With some extra money in the bank and finally free to vacation where they want. Taylor and Kristen were two teenage friends. Where Taylor had short brown straight hair, Kristen had longer blonde hair tied in a ponytail.
"Hey, you heard about that family, right Kristen?" Taylor said while he steered the motorboat on top of the water.
"The ones that vanished? Yeah. It was around here, wasn't it?" She glanced down. "They left without a trace. I wonder what happened to them."
"Lots of rumors about buried treasure, among other things." Taylor slowed down the engine. The sun shined brightly on them. "The instructor fled and they don't know anything. They couldn't find any evidence, so they couldn't press him with anything." He glanced down. It was hard to see into the water, but he could make out a few colorful fish. "But there were some strange species in the water they couldn't identify."
"Maybe they transformed into them." Kristen said with a ghostly noise.
Taylor rolled his eyes. With his gray and green suit, he prepared his scuba gear. "Well, that'd be a weird story. Anyways, you ready?"
Kristen pulled up her own purple and yellow suit. "I hate how this covers my hair." She pulled the yellow top over her head and put on her goggles. "But yeah, I guess."
Taylor grabbed his camera as he slipped the suit over the back of his head. "We just got to get a few pictures of the animals here. Should be easy money." Taylor took a breath, attached the scuba gear to his mouth, and dove on in.
Kristen followed moments after. She didn't have a camera, but she wanted to supersize Taylor and make sure nothing went south.
Taylor looked around underneath the water. He let himself go deeper into the water to see, and noticed the bottom of the water was much closer than he thought. He thought he went to the center of the large lake, and it should have been at its deepest, but he only went down a good twenty feet before reaching the bottom. He let himself gently float down to the ocean floor, and began to take pictures.
Just then, a strange pink creature swam out from one cave. The creature swam far too fast to identify what it was, but it had hide that strongly resembled the suit that Kristen wore. The creature brushed its tail up against Taylor's back as it quickly swam away.
Taylor was speechless. Granted he couldn't speak with his scuba gear on anyways, but the strange creature amazed him. He raised up his camera to take a picture of the magnificent creature. Before he could snap the shot, the camera slipped out from his hands. He let out a word, but bubbles flowed out from his scuba gear instead of the actual word. He reached out to grab the camera, but as he did, he noticed his fingers looked strange. Four of his fingers, all of them except his thumb, stuck together. He tried to move them apart, but he just couldn't. He leered in and noticed his fingers weren't just stuck together, but it looked as if the suit combined them. He turned to Kristen and signaled her down.
Kristen was above the creature when it swam by, but she couldn't help but stroke its back as it swam. The creature looked harmless, and it almost had a humanoid resemblance to it, but it also looked very young. It was almost like...
Kristen turned down to Taylor and saw his signal. She floated down to the bottom and swam near Taylor. She was unaware that her own fingers merged, all except for her thumb.
Taylor raised his hand to show Kristen. His fingers hadn't only merged, but they also looked longer. He tried to control the growing appendage, but it had very limited movements.
Kristen reached out to try to grab Taylor's hand, but she then noticed her hand resembled that of a child's mitten. She flexed her fingers, and then looked at Taylor worriedly. She pointed up at the boat to indicate the two should leave and began to swim upwards.
Taylor followed Kristen. He didn't look down at his flippers to see that his flippers moved much easier, as if his feet weren't in the proper place in the flipper anymore. It made swimming a breeze for him. He swam up and poked his head out of the water. He tried to reach up to grab onto the boat, but his new hands couldn't hold onto anything.
Kristen managed to grab onto the boat and pulled herself out of the water. Her slick suit felt as if it stuck to the boat, but she pulled herself off. She then reached over and helped Taylor out of the water. She grabbed her mouthpiece and tried to pull it off to speak, but she couldn't pull it from her mouth. It felt as if she were trying to rip her lips off when she was trying to take the mouthpiece off.
Taylor noticed Kristen struggle with her mouthpiece. He felt his heart pound nervously. He couldn't feel himself sweat inside the suit, but he was very wet outside the suit. He wanted to pull his own mouthpiece free, but he couldn't even grab his piece. He tried to spit it out, but to no avail.
Kristen reached out and tried to tug Taylor's mouthpiece, but she couldn't get it off either. She looked at Taylor worriedly and breathed heavily. She breathed so heavily that it actually felt hard for her lungs to process the air it took in. She would have grabbed her neck and pulled her suit if she had the ability to do so, but she couldn't even do that.
Taylor breathed in and out. He felt hot, dry, and it was hard to breathe. He glanced down at the water. Normally, a person that felt as ill as he did wouldn't want to dive in, but he had a feeling the water would help him. Without double-checking with Kristen, Taylor dove back into the water. The moment his suit touched the water, he felt relieved. He also felt more of the water than he swore he should. He knew the suit was supposed to feel like a second skin, but it felt more like the first skin. He noticed a small coral reef formation and swamp down to it, although swimming felt strange. It was easy to swim, but his arms didn't feel right. He didn't notice the flaps that formed underneath his armpits that were expanding, but he 'did' notice his feet began to fuse together. He looked up back at the boat and wanted to signal Kristen not to come back into the water. There was something happening to the two of them, and he couldn't quite figure out what it was, just that it was changing them.
Kristen looked down into the water. She blinked rapidly as she tried to see in the water, but it was hard to tell what Taylor was doing down there. She saw him wave around, and it almost looked as if he were in trouble. She took off her googles and peered in more, but found herself falling back into the water. The moment her 'suit' touched the water, she felt more at home than she did on the boat. She didn't even realize that she kept her eyes open and her eyes didn't even burn in the water, as they should have. She swam down to Taylor and tried to speak. Her mouthpiece split in half as she opened her mouth. She then realized what just happened, and covered her mouth.
Taylor pushed himself back almost instinctively when Kristen's mouthpiece broke in two. He opened his mouth, but his mouthpiece broke in two just like hers. He looked back up and wanted to swim upwards, but before he could, he heard the noise of a soft thud behind him. He turned and noticed his oxygen tank came clean off his body. He was still breathing, but without his oxygen tank. 'How is this possible?'
Kristen noticed Taylor's oxygen tank fell from him, just as it fell from her back. She could still breathe though. She could also move her mouth with her mouthpiece, as if the two were one. She looked down at the oxygen tank and saw her own two legs fused together from the arch of her feet, but her feet positioned to the left and right while they grew downward. The lower half of her body reminded her of the tales of mermaids, but her hands weren't right for her to be transforming into that.
The skin on Taylor's sides continued to grow. He didn't have the ability to see his reflection, but if he had, he'd see the suit covered his entire face and body. His suit was now part of him though. His legs fused into one long tail with the new flaps attaching themselves to the bottom of his once normal legs. He looked more like a manta ray. Although his head still had the human shape, he lacked hair. He looked down at his changed body and then at Kristen worriedly. He could tell the suit Kristen had covered up her face too, but he could still make out her eyes just barely.
Kristen's eyes changed, but she didn't actually see any different out from them. She could tell something on her face vanished though, and a quick stroke with her new hands confirmed she no longer had a nose. Her eyes looked as if they were shut, but it didn't change her vision. She then felt a slight stinging pain on her sides. The sensation felt strange, but the pain quickly passed. She reached down and felt them, and she could feel strange gills along her sides. 'But how could I...ahn...' She reached up and grasped her head. She felt something else change about her, a change that was making her head hurt.
Taylor would have reached out to try to comfort Kristen, but he was incapable of moving his hands much besides for swimming. His body naturally shifted itself so he swam with his belly aimed to the seafloor. The orange stripes with green underneath made for poor camouflage, but a very beautiful looking fish. He closed his eyes as his head began to hurt too. The pain wasn't unbearable, but with every pulse of his heart, he felt a light throb in his head. 'I...can't...water...surface? Air bad.' He thought to himself.
'Air bad. Water good. No need for air. Breathe water. Am fish.' Kristen thought. She noticed there was a much smaller fish that swam nearby, but she didn't have the craving for such fish. Her mouth wasn't suited for normal fish. She then noticed a bed of kelp. She swam down to the kelp swiftly and grabbed a few pieces with her new altered hands. She opened her mouth, and after a few bubbled rushed out, she helped herself to the kelp. She felt her body fill with water when she opened her mouth, but it was okay. She was part of the undersea life. It was normal to have so much water inside of her.
Taylor watched as Kristen went off to eat kelp. He could tell what was happening with her mentally. He opened his mouth to shout no, but after a rush of bubbles left his mouth, he suddenly felt less worried. He turned and noticed a small group of shrimp, and his stomach growled. As the gills formed on his sides, he swam down and opened his new beak, helping himself to the tiny shrimp and enjoying the taste. With every bite, his worries melted away. He knew he once had a human life, but now there were matters that are more important. He'd worry about changing back, just as soon as his belly was full.
And like that, the ocean gained not one, but two more aquatic creatures, ready for a new life under the sea.
