It didn't look like the photograph Pandora had gave her.

It was better in reality.

Lori marvelled at the sight. The sunlight on those crystal waves, those golden sands, the sweeping cliffs forming the bay....

And shockingly deserted. Barely a soul in sight.

Well, it wasn't a normal vacation time, she figured. She went down to the shore, carrying her stuff.

If anything, her trip here and recent days had made her want to relax more. Her first attempt to come here yesterday went wrong as her poor old little car went kaput. It was in the shop, and she had been forced to get the bus here. It was awkward enough to carry her cooler and parasol, plus her other bags, without the fact she couldn't get a seat and when she had, she had it for one stop.

Then a little old lady got on, and no one else moved a muscle. Lori had cursed the fat man taking up two seats himself and the idiot with an MP3 player blaring, lounging beside his girlfriend, who similarly in a world of her own thanks to her smartphone demanding all attention from her.

The old lady got her seat. Lori got jostled and bumped all the way to the beach.

But it had been more than worth it.

She walked out halfway down the beach, and set down her stuff.  From her bag, she laid her towel down beside her dropped cooler, and planted her parasol, like a victory flag. She then quickly glanced around before undressing. She hadn't worn her bikini on the bus, after all...

What she had worn was her more normal clothes, her blue vest and skirt, white tights, and striped t-shirt. Her purple string bikini lay in the bag along with sunshades, sun cream, a book, and a straw hat, but she was glad the beach was empty. It made things easier.

She removed her vest, putting it into the bag carefully to avoid getting sand on it, then did the same with her skirt, unzipping it and pulling it down her legs standing on the towel. She then pulled her t-shirt over her head, placing it into the bag with the skirt and the vest. She untied her shoelaces and gently kicked her sneakers off, careful to stay on the towel in her stocking soles. The less sand for the trip home the better.  She took her tights off next, rolling them carefully up and ensuring no sand got onto them.

She was quick to yank off her bra and put on the string bikini top, and the same with her bottoms. After that, it was just the sun cream to add, and then...

She lay back in the shade of her parasol, got one of her chilled cans of soda from the cooler, and relaxed.

***

It had been a nice day, and peaceful too. Lori had sat there, tanning nicely when she decided to drop the parasol, and then catching up on the book she was reading once she was nicely done. She was glad the beach had been so empty. She smirked to herself knowing that tanlines would be no worry.

She looked at the waters, still shimmering, but it was now just leaving low tide. She hadn't swam all day, and she was due to leave in a couple of hours, so... why not? Get some swimming before high tide, and home time.

She went to the water, after topping up her sun cream, to take her swim. She was a pretty good swimmer, and the waters were calm.  And so unbelievably clean. Now she was closer the sea was virtually invisible, just a haze over the wet sands it lay on.

This had been so very worth it.

She waded in, and then swam. At first, just in circles, but then, she went a little further out, enjoying herself and exploiting the fact she was a pretty good swimmer.

She decided to head for an outcrop by the far cliffs, and then head back, but as she neared, she spotted something. A small cave mouth, wet inside. At high tide, the cave must have been flooded, and the little thing she had spotted would be submerged.

It was a Mermaid statue.

'Well, I guess they are the Mermaid Beaches....' she noted.

The cave was too high above the waterline at the moment, and she had no desire to enter barefooted anyway, so she decided to just head back. Suddenly, she felt a tug as the current intensified.

'Oh no... A rip current?!'

She knew her stuff, and that fighting it in a panic was what made rip currents a risk. Swim parallel to the shore, or just float and relax until it lost strength then swim back.

Except a rip current wasn't supposed to drag you under. She cried out as that happened. It felt like a vacuum below, sucking her down. She span and swirled, fearing for her life as she felt the strong currents. She felt her bikini bottom torn away by the water, the strings not holding out against the torrent. Her top seemed to be holding out, but that was the least of her worries. She had little breath, and the buffeting currents had knocked the wind from her. She felt herself being pulled and pulled, and her head feeling lighter...

***

Still buffeted by the current, Lori's unconscious form was tossed around like a ragdoll, but thanks to the only person present being in essence half-drowned, there was nothing to see the current flow like it gripped onto her. Her arms were forced to her sides, and her legs forced together.  They began merging, additional flesh forming to connect them as her feet flattened and spread out. Her skin took on a scaly sheen, turning a green that glimmered with rainbow-colours in the light filtering into the raging waters.

Her feet had flattened into a fin, and her legs had merged into that of a fish. Held rigid straight even in the swirling waters, Lori's top was held in place. But as the pressure on her arms relaxed, it floated loose, having become undone.

Lori of course didn't know this. She hadn't awoken as the currents, now somewhat more gentle, guided her along.

***

She gasped and woke up. Her bikini was gone, she noticed. She bemoaned its loss. It had been a nice swimsuit...

But of course, that was secondary to the fact she was still alive!

'Wait... Where am I?'

She glanced around, noting this wasn't the shoreline. It was... a cave, or something. She was sitting in a shallow pool, and her tail was swishing in the...

..Tail?

She gasped. Her legs had become a fish tail, and from the waist down she had rainbow-scales in one limb instead of two pink legs... She was a mermaid!

'I must be dreaming...' She told herself.

She found she could wave her tail so far as to slap herself in the face, and yelped. This was no dream!

She found herself looking around, and noticed a clam shell. It was empty, and beside it, there was a string of seaweed. She pondered it for a moment, in a daze, and began making herself a new bikini top. It wasn't perfect, but it would do. She could swim... get out of the cave, swim to shore and...

And then what? Hop up the beach? Hope the bus driver didn't mind the fishy smell?

She shook her head. That was for later. She looked at the pool and noted it had a channel. She swam along it, and it went deeper. It soon led to even deeper waters, and Lori noted the water was actually rising in this cavern.

She went below the surface... And she could breathe like it was air. It was... it was hypnotic, almost. She forgot for a moment that this was a sudden and strange change, and just swam. She saw faint light, she swam for it... And out past the statue she had saw earlier. She had been inside the outcrop.

And as she exited, she saw the light wasn't the sun, but the full moon, glowing low in the sky. The mirror-sheen of dark water glimmered, and she heard playful laughter.

She saw others.

Others with tails.

Other Mermaids.

She swam...

***

She groaned, and awoke.

She glanced up... Her head feeling a little light. But apart from that she was okay...

She remembered, and looked at her legs.

They would have looked back, but most humans did not have eyes on those limbs.

There were two of them. One. Two. Pink and soft, not scaly and rainbow-shimmering green. She prodded a toe, and wiggled it.

She looked back where she had lay face down. Her impression in the sand lay on an open clamshell.

'That explains the seashell bra....' She told herself.

She stood up, bemoaning the loss of her bikini... for real, this time, not in her half-drowned mad dream. How long had she been out for? She saw her parasol undisturbed, and headed to it. Nothing was gone, and looking at her watch, she found it was nearly time to head home. She quickly decided that the sand on her was not as big a worry as missing the bus, and that she'd maybe go and get checked out after the whole almost drowing thing.... But she felt fine, really, and she wasn't wanting to embarrass herself.

Still... She wanted to come back here. Even that scare hadn't truly taken the shine off her day. It had still been nice... and to be honest, the fever-dream with the mermaids was so vivid... That feeling of just shooting through the water like that. It had been so real...

Yes, she decided.

This had been so very worth it.

She brushed off some sand, and produced her underwear, pulling it on. She tugged on her t-shirt, then paused. She checked her watch. Half an hour yet....

She grinned, removed what she had put back on, and decided that ten minutes wouldn't hurt...

***

When she got home, she found the evening newspaper in her mailbox, and was confused at first. It was Wednesday's edition, it said. But wasn't it...

She went inside her apartment, puzzled. She wondered what had happened to Tuesday's paper... to Tuesday. She didn't remember reading the paper.  And hadn't she went to the beach on the Tuesday?

But on the arm of her chair, Tuesday's paper was lying there. She sighed. She had forgot to put it in the recycling box again.

Even she didn't remember reading it.

With a shrug to herself, she figured she was confused from the accident at the beach, but she was fine. Just a little disorientation. She knew it was Wednesday. How else could Tuesday's paper have got indoors, instead of having sat in her mailbox if she had been out a whole day?

Even she didn't remember reading it...

***

A month later, Lori had a strange dream.

She had got into her car, now fixed, and drove. Drove at night, to the beach. And there, she had undressed in her car. Her pyjamas were removed, her shirt unbuttoned and bottoms taken off, folded, and left on her passenger seat. She took off her underwear, folding it up too. And she got out. She walked down the shore.

Others were there, walking down too. Males and females, all like her, all without a thread on. There were a lot of cars behind her but that didn't matter. They passed a towel, some neatly discarded beer bottles beside a cooler, a bundle of clothes belonging to a man and a woman, and an MP3 player and smartphone lying on top of the pile but that didn't matter either.

The sea was in front of her.

She found two shells, and some more seaweed. She made her top, and walked into the water. She floated after some time, and felt her legs come together, softly tingling as they merged below the surface, as her skin became the fish-scale green. And then, it was done.

She gleefully jumped out of the water, diving back in, and shooting off like a torpedo. She and her shoal swam and swam, playful the whole time, until the new ones arrived. Two swimming from the outcrop, and racing over to join in. They swam with each other. They danced below the surface, they leapt out and flew through the air.

They didn't have a care in the world any more. Just the sheer thrill and fun of existing, swimming, leaping and splashing.

That was all that mattered.

And when she had awoken back in her bed, she had dismissed it. But it had been such a... real dream. That feeling... Of just not having any worries. Of just living for the fun of it all out there in the sea...

It had been such an odd dream, but such a nice dream. It had left her feeling relaxed for the whole day, and had helped keep a good mood for few days beyond that.

And really, that was why she had went to the beach. To help herself relax.