There is a bit of set-up here so you don't get confused when the story really begins. Fluffles to come, I swear it~

There used to be so much life in these waters. Sure there are still fish, but it's not like you can jump and laugh with a fish. No, the real life of the river was in its people. Its Mer people, to be exact. We would swim and play with each other in the shallows and race against the soft currents. There was plenty of food and fun to be had, and we lived peacefully with the land and its inhabitants. The people of the land were very nice to us. They often brought us gifts and in return we would give them precious stones we found on the river bottom. It was a nice friendship that lasted generations. We Mer can outlive any human by far, so we witnessed their lives from the beach and watched them also live peacefully with the land.

Then there was talk of big white birds not too far from here. Apparently in the waters where all rivers met had brought things we had never seen before from lands unknown. As soon as the first talk of the big white birds came about, so did the end of our happy days.

The native humans began to grow timid. We noticed them look over their shoulders when they came for water or to wash themselves and their clothes. They no longer let their children play with us, they kept them by their sides at all times. They told us there were new people of the land here and that it wasn't safe for us to remain. We didn't think much of it, the humans always made mountains out of mole hills. It wasn't until we saw smoke on the horizon in the direction of the human village that we started to take them seriously.

The people of the land had fled their homes, leaving us only a warning behind. It wasn't long until the new people of the land stumbled out onto our banks, some splattered in red liquid that made us gag. These people were loud and rude. They wore heavy amounts of clothes and things over their very pale skin that made them seem so much more distant from the nature that birthed them. They had no respect for the land. They cut down trees out of sport and threw their trash into the waters we called home.

Fed up, one of us went to seek their reasoning for doing such things. That Mer was the first to die. The new person of the land saw my swimming schoolmate and nearly fell over in surprise. When he saw its tail, he pulled out a strange boom-stick and the Mer fell over and went still. We felt the water become poisoned with death and it nearly chocked us as we fled to the safety of the deep. We are not water breathers like the fish, we still require breaths of air every few minutes or we would drown. It was not possible to stay out of their sight for very long, and after a few tense days of stressful hiding and fearful cries for the ones dead, we swam away.

It was not right. Our entire school had to move up river to escape the brutality of the new people of the land. We had to leave our home in search of a new place that would welcome us. Every time we thought we found one, the new people of the land would show up after. They seemed to move like a disease, destroying and displacing the old people of the land as well as hunting us for our tails. I saw many a Mer be butchered on spot. They only took the tail. Nothing more.

That is until they found out that when we cry, our tears become pearls.

Now began the torture. If one of us was caught, they would throw us into a barrel of stinking water and shake it until we were nearly dead. They would burn our arms and strike us until we had cried as many tears as we possibly could before slipping off into the hands of death. Their screams were terrible.

Only the most nimble survived the longest. We learned not to play and laugh as we used to. We knew to stay near the bottom of the river as often as we could. The Mer couldn't live this kind of life, many died of stress and depression. There were only a few of us left now, and we decided we would go back downstream and back to the place we once called home. There was always hope the new people of the land had moved on from there. Perhaps it was safe again.

We really just wanted the comfort of dying in our home. Sadly, only one of us would have that honor.

On the trek back there was a group of pale-faced humans with nets fishing in the river, and we swam right into them. We thrashed and fought with the captured fish, trying to find a way out, but there was none. In the struggle one of my schoolmates died beside me of drowning. The other two were pulled from the water by their hair and thrown to the shore. The humans crowded around them as they shook in terror, holding each other in final goodbyes. In the midst of it, they decided not to let the brutes have their lives. So they took their own.

We Mer can chose to die whenever we want. Unlike humans who have to do something to themselves in order to die, we merely wish it and it becomes so. None of us ever wish for something like that, so we wondered for the longest time what the purpose of the ability was. Now we knew.

Out of some miracle I was able to have a clear head and a calm steady hand. I unwrapped my trapped tail and arms from the netting slowly and carefully while the humans poked the limp bodies of my schoolmates. If it weren't for them, I might not have been able to swim out through the hold I made in the mesh.

Pearls must now line the riverbed from there to here. When I finally reached our home, I slumped over on a low rock and hardly moved for hours. I was home…but I was alone. There was nothing to do now but wait for a human to come and find me. Until then, I decided I would live as long as possible here as a monument to what we used to be. After so many years, this spot had hardly changed. I wanted it to stay as so and for that to happen, it needed a Mer.

I, Tino, was the last Mer alive.

POOR FISHY DUDE D':

Okay. On with the story in the next chapter!