“But Ross? Blech.” The name is so bad I can practically taste it. “Did you have to pick one that sounds so awful? I’m supposed to go around land with that for a month?”

“One moon cycle will be over before you know it. And countless merfolk have taken this same Journey before you and are now fully committed to the Blue. It makes our species stronger, it makes Pacifica stronger, it makes the water stronger.”

Elder Kelp’s voice calms me with each word. Ideas of how to get out of this dumb tradition float right out of my mind. I get so calm, my eyes even start to flutter shut, like it’s time for a nice nap. Then it hits me, but my eyes are too heavy to snap open with realization.

I’ve been played, and my scales ripple with weak indignation at what’s being done to me. “Come on, Elder. You don’t have to do this.”

Bubbles escape Elder Kelp’s mouth as they laugh. “You and I both know that’s not true.” Their words are still outrageously calming, even though my mind wants to fight them with all I’ve got. But my heart’s not in it. There’s no resisting their powers of Sleep. You listen to a few words from them when the Elder’s turned on their charms and you’re knocked out cold. It’s very effective when dealing with angry hammerheads, or when chaperoning kids resistant to the Journey, apparently.

I try to give Elder Kelp an icy glare, but instead my eyelids give one last flutter, enough to see the Elder wave, smug as a sea slug. “Nighty night.”

With a final burst of will, I’m able to get out the only thought in my head before I completely lose consciousness.

“You’re the worst.”

     Sean     

When a character dies in a movie, everything still moves on. The plot goes forward, the action wraps up, and if it’s written well, it feels intentional. Like that character was supposed to die, as morbid as that sounds. But everything about the past two weeks has felt totally cruel, like the cosmic screenwriter of life just wants to play a terrible trick on me to see what kind of misery they can bring to my story. It doesn’t feel intentional. It feels wrong. Which means any shot of my life movie would just be me bawling my eyes out in different settings:

Cut to me crying in bed.

Cut to me crying in the shower.

Cut to me crying over a tub of Ben & Jerry’s while watching Gina Rodriguez get broken up with in Someone Great and fully relating to her pain.