrapped the very large beach towel around my lithe body as best I could with tail and mouth. When you are surviving, you cannot be preoccupied by other pursuits like looking for people. I learned this the hard way, something I never though would happen in my lifetime. It would only get worse in the coming months when I would be pursued and played with by intelligent animals that are quite terrifying indeed when personally faced with.

An orca caught sight of me, then sent out a call. Somehow, I got what that call meant, and was immediately intimidated by it. I swan away as quickly as I could to get to the shore, and was so terrified to go back into the harbor, I stayed beached for the next five days. Two more showed up, and all three were staring at me longingly. Waiting, urging me to come back into the water. At one point I thought they were gone and it was safe. They had me surrounded and I barely got away after one of them clenched my tail gently enough to not hurt me, but firmly enough to not slip away.

After a number of encounters, I got the impression they were playing with me, which was even worse than my initial thoughts. I’d seen orcas torture sea lions by throwing them around like a beach ball playfully, and did not want to be a victim. But one day when traversing the docks, a trio of ponies, and they insisted on being called that, came to my rescue, and scared Keiko, Luna and Tilly away. With flares.

Apparently, two of them were brothers, an artist and a detective, the latter being more outspoken. There was another out of earshot within visual range who did not speak, and had his head up at the sky looking at something before going up the fire escape. They told me not to mind him, as he’s not very social and seems to be in his own world all the time. The fourth was the only apparent female of their group, and she’d recently stripped to take a swim. Her exposed hip had a mark on it shaped like an almond or an appleseed, a sun beaming its rays down upon it. It became hidden quite quickly when she slipped her dress on with ease, quite a feat for someone who had no hands. I struggled even wrapping a towel around me.

After being promised they’d come back every other day, Monica Hadley, the detective who was oddly male even with such an effeminate name, picked the lock on one of the yachts to gain me access to ensure I have a safe place to stay. He did this with the lockpick in his teeth. Ew. I took a gander, and rather liked it. He explained there’s no law to uphold anymore, and They need all the people they can get. Unfortunately, their golf cart was full, and even then, I’m effectively a cripple here. Staying near the harbor is in my own best interest. And I have.

I have been writing on a notepad with a wooden pencil clenched in my teeth, and it has gotten more legible as I go along. A skill I apparently have to get used to as there’s no evidence this is going to get resolved. As I write this, I can hear orca calls, and they no doubt know where I am. They’ll be expecting me back in the water soon. More often than not I’m alone, so I am eager to be visited by the ponies and whatnot of that group who know where I am. They make me feel safe when they come about.
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For several months, they have been showing up everyday, and they keep my mind off the orca pod. There’s about six people in that group who look like small horses, and nearly an equal amount of other strange things. Two humanoid ones which are both bipedal and have a torso similar to that of hominids, only with other features. The first looks like a lizard: She has the muzzle, scales, and tail of one, and besides that membranous wings on her back similar to a bat’s. She has no cleavage, but does have a naval. (She was generous enough to remove her clothes to show me this) Each finger and toe has sharp claws on the tip of them. Most odd of all was that she was endothermic, she wasn’t like a reptile at all in that she had her own body heat, no different than the rest.

The other woman was lees strange by contrast, as she looked like a regular woman save the fact her head was very similar to that of a poodle: A dog’s muzzle, a poodle’s mane, and funny enough, she had a poodle dress on with a mattock embroidered on it. Everything else looked no less human than she and the others claimed they were apart from the fact she told me her feet have pads on them. When I asked to look she gave an exasperated sigh but Vinnie, the bat winged woman next to her told her to come off it. Her feet did indeed have pads on them. She claimed that that’s all, and I could see no imprint on her upper dress to imply she had any breasts.

Two other were even stranger. One looked like something I could identify by name, a gryphon. She simply had the frontal features of an eagle, talons and all, and the rear ones of a lion. I asked is she could fly, but she said she never tried. The most she or Vinnie got was a glide and a parashoot after jumping off the roof. Neither wants to try.

The other looked like a strange mix between a beetle and a horse. He had the overall shape of a horse like most of them, but he had the finer features of an insect. He only had four legs rather than six, but they had more visible joints to them than a horse should, and that’s saying something considering they all had more than they should, and could bend their forelimbs to grasp things. His whole body had what seemed black, shiny chitin covered every external part of it, especially his back which was shaped like an armoured dome. His eyes were like the others, only multifaceted like a gem, like a regular jewel you might find at the jeweler. His jaw was like the others, only they went in several directions. He told me he has a sense most if not all of the others lack, and it’s useful for searching for people, as well as helping, although he warned me being alone with him for too long could leave anyone without feeling momentarily. No emotion to be specific.

I had wondered if the bug had siphoned the feeling out of Will the introvert, as he never seemed to show much feeling, though he and Vinnie assured me he was always that way, and feels more than he lets on. Val De Lump, the insect guy told me so, as he is his best friend who incidentally can sense feelings and feeds on them like most of us do on solids and liquid. And Vinnie is sleeping with him.

They all have strange stories to tell me, but I’m tired. They can wait till tomorrow.