to the island. He once told Roen that the island was his home; he would never leave her. A captain who’d proudly sink with his glorious ship. It was a sentiment held by many men who’d followed the island blindly, like cult members. They never questioned the daily rituals honoring her and giving her thanks for their sacred water. They never doubted the logic or motives of killing fellow mermen simply to please her. They never even saw the wrong in collecting human women and bringing them back to the island to serve their own selfish needs. The island had successfully brainwashed so many of them, using their inherent trait of loyalty against them.
Perhaps that was the one good thing coming out of all this: everyone finally saw the truth. The island was not a god, and in the end, they were only left with each other.
“Thank you, Jason. May you find peace,” Roen mumbled, not knowing what else to say. Getting sentimental was not the way of a merman.
Jason gave a quick nod and disappeared.
Lyle immediately let out a growl, his green eyes tinged with fury. “You fucking bastard. You are not going to sit there feeling sorry for yourself and give up like this.”
What does he want? A ceremony to mark the end? A speech ? Because short of those two things, there was nothing left for him to do.
“It’s called defeated, not giving up,” Roen said. “The island is dying, Liv is gone, and I have nothing to offer those men. No food. No water. No hope. And to make matters profusely dire, a bunch of crazy asshole humans are now searching for this place and will probably find us.”
It was a long, complicated story, but somehow Liv’s hometown doctor, a woman named Dr. Fuller, had gotten a hold of their sacred water. She’d sent it to a lab for analysis and discovered some rather “peculiar” healing properties that got leaked to the tabloids. The part Roen couldn’t understand was how anyone had tied it back to a “mysterious island in the North Pacific.” Hundreds of ships were out looking for this place, so it was only a question of time before they found it. All of them. Not even the island herself could fend off that many humans.
Shaking his head of shaggy long brown hair, Lyle stood and placed his hand on his hip. “Roen, you can’t abandon the men when they need you.”
But he could. And it was exactly what he intended to do. He’d already lost huge amounts of blood and those black spots covered most of his body.
“Let me die in peace, Lyle.”
“For fuck’s sake. Die, then, you fucking asshole.” Lyle turned and hobbled from the room. He too was weakening, his skin covered in spots.
Yet another reason for me to go first. The last thing Roen wanted now was to see his little brother die. How much pain can one man bear?
Roen closed his eyes, feeling the pull of darkness and sweet, sweet unconsciousness. He prayed that this time he wouldn’t come back. The pain in his heart and body was too great.
“Your brother is right, you know,” said a soft female voice.
Roen now stood near a great bonfire in the middle of a forest with soaring pine trees. I am on the island , he realized. Only, it looked so different now. Flowers bloomed on every inch of ground—reds, yellows, blues. And the trees were green again.
He glanced over at the fire, where hundreds of luminescent forms danced. He felt so much peace.
Was he finally dead?
“You cannot give up, Roen,” said that female voice again, this time from behind him. He turned and saw the shape of a woman made of pure light. Who was she?
“I want to be with Liv,” he said. “Where is she?”
“She’s on her way.” The woman raised her arm and pushed Roen’s chest.
He fell back, his body falling endlessly toward the ground that wasn’t there. “Liv!” he yelled, grabbing for thin air. “Liv!”
~~~
Wrangell, Alaska
Wearing a hunting blanket around her shoulders, Liv rushed down the plane’s narrow staircase and across the