There was nothing.

And then there was water.

Lots of water.

He had been dropped so suddenly, he didn't even have time to cling to one final breath. The air was knocked out of him, like a punch to the chest. He drifted there, bubbles licking at his bare arms and legs, pulling him down down down - no - hands, fingers pulling him, pushing, drowning. The water, white in the full moonlight, was endless. No sound, except for his heartbeat, thrummed in his ears. There was no escape. A startlingly sober thought crossed his mind: I'm going to die here.

The fingers were cold, firm, yanking him out of the moon's eye, the darkness tunnelling his vision. His eyes drifted shut, whatever life left in him fading as fast as the light. His lungs burned like he'd sucked in an entire bonfire, but another warmth - low in his belly - wrapped around him until it consumed his entire body, like a blanket on a winter's night. He yearned for air, gasping for it, but got water instead.

The dark was all he had.

Then he was nothing.

It was kind of a weird thing, waking up.

Not necessarily the 'waking up' bit, but more of the 'waking up on a beach with no idea about how he got there' part. That was confusing.

When he blinked his eyes open, all he saw was cloudless blue sky, the kind of blue that makes you feel small and sort of stupid because it's just too pure to be that blue blue. Wind whispered through the palm trees, making their branches shimmy and shake; it sounded like white noise in his addle-brained state. The ocean hissed against the reef, tumbling with a roar as it crashed over itself in white capped mountains, then lapped at the beach.

His clothes were warm, baked by the high summer sun. His chest rose and fell, in tune with the waves. The air was crisp, fresh, and smelled distinctly like salt. He wiggled his toes inside his Chucks and gripped his fingers through the hot sand. It raked through his fingers, grit getting under his nails.

Then the ocean started calling to him.

Percy… it rang, sweet-like. Percy.

"I'm here," he said.

"Percy." The voice was closer now, definitely less sweet and more urgent.

Percy lifted his head, sand trickling from his hair and down his shirt. Jason had found him. He was bolting across the beach, kicking up sand underfoot, as he headed straight for him. His glasses slipped down his nose as he stumbled on the uneven ground and stopped at Percy's side, panting.

"Where have you been? Are you alright?" He squinted his eyes against the sun, checking Percy for injury.

Percy propped himself up on his hands. "Yeah, I'm fine," Percy said, quite sure he was being honest.

"Did you spend the night out here?" Jason asked, grasping Percy's forearm and lugging him to his feet. Percy wobbled - his legs had fallen asleep.

"No but… maybe?" He brushed the sand off his shorts and took a look around. Their campsite was on the other side of the island. Everything about this was wrong.

"When I woke up this morning and you were gone."

"I left in the middle of the night to pee. And then there was this…" A cave. A chamber. A three-pronged spear. A trident.

Jason was undoubtedly noticing the far-away look on Percy's face. "What?"

"A light."

"Well, it was a full moon."

"Not that. It was a glow, like, from inside. And then I fell. There was this hole in the ground and I fell right through it."

"You don't look like you fell."

"There was this pool at the bottom and - and - then I woke up, right here. Just now."

Jason's eyebrows made a wave of disbelief. "Are you sure you're okay?"

It was all starting to sound really crazy. Like, really crazy. The kind of crazy that comes in a dream or a… nightmare. "Yeah. Sorry I made you worry."

"Come on," Jason said as he wrapped an arm around Percy's shoulder. "Breakfast."

They made it back to camp through the forest and Jason started the fire. Their fishing poles rested up against the tree near their tent. Yesterday's catches were already de-scaled and ready to cook while they waited on the frying pan, but Percy wasn't hungry, which was probably a sign that something was wrong. He immediately went for his towel, even though he wasn't wet, and cocooned himself with it.

He and Jason had come all the way out here to Mako Island just to get away from it all. A night's worth of camping should have put him in better spirits, what with the looming shadow of the new school year just ahead, but he ruined everything with a bout of sleepwalking. Their last days of freedom, tarnished all because he just had to go tumbling into a pool of crystalline, moonlit water. Of course, though, he hadn't fallen through a hole. A hole that magically appeared out of the ground to swallow him up. Of course.

They were going to be juniors in high school. He had to stop with all this kiddy stuff. Dreams were just that - dreams. He shouldn't be so spooked about something inside his own head. He was no better than when he was six, asking his mom to leave the hallway light on, just in case.

But there was something odd about last night. Not just, well, basically everything about what happened - but how real it felt.

People always said Mako Island was creepy, that the island was haunted. No one lived there, hadn't ever. There were always those stories someone heard from a friend of a friend's cousin about voices and unforecasted storms and lost time. What Percy mostly saw was a butt-load of mosquitos, lots of rockfish, and very similar looking trees. Nothing supernatural, let alone haunting.

Besides his dream.

The island was too beautiful to be haunted. There was a small stream that cut the island in half, near which they had set up their tent. It was so peaceful. And it was so green, it almost hurt his eyes just looking at it on certain days. Busted, white beaches ringed the whole island, with a dormant volcano in the very middle of it. A bullseye targeted from space. The water all around it was glass-like, teeming with color of underwater life. There was something very old about this place, full of stories.

He and Jason had been boating all around Mako Island since Percy's mom had deemed them old enough to go out on their own. Percy's little boat with a backboard motor was enough to get them around. They would have taken Jason's dad's yacht, but it was way too expensive for a couple of kids just looking for adventure.

And their summers were always filled with adventure.

Scuba diving on the reefs in the morning, fishing in the evening, lying out to watch the Milky Way rise. Never before had they seen or heard anything weird on the island and this should have been no different. Now, no matter how many times he told himself otherwise, he felt like he was being watched.

And he was, but only by Jason.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," Jason said, hunched over a perfectly good fire.

A shiver ran down Percy's spine. He looked over his shoulder but saw nothing, no one. He knew he was acting like a crazy person, but it didn't help him feel any better. It made him feel worse, actually. He had had enough.

He threw his towel off of him and started walking. Jason stood up, fish in hand. "What are you doing?"

"I have to know if what I saw was real."

"Hold on, what?" But there was no stopping Percy. He was heading straight for the base of the volcano, back to the place where all of this started. Jason, quietly cursing, set the fish down and followed.

It wasn't a long walk, at least not to Percy. His mind was on one thing and one thing only: Prove it. He practically ran there.

But when he got to the place where he thought looked familiar, his heart sank like a stone in the deep. He was staring at a smooth slab of rock, a part of volcano wall it had always been for a millennia. He put his palm to the cool, black stone and wiped his hand over its face, looking for any crack or edge to a door leading to a secret passage.

Jason finally arrived. "Is this the place where you saw the glow?"

"It has to be."

"Well… hate to break it to you, but I don't think it's glowing now."

Percy didn't like Jason's tone. It was supposed to be light-hearted, and Jason meant it that way, but Percy was more annoyed with himself than anything. He had really believed what he saw. He sucked on his teeth with his tongue and slapped his palm on the stone, like maybe he could knock and whatever it was that let him in last time would answer.

Behind this rock was… Well, Percy didn't have a good answer for that.

Percy sensed Jason come up behind him and rapped him on the back with his knuckles. Earth to Percy. "Alright, let's get back. Unless you expect the fish to just magically fry itself."

Magic. Percy's shoulders tensed. He looked up, unable to see the volcano much higher than what the tree-cover allowed. This place really could hold secrets.

Glumly, he followed Jason to camp, but not before giving himself one last chance to glance over his shoulder and hope that the door had opened for him once again.

Percy dropped Jason off at his house, steadying the boat with a hand on the dock as Jason leapt out and took his stuff. His house, this gleaming white beacon on the hill, was everything Jason was but pretended not to be: rich, powerful, a little domineering and show-offy, with its opulent gardens and fountains. Fairy lights decorated the back patio, where servants were cleaning away the remnants of last night's party. That was part of the reason why Jason wanted to get out of his house. He needed to be as far away from that as possible. Percy didn't blame him. Who wanted to spend a night with stuffy politicians anyway? ... Besides other politicians?

It was some fancy fundraiser for his dad's campaign. Jason had admitted more than a few times that he didn't want to be an accessory his mother wore on her arm, presenting him like a trophy to party supporters. The esteemed son, prodigal in charm and wit, giving smiles out like pennies. Percy had known Jason a long time. That was not the life for him. He was too humble for politics, and - according to Percy's mom - too sweet for that world. And yet, Percy could see it. The house suited him, or rather, Jason suited the house. Jason fit like a rug that tied the whole room together. Without him, something would be missing.

"See you at work later?" Jason asked, hefting his sleeping bag higher on his shoulder.

"Yeah," Percy said with a grin. Working an afternoon shift at the beach as a lifeguard would help distract him from what happened last night. It was something he could look forward to.

They both waved before Jason went up the stairs toward his house and Percy took off toward his. They didn't live that far apart, but it felt like they were separated by two different worlds. Where Jason's house was shiny and new on the shore, Percy's house was shabby and well-used on the river. It was only one floor, enough for he and his mom to share, and her car wasn't in the drive, which meant she was still at work. Peeling blue paint chipped off the siding, the herb garden was overgrown in an tameable sort of way, and one of the flowerpots on the windowsill had cracked so his mom replaced it with an old toy truck Percy used to play with. Percy tied up the boat on the rickety old dock that stretched out like a crooked finger into the river and hauled out his gear, and headed toward home. But he stopped.

He felt eyes on him again.

Turning around, he scanned the grounds. None of the neighbors were outside, no passing boats were chugging along, and certainly no one was in the house. And yet… Everything was very quiet. Even the waves that usually clopped against the low-sitting dock had calmed. He couldn't shake this feeling. It was the same feeling from the island, like it had followed him home.

As if someone drew a finger down his spine, a chill followed it. That same chill, those same eyes. He rolled his shoulders and furrowed his brow. He really needed a nap before work. Exhaustion was making him delirious. But if he dragged sand into the house again, his mom would kill him. He draped his favorite blue towel over the railing on the dock and leaned his fishing rod next to it. Once off the dock, he went to the grass where the hose was drooped over the white-painted fence separating his house from the neighbor's.

Percy dropped his things, slipped off his shoes, then turned the knob and the hose sputtered to life. He clapped the soles of his shoes together, getting rid of even more sand, and then went to hold them under the water for just a second. But then the water moved.

Not in the usual downward motion but, for lack of a better term, away - arching like Percy wasn't something it wanted to touch. He snatched his hand back, startled by what he was seeing. Obviously it was a fluke, or… yeah, a fluke. He tried again, this time slower, in case he had startled the water the first time. But as before, the water shot away from him, leaving him and his shoes completely dry.

Percy dropped his shoes, not caring that they landed right on the top of his feet and backed away, slowly at first, locked with stiff knees, and then he spun and ran up the grass toward his house. He'd come back for his gear later. He needed a nap. A very long nap.

The air was smoky from the bonfire. The drone of insects buzzed. A twig snapped under his foot. He was walking, walking, walking through the memory, and then there was the cave. And then there was the symbol, the trident, glowing as hot as the sun, carved into the cavern wall. No heat came from it, not when Percy brushed his fingers against the edges. His stomach leapt into his throat. The wind roared in his ears. Just before he hit the water, he woke up.

His pillow always smelled like drool, something that hadn't changed even now. He wiped the wet line from his cheek but buried his face further into his sheets, shoving his arms under the cool side of his pillow. The edges of the dream were fading but he knew that he had been put back there, if only in his head. It was like he was supposed to go back, like he was meant to. It pulled at him, even now, low in his belly like a fishing line. There, he would find answers to questions he didn't even think to ask. But he was firmly fighting the instinct to go back. His bed was too comfy, his pillow so soft. He could stay here forever if he wanted to.

His room was perfectly Percy. It even smelled like him. His mom came in once a week and sprayed Febreeze to try to tame the funk of smelly socks and drying out swim trunks. After a day, it went right back to normal. Even though he left the ocean, the ocean was hard pressed to leave him. His things constantly smelled briny, like he always had a window open (which he did). Eelgrass and wet sand was another olfactory addition. It usually accompanied damp shoes by the door and a pair of swim fins.

Band posters hung all over the cornflower blue walls, the corners of some curling in the humid California air. A couple of white curtains his mom had hung billowed in the gentle breeze dawdling down the river from the bay. Somewhere, someone was starting up their boat. The sound was more annoying than an alarm. It reminded him that he had someplace to be.

He opened his eye to look at the clock on his bedside. He had exactly thirty-seven minutes to be showered, dressed, and ready for work. He figured he'd forgo the shower in favor of a few extra minutes of Zs and rolled onto his back. A glass of water he always had nearby was resting beside the clock. With a mouth as dry as the Sahara, since it had been wide open like a basking shark's for the past two hours, he lifted himself up just enough to reach toward the glass.

As if by an invisible hand, the glass was slapped away and rocketed across his bedroom, splashing water all over his window. Fully awake, Percy bolted upright. The glass shattered on the windowsill, and the water dripped down with soft little pat-pat-pats onto his wooden floor. His heart was about ready to leap out of his chest and sprint out the door.

The water from the hose… So he wasn't crazy. Or maybe he was double-y crazy. Either way, he hadn't even touched the glass and it went flying like he'd thrown it. Not knowing what else to do, Percy scrambled out of bed and slipped on his flip-flops. Gingerly, he picked up all the bigger broken pieces and threw them in the trash can next to his desk then got a Dirt Devil to clean up the smaller bits. Yesterday's used bath towel would do to clean the rest of the mess. He used his foot and smeared it across the floor, sopping up all the water he could. He was not exactly the tidiest person, not when his mind raced based on the evidence presented before him.

He could control water.

When he was younger, he used to pretend like he could, sweeping his arms back and forth like he was pushing and pulling the waves on the beach. It was a fun game, one his little mind loved to play. But now… Now it wasn't in his head. He should have been freaked out, or at least be checking himself into the hospital for a concussion. But his heart was playing ping-pong with his chest, excitement rising like the tide. He knew, deep down, way down, that this wasn't pretend anymore.

His face broke out into a wide, unapologetic grin.

Percy found Jason on the pier, sitting at one of the Ocean Cafe's outside tables in the shade of a giant blue umbrella with their mutual friend Frank. Frank basically ran the Ocean Cafe. It was the one-stop-shop for all things beach. If you wanted to find both Percy and Jason on an off-day, or after school, or pretty much every single weekend, this was the place to look first. The inside was painted in loud, slightly chintzy, pastels in pinks, oranges, and blues, and it always smelled like strawberries. Sunglasses, sundresses, and t-shirts were for sale too. Tourists liked to flock to those, especially when an ironic summer snowglobe was too enticing to pass by. Sometimes the cafe hosted live music, but most of the time it was filled with the smooth jazz from the speaker system, just below the din of conversation and laughter. On a hot, summer day like this one, it was always packed and today was no exception. Business was booming.

Frank was mostly in charge of the cafe side of things: mixing up drinks, making sandwiches, and taking in the seafood deliveries. His family owned it, but it seemed like Frank was the only one who actually cared. Clarisse, a somewhat brash waitress, helped him out, but she did most of the tableside service. She was actually kind of good at her job, besides the scowl she almost had permanently etched on her face. She went home every night with bundles of cash. Percy always suspected she bullied people into giving her more tips.

In Percy's opinion, Frank should be the main face of the cafe. He was quick to laugh, quicker to smile, and someone Percy thankfully could call a close friend. He was one of those people who went out of his way to make everyone feel at ease. Whenever Frank laughed, you couldn't help but join in. And when Percy wove his way toward them, both Frank and Jason were laughing over a shared joke and looked up when Percy splayed his hands on the table.

"Hey, Frank," Percy said, winded.

"Hey! What's going on?"

"Not much," he lied through a smile. "Can I steal Jason for a second?"

"Yeah, sure." Frank stood up and re-cinched the apron around his waist. "My break's over anyway. Those smoothies aren't going to blend themselves. We'll catch up later."

"See you, Frank!" Jason called right before Frank disappeared into the air-conditioned interior of the cafe. He turned to Percy, pulling the straw from his smoothie up and down so it made grinding noises. "What's up?"

Percy could not let his smile go. "I have to show you because otherwise you're not going to believe it."

Percy coaxed Jason into following him down the ramp that led to the docks. Jason idly sucked on the end of his straw. Like Percy, he was dressed for work in an obnoxiously yellow polo. Percy had just enough time to show Jason his newfound skill set before they were expected to report for duty.

He ran up to one of the hose stations at the end of an empty dock and held the hose out to Jason. Jason took it, albeit hesitantly. All he did was watch Percy with upturned eyebrows.

"Go on!" Percy said, pointing to the valve. "Gimme some water."

With a tilt of his head, all 'if you say so'-like, Jason did. The water came out in a solid stream, pouring right back into the ocean.

"Alright, watch," Percy said, a wicked grin on his face. He held out his hand toward the water. This time he felt the power, like he was pushing on an inflatable beach ball with his palm. There was some give, but he felt the water resisting. Eventually, it obeyed him, bending away. But then the stream straightened out, ignoring his every will. Percy furrowed his brow. He tried it again. He felt the pressure on his palm, power bubbling at his fingertips, but the stream remained unchanged.

"So, uh, what am I waiting for?" Jason asked. Obviously he hadn't seen Percy's first attempt. Either that, or he thought it was because of a twitch in his own wrist. The water just wasn't cooperating.

"It worked earlier," Percy said, slightly crestfallen. He lowered his hand.

"Okay, Houdini. Maybe next time." Jason turned off the water, set it back down on the dock, and gave him a sympathetic pat on his shoulder. "Let's get to the beach. Our shift is starting soon."

Jason left Percy standing alone on the dock, wondering just what in the hell happened. The water bent earlier, right? It moved with only a thought, Percy was sure of it. He saw Jason hop-jog up the last ramp before disappearing onto the pier allowing Percy to consider what had changed. The last two times he had controlled water, he wasn't even trying. Maybe water had stage fright and couldn't perform, especially in front of an audience. Maybe water didn't like to be told what to do, as stubborn as a fickle five year old not ready for his nap. Maybe water didn't like to be told what to do period, rather it was more open to suggestions.

Still, Percy was certain he had bent the water. That was something. Was he focused enough? Perhaps the distraction of showing it off to Jason made him lose sight of his ultimate goal.

Percy picked up the hose again, twisted the valve, and let the water run. He clenched and unclenched his fist, preparing himself, and then held his hand near the water. Power surged through his hand, warm, welcome, and Percy focused. As before, the water bent out and away, like the trajectory of a curve ball.

A laugh escaped him. Percy turned, hoping to still find Jason within earshot so he could call him over, but in his haste to get Jason's attention, Percy got sloppy. The water squirted out of the hose like someone had pressed their finger to the end of it, and Percy got a total face-full of it. As gracefully as someone straight out of a Three Stooges movie, Percy stumbled backward and slipped. His shoe skidded right off the edge of the slick dock and Percy slammed - back first - into the ocean.

Bubbles swirled all around him as the sea devoured him whole. All sound became muffled underwater, save for the constant drone of the deep. His whole body became as hot as a sunburn, his blush taking over. He felt so incredibly stupid, it might have just been easier to stay underwater forever and hope that no one noticed what just happened. But he surfaced, sputtering and spitting, and gasped for air.

He looked around wildly, finding no one on the docks and no one peeking over the railing on the pier. His embarrassment was his own. Relief washed over him and he closed his eyes, savoring his luck. He was about to swim back to the dock, but something felt… off. It was difficult to describe. His body felt normal, but that was the 'off' part. He felt so normal in the water, too normal. His heart squeezed, trepidation flooding his veins. He kicked his legs while treading, but that was what gave him away.

Percy leaned back, lifting his legs up, and found -

"WHAT THE FU-!"

A tail. Where his legs should have been was a sea green fish tail, shimmering scales glistening in the sunlight and all.

He forgot how to swim for a moment and sank beneath the waves, fear gripping him tight. He flailed his lower half, hoping whatever it was that was covering his legs would come off like a sleeping bag. But when he kicked, his fin propelled him through the water, faster than he'd ever swam before. He screamed, and when he drew up to scream again, he didn't choke. It took him by surprise he actually stopped screaming to gather himself.

He was breathing underwater. It tasted fresh in the back of his throat, filled him up to the tips of his fingers. He could taste the gasoline in the water, and a hint of fertilizer from runoff - probably none of it was good for him, but what choice did he have? An inhale caught itself in his chest and he heaved, but it became as easy as breathing air. It actually smelled better than anything he could imagine - better than standing in the middle of a freshly mowed lawn, better than his mom's fresh baked cookies, better than the air after a rainstorm. It smelled open. Free. Unexplored.

Forcing himself to calm down, he put his palm to his chest and found that his shirt had gone missing. It was nowhere to be found. Neither were his shorts or his shoes. Sometime during the transformation, they had evaporated into nothing. Well, duh, Percy thought, mermen don't wear clothes.

Mermen.

That was the only logical explanation. Percy had turned into a merman. His breath hitched again. He cupped the sides of his head in his hands and pulled at his hair. This was impossible. He spun around and swam, heading in the direction of home. It was the only place he wanted to be. Forget work! If anyone saw him, he wouldn't know what to do. All he could focus on was crawling back into bed, pulling the covers over his head, and maybe then he could figure out what to do next.

As he swam, naturally his arms moved ahead of him, Superman style, and he torpedoed through the water, even quicker than a speedboat roaring above. Percy looked up and watched as the boat's bow crashed up and down over the waves, cutting a slice of white water straight through all the blue. It was surreal, like seeing a blimp above a sports stadium except not like that at all.

Percy flipped onto his back and swam in line with the boat, watching the propeller grind, listening to the clap of waves against fiberglass, feeling the vibration shaking him like the bass at a concert. A weird thrill started in his belly and spread over his whole body. This was real. This was REAL.

With an extra kick, Percy took the lead, surging beyond the boat like the boat was running through tar. And in a matter of minutes, he was home.

He spotted the algae covered posts that belonged to his dock and surfaced. He slapped his palms onto the edge of it and hauled himself up. With his belly flat on the sun-heated, old wood, Percy glanced around. No one was outside, no one was watching. At least, no one he could see. But what other choice did he have? Stay in the water forever? He was not about ready to give up everything he had ever known just because he sprouted a fin. He was too stubborn for that.

Laboriously, Percy threaded his fingers into the slots of the dock and dragged himself up and out of the water. The scales of his lower half made a terrible noise, like sandpaper on bark, as he went. He was prepared to crawl all the way up to the house if he had to. Once fully on the dock, Percy rocked onto his side and took a breather. His arms burned from exertion. At least he could still tolerate the air. But for how long? Would he suffocate and then dry up right here on this dock for some unfortunate neighbor to find and call animal control to dispose of?

But there he panted, each breath taking up the mildewy smell of the dock. He closed his eyes to the bright sunlight and just laid there for about a minute. Perhaps he was only half merman. Technically quarter fish. Maybe the air wasn't going to kill him after all.

Thoroughly convinced he wasn't about to die, Percy reached up and grabbed the towel from this morning, its fibers warm and soft under his fingers. He threw the towel over his fin and started drying himself. He looked around once more, fearing someone was about to walk outside and spot him any second, so he worked quickly. But not so quickly as to ignore how spectacular his fin was.

The scales were rounded and pliable as fingernails. When he brushed his hand over them, it even tickled. Colors he never noticed before caught his eye, like summery yellows of golden sunlight and rich blues of shadowy depths. Overall, Percy recognized the sea green color to be that of his eyes.

Windows to the soul, they say about eyes. Maybe this was his soul.

The scales melted beneath Percy's fingers and turned into foam. In another instant, the foam evaporated into nothing and Percy was back to his normal self, fully clothed and all. Even his hair had dried, like it'd never been wet in the first place. He blinked once, and then twice, processing the magic that had just enveloped before his eyes.

Was it the water that had transformed him? Had he toweled enough off that it brought him back into human form?

On unsteady feet, he stood up and dropped the towel. Self-consciously, he wiped his hands on his thighs, half-expecting to feel the ghost of scales, but he traced his over plain ol' regular shorts. His phone was even still in his pocket, completely dry and still fully functional. This was some useful magic, he had to admit. Forgetting his phone was in his pocket before taking a swim was a bad habit to break. Now he wouldn't have to worry about that problem.

But there were grander things at play.

Whatever happened to him last night, changed him. His dreams had been telling him this whole time. The trident, the moon, the water - it all made sense. And thirty-five miles off the coast, Mako Island waited. It was taunting to him, daring him to find answers. Maybe it gave him this gift for a reason. He would never know unless he had some help.

Already, Percy was calling Jason.

Percy barely waited for him to pick up. "Dude! Meet me at my house. I have got to show you - No, tell them I'm sick. Just come over! Okay, okay, when your shift is done, but I'm serious! Just get here! Bye!"

He hung up and looked out over the river. A brightness shone in his eyes, drawing him up with fire. He felt impossible in so many ways - impossibly strong, impossibly certain, impossibly real. A whole new life had opened up to him and he could go there if he wanted to. All he had to do, was jump.

But what if he stayed like a merman forever? What if he could never be human again? What if this was a one-time thing - a final transformation to get his affairs in order? In the back of his mind, he knew that wasn't true. He was now a part of something, a bridge between two worlds.

And he could barely contain himself.

He started pacing, padding up and down the dock. One way toward his house, the other toward the water. He slapped his phone into his other palm, tapping in sync with his heart. A coiling thrill made itself at home in his chest. He couldn't stop smiling. Smoothly, he put his phone back in his pocket and headed toward his house. But he spun on his heel and sprinted back the other way. He hit the end of the dock, leapt, and dove, and disappeared into the river with a flick of a sea green tail.

Four hours later, Jason arrived. He lifted his sunglasses from his pink, sunkissed nose, and stepped onto the dock.

"Percy?" Jason called out. He put his sunglasses on top of his head and walked toward the river.

"Down here!" Percy waved, treading water nearby.

"What are you doing? Is this what you called in sick for?"

Percy didn't answer. All he had to do was swim. As he pulled himself through the water, he paraded his new tail for Jason to see, giving a few strong kicks for good measure. Jason's eyes nearly popped out of his head. A small, unsteady smile worked its way onto his face.

"Nice costume," Jason said, doubting everything in front of him. "It must have cost a fortune."

"It's no costume."

"Yeah, right," Jason said around a chuckle. "Quit goofing off." Jason's gaze wouldn't pull away from Percy's tail. He wanted to believe, Percy could tell. Percy just had to show him.

"You wanna see goofing off?" Percy's lips curled at the corners when he summoned a great bubble of water, the size of a basketball. He pulled it from the surface of the river and sent it hurtling into the sky.

Jason craned his neck to watch, not caring that his sunglasses had clattered to the dock behind him as he did. And when the water ball came back down, Jason wasn't ready. It splashed him right in the face, soaking his yellow polo. His whole body tensed as he blinked the water from his eyes. Percy clutched his stomach and laughed heartily as he floated away on his back.

Jason grasped for words. "That was - You're a -"

Percy only beamed, wanting Jason to figure it out for himself.

Not once did Percy doubt that Jason would take this terribly. It wasn't every day that his best friend sprouted a tail, but if anyone could handle it, it would be Jason.

"I'm buying you dinner," Jason said, smiling wide and pointing a finger like Percy didn't know he meant it, "and you're telling me everything."

A/N: This is a fic has taken over my life. And I'm only a chapter in! I'm not sure when I'll be able to update again, what with my other story still a WIP, but I just couldn't resist starting this one. I had a day off and watched the entire first season of Mako Mermaids on Netflix in a day. ONE ENTIRE DAY. I am such a sucker for mermaid stories. Can you tell? God, I even wrote a whole original novel retelling The Little Mermaid. I just cannot let it go.

But anyway, I watched the show and just saw Percy and Annabeth there on the screen. Things just had to come of it. I've got some ideas for continuing and I'm really excited to share them with you guys! If you're curious, you can find me bumming around on Tumblr as flyingcrowbar. Thanks for reading!