The Living

Evolution is a painstakingly long process. It took a billion years for life to blossom in the form of a single-celled organism and a billion more before the Earth produced something that swam within its vast oceans. Avery doesn’t know how their species came to be, how life in the sea became more than dolphins, whales and simple fish that live in simple schools. All Avery knew was that they weren’t the first intelligent life on Earth.

Avery and their hunting party were just returning to the village when they sensed a disturbance in the currents. They worked their tail to get closer to the commotion. Gleaming scales of all colors crowded around, voices were raised and the village elders did their best to keep the panic at bay. One of the kelp farmers had dug too deep into the seabed, exposing a layer of rock unknown to them. The merlings coward behind their mother’s tails, curiosity getting the best of them as they peeked around scaled hips and fanning fins. In the center of the noise, lying stuck in the sediment, a skeleton, one never seen before. It looked like any merfolk’s skeleton from the top of its head to the pelvic bone and that’s where the similarities ended. Jutting from its pelvis were two sets of bones identical to one another.

The village was in an uproar, most people thought the set of bones was a hoax; a trick from the neighboring village or perhaps from village folk that have long since passed. Some thought it to be a fallen god, a being that lived beyond the tides and controlled the ebb and flow of the sea. Avery didn't think much of it, the discovery held no importance to them. They had a job; feed the village, and that job was the only thing that mattered.

"Two-tailed" is what the villagers called them. The bones were displayed in the village square, still stuck in the rock it was found in. Merlings had decorated their fins, painting a line with algae that split their tails in two. People left offerings and some tried to break off pieces to stash away for themselves. Avery watched as their party brought in a fresh kill that fed their colony for days, and an older villager stared at the fossil. Swimming in place, their gaze never strayed from the old, brown bones. It was different from the curious, the worshipers and the skeptics. This was an obsession, a look Avery recognized from a distant past.

"We are the last of the living," said the old villager before they took a jagged rock and split their tail in two.