Lane Way drive chirped with the summer heat and the crickets hiding amongst the bushes and lonely trees. The heat was the heavy kind, one that made the sweat bead and trickle and dampen any clothes worn throughout the day. But I didn’t mind. My meal was one that soothed, one with a smooth taste that cooled summer’s grasp over the street and over my empty house. Well, it wasn’t entirely empty, not yet. My dad was out the back at the pool with me, cleaning the pavement as I sat at the pools edge. My feet dangled over the side, occasionally catching the drip.165Please respect copyright.PENANA8VGNJbCXy7
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“You’ve made a mess,” My dad casually chastised. He continued to wash away the blood from the concrete into the gutter.
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“What else do you expect?” I said through a mouthful of blood and flesh. Droplets fell into the pool, heavy, the crimson sank through the chlorine blue. I put the chunk of red bones and taut flesh to the side. Perhaps the white shirt had been a mistake.
“What do I do with the tail?” I asked, looking to the glittering mess of rainbows scales. 165Please respect copyright.PENANAZW7RdBw0Yv
“I’ll take care of it, just go take a shower. In the pool house, mind you. Can’t have you destroying the house beforeI leave.” Dad said, turning off the hose. He was a relaxed guy, someone who didn’t mind cleaning up the remains of his sons’ prey in a set of yellow sunglasses, cargo-shorts and a cheesy Hawaiian shirt. He also didn’t mind leaving the entire house to his son for the summer.
The outside shower was only semi-private, the many shelves and tables covered in plants and succulents. I peeled off the blood-stained shirt and threw it to the shower floor. It was getting worn out anyway. As the cold washed over my head and through my hair, my jaw realigned itself back to the way a normal sixteen-year-old boy’s would appear. Most things about me seemed normal. Tall, slightly lanky, with black hair and dark brown skin, my grey eyes requiring a set of glasses. I might’ve stressed about eating outside once, but today there was no need to. Neighbours either side of us had gone on holidays for most of the summer, in fact, most of the street had gone away. Not that it mattered, anyway. My dad and I had a natural contingency net if a human were to stumble upon them feeding on their inhuman prey, a set of retractable fangs that when dug into the open neck of a human could make the forget the last three hours. He’d only had to use it once, my dad, when I was seven.
Little seven-year-old me sitting at the little dinner table in the kitchen at our old house, having my first…meal. I’d had no reason to be ashamed. I’d had no reason to think of myself different to others for eating flesh, to have blood coating most of my chin and neck. The next door neighbour, my piano teacher at the time, had thought it’d be the nice neighbourly to bring around a cake, unannounced. And so she walked in right as I ate. My dad has reacted calmly as she screamed, horrified beyond words. He’d stepped behind her, gripped both arms and bit gently as he could into her neck. She’d dropped the cake, letting it smash onto the ground as she crumpled back into his arms. Her screams rattled in my head with every bite I’d taken since then. They’d only gotten quieter, muffled enough that I didn’t need to remember the horror on her face.
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The water running down my back was cold. Almost freezing, but I couldn’t have cared less. After the shower and the clean-up I went and changed into a pair of black jeans and a white shirt with some foreign logo on the breast pocket. I sat at my desk, watching from the window that looked out into the pool. The sun was setting and as it sunk beneath the ocean’s horizon, it took the days intense heat with it. The kind that pressed and pestered anyone trying to get anything done, now replaced with the quiet cold of the night. And he’s gone. Off to some far away place until Summers end. What the fuck am I meant to do now?My phone came alive in my pocket, buzzing with dads’ ringtone of Fox on the Run. With a spin of my wheelie chair I answered.
“Hey.”
“Hey, Rey. I’m on the M1 at the moment, just calling to remind you not to burn the house down. I mean, if you want to invite a few friends over I don’t mind. Just…be careful, obviously. Don’t accept candy from strangers and all that. I think it’s fair I mention that…they’ll be migrating around this time. You won’t be able to tell them apart from the others, except for their necklaces with the green-blue charm. I left the one from today on your desk, just so you know for sure. I think it’s time you at least gave hunting one by yourself a try. If something goes right, give me a call,” Dad said, the sound of the highway cluttering the audio. As promised, there was the necklace, sitting innocent as could beside the pencil tin. I would’ve found it pretty, if I didn’t know who’d it belonged to. If I hadn’t eaten him that very day.
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I’d never felt guilty for what my kind did, what we had to do to survive. Because a Siphon is never taught to feel guilty for eating mermaids.
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