I woke with the sense I'd just had a nightmare. It had to have been one of those sick dreams. The kind you get when your fever is too high and you start hallucinating in your own dreams. Waking with that foggy feeling like any second you are about to fall back asleep but you know if you sleep anymore you'd end up with one hell of a migraine.

I was awake but very reluctant to open my eyes. I just wanted to sleep some more but my bad dreams were triggering an adrenaline rush that was making it hard to shut off my brain.

My throat hurt like hell. My back was shooting small pains every time I breathed. A headache was forming that was pounding in time to the beat of my heart. Oh good, I was alive. I guess that was good.

Badump.

Mom had been sick.

Badump.

I'd gotten sick. I was sent to the hospital.

Badump.

Other people were there. Mom was there. People were dying...

Badump...Badump.

I was on a boat? Had I been on a boat?

Badump...Badump...Badump.

People were talking... No, that was the dreams. Wasn't it?

Badump...Badump...Badump...Badump.

A feeling of sick overcame me and my eyes flew open as I turned and dry heaved over the side of my bed. My stomach muscles bunched and I heaved and heaved. I kept reaching for the side of the bed only it wasn't there. Oh shit, I was in a box! I began to panic in earnest, my hands flailed around. I wasn't dead, I wasn't in a coffin.

"Oh, there there, honey. Let me help you sit up," it was a warm older woman's voice. Someone reached down and grabbed me by the armpits and pulled me up. I heard the splashing of water like a person who moved too quickly in the bathtub and had just soaked the floor.

The hand was pushing my torso forward and patting me gently on the back. Head between the knees during a panic attack everyone knew that...

My eyes were still blurry, but even I could tell that I didn't have knees. Oh, Merciful Gods, it hadn't been a dream. I felt a black wave begin to crash over me.

"Oh, now now, none of that now," the woman said in a sing song voice while rubbing my back. A tell-tale healer's warmth radiated from her hand.

Oh, gods stop that, I wanted to pass out again. To wake up and this not be my reality. Was this reality or still part of the dream?

"Keep your eyes closed, honey. It helps. The others have said it helps when they first come out of it," she continued to rub my back and talk me out of going full blown insane.

"You survived, honey. Thank the gods, you survived. I don't know how much you remember but it was bad. Can you talk yet?"

"Couuckk," I tried to say fuck off but it didn't come out quite right.

"Oh, hold on, You've had a feeding tube for weeks now and its probably left you a bit sore. Let me get you some ice to suck on while I heal that up for you."

The woman went away and came back. She grabbed my hand and placed a cup of ice chips in it.

"Only a few at a time, honey." Then she went back to feeding me that healers warmth. I gave in and popped a few chips into my mouth. Damn, that felt good.

"There was an epidemic. It spread clear across the kingdom. It started with the people who'd been to The Island last summer. Then it spread to the general population.

"A lot of stuff has happened since you got sick. There were riots, and quarantines, then Mr. Rience thought of bringing you all here."

"Whag?" I asked. I had been meaning to ask what had happened to me but the healer took it differently.

"Oh, well, when people began to get sick it was only the people who'd been to The Island. So those people were all checked out. Some of them showed the symptoms and some didn't. The ones that didn't were told they could leave. Only everyone else began to get sick too. It was mostly children.

"There was this public outcry that the people from The Island had infected the children. Parents were watching their children die began to call for something to be done with the people who's been to The Island. The government assured them that the ones who were clear of the epidemic were safe, but it fell on deaf ears. There were riots..." The healer trailed off.

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"People who'd been to The Island were found murdered. Something had to be done. It was obvious that at this point some people would eventually survive, but not without some help. Mr. Rience had the idea that he'd bring everyone back to The Island.

"The uninfected are on the casino side, safe from being drug out and killed in the night. The infected were brought here to the research side and here you are."

Well, that didn't explain much. Why the hell was I a fish?

There had been an epidemic. The government lost control. There had been mob rule for a while. Then everyone got shipped to The Island. Ok, great...WHY THE FUCK WAS I A FISH?

I splashed my free hand at my 'not-legs'.

"Fuccsh," I croaked out.

"Oh, that would be concerning to you wouldn't it?"

No, shit. I turned and tried to give her a blurry stink eye. Not being able to see well was really making it difficult to gauge the full effect. Hell, I'd need glasses. Wait, why the hell was I worried about glasses? I was a FUCKING FISH! Priorities, Rille. Stay focused.

"It's a side effect of the epidemic. The illness causes a transformative effect on it's victims. The ones able to complete the transformation are the ones who survived. The others, well, their bodies couldn't handle it. Looking at your records you had a very high pain tolerance to begin with. We think that this helped. But when we interviewed the other survivors there seems to be one main difference between them and the deceased."

GODS ABOVE! I slapped at the water and my 'not-legs' again.

"Oh, well that would be the survivors are all god touched."

God touched? Did she mean Blessed? I certainly wasn't Blessed. A long drifting memory eluded me. I needed to remember something. What was it?

"The survivors all took on what Mr. Rience calls an elemental form. You, honey, are a water type. There are earth, fire, and air types too.

"But you are so very lucky. The water types have the lowest survival rate. There are only three of you."

"Fishk," I finally got out and pointed to the... what was it... fin?

"Oh, well it is a very lovely tail, much prettier than the males, I must say."

Tail, ok nice to have a word for it.

"But, honey, you are not a fish. As far as we can determine you don't have any fish in you at all."

I tried rolling my eyes at her and moved my 'not-legs'...tail. To prove my point.

"OH! You still have your secondary eyelid down! You can't see a thing can you? Oh, poor dear! Ok, so try closing your eyes and blinking very hard. Like this," I think the woman was trying to show me something but it wasn't like I could see her doing it. She was just a blurry blob in white.

Still, I closed my eyes and tried to blink. How did one blink hard? I opened them again, still blurry.

"Try again."

Shit, ok. I squeezed my eyes tightly shut.

"Uggg," I began to cough. Oh, gods that felt dreadful. Like someone had licked my eyeballs. Goosebumps broke out on my arms. Could I still get goosebumps on my legs...tail?

I opened my eyes again...and I could see normally. What the hell?

I turned to the woman. She was middle-aged, with greying hair piled high up on her head. She had a few extra pounds and a rather large motherly bosom. She looked like someone who loved to bake cookies for all the neighborhood children, genuinely loved cats, and owned lots of decorative throw pillows.

I pointed to my eyes and tried to make the universal sign of what the hell. It was basically throwing my hands up in exasperation.

"We believe that the secondary eyelid forms so that you can better see underwater without damaging your eyes. We've been told that in the water, when the eyelid is wet, that you will be able to see just as clearly as you can now. Only under the water though, any other time we think it distorts the perception and causing nearly blinding blurriness. Does that seem about right to you?"

I nodded. I didn't know anything about this underwater eyelid business but my vision had been nearly blindingly blurry.

"Fish," I asked again. My throat was feeling a lot better. I popped another ice chip in my mouth and waited. When it seemed like the healer was confused I moved my...tail...again and splashed some water on the floor. A small vindictive part of me hoped she would have to mop it up. I wanted answers and she wasn't giving them.

"You are not a fish. If anything it resembles something more mammalian. Mr. Rience is doing some testing, but we think that it is closer to being a whale."

Whale.

I was a whale.

"Why?" I asked.

"Well, we got the idea because of the way the tail is situated in comparison to the torso..."

"No, WHY?" I interrupted her. "Why, fish?" I pointed to the tail again. Oh, it wasn't black like I'd thought. I moved it experimentally. Dark blue, dark purple, reddish-pink. Don't get distracted me.

"Tramscorck," I started to cough on the larger word. It didn't come out like I'd wanted.

"Transform?" The healer asked. I nodded.

"We don't know, to be honest. Some people got sick, some people didn't. Of those people, there were four basic types. Earth has a better survival rate. We don't know why. Then air and fire. Water, not many people were water, but of those that were, water has the lowest survival rate. We don't know why you are water or why someone else is earth. All we know is that of the survivors most of them are god touched.

"You're the only female survivor so we can't be certain if what you've experienced is normal or not. The males have this gap right here," she motioned to her thighs," right around here," she moved her hand lower to about two inches above her knees, "the legs begin to join and form a solid mass of muscle that forms the tail. They have thigh bones like normal but their lower half is jointed and bendy."

She did a sort of hula dance trying to show just how bendy the tail was.

"You are fused all the way up to the pelvis. Your reproductive organs seem fine and as far as we can tell everything important, down there," she pointed to the general area she was talking about, "is normal."

Good to know they could use me for breeding. I thought sarcastically. Wait. Where had that thought come from? It seemed like something was just out of my mental reach. What was I forgetting?

"You're bum is colorful but looks like a fairly normal-looking bum. So while there is skin covering most of your um, area, you will still be able to um, function, normally."

I'd be able to shit. Great. I was like a goldfish. Shitting in my own bowl. I didn't think they'd invent underwater toilets just for me.