Seung-Bae’s hands were shaking. On the third attempt, he managed to slide his bank card into the pay phone then punched the buttons with his thumb.  When the line began to ring, he looked down at the useless cell phone in his palm. It was crusted with a thin layer of salty residue and refused to power on.  He stuffed it back into his pocket hoping his cellular provider would be able to retrieve his data when he got back to Seoul.

“Hello?”

“Hello? Min-Jae?”

“Seung-Bae, hyeong!” Min-Jae wailed through the line.  Wincing, Seung-Bae moved the receiver a few inches away from his ear.  Min-Jae’s voice rang out clearly despite the distance. “Are you alright?  We were so worried!  We looked and looked for you.  The rescue team found your life jacket, and we thought you’d drowned!”

Seung-Bae rubbed at his temples. “I’m alright … really.”

“Where are you?  Do you need my dad to come get you?”

“No, really, I’m fine.  I’m about to catch a bus back to Seoul.  I’m still in Sokcho.  I’ll tell you everything when I get home.  Please, tell everyone not to worry.  I’m fine.”

A muffled shout came through the line, and then a soft thumping as the receiver at the other end changed hands.

“Ya! Kim Seung-Bae?”

“Hey Hawk.”

“Are you alright? Where are you? You clumsy bastard! What the hell happened to you?  Are you alright? Do you have any idea how worried we were? My mom is freaking out!” 

Seung-Bae turned and leaned against the wall next to the pay phone’s console. He tucked the receiver under his chin and waited for his best friend to run out of air.

“Why didn’t you call sooner?  We thought you were dead! Are you alright? Where did you sleep? Did you eat? When will you be home?”

“My cell isn’t working,” he explained.  “I just made it to a pay phone.”

The voices at the other end became distorted again as another set of hands claimed the phone.

“Seung-Bae?”

The deep, gravelly voice of his eldest friend was unmistakable.  “Ahh, hey Hyun-Woo hyeong.”

“Are you alright?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” Seung-Bae repeated.

“Aishh, that’s a relief.  What happened? You were gone the whole night.  Where did you sleep?”

“It’s kind of a long story.  But I’m fine.  I’ll tell you guys everything when I get back home.”

“What time do you think you’ll be back?” Hyun-Woo asked sheepishly.  “We were just about to cancel the gig tonight, but if you think you’ll be back …”

Seung-Bae heard Hawk’s voice arguing on the other end, “Ya! Hyeong! How can you ask him that?”  Hyun-Woo grunted as though Hawk were punching him in the arm.

“No, don’t cancel it,” Seung-Bae reassured him. “I’ll be back in time.”

“Really?  I heard from the club’s manager that a party from CHS Entertainment made reservations.  Who knows – it could be our big break.”

Seung-Bae chuckled.  Hyun-Woo’s instinctive ability to continue scheming even in a crisis was oddly comforting.  “Ok. I’ll be back soon. Tell Hawk to stop worrying.”

Seung-Bae settled the receiver onto its cradle then found an empty spot on a nearby bench and sat down to wait for his bus.  The station was filled with people, mostly Korean but foreigners also came to spend summer vacation at the seaside city. As the noisy crowds flowed past him, he took a deep, steadying breath.  It was the first moment he’d given himself to be still enough to think after he’d fled north, away from the cove where he woken up and toward the distant signs of civilization that eventually led to Sokcho. 

Fled and left her on the beach alone, staring at him in confusion. 

Squeezing his aching eyes shut, he propped his elbows on his knees and cradled his face in his palms.  It was too much to process and trying made his head hurt even worse.

Sitting in the remote cove with the tide brushing against him, he’d been almost certain he was hallucinating.  Surely it wasn’t possible for a beautiful girl with a long fish tail to actually exist; and as if to prove him right, when he’d opened his eyes again after she’d kissed him, the red tail was gone, and in its place a pair of pale legs bent beneath her in the sand. 

He had scrambled at that point.  Lounging on the beach with a girl was filed somewhere in his brain among his top potential scenarios, but fantasy was fantasy, and the harshness of day cast the scene in a stark and alarming light.  He had quickly yanked off his soiled cotton hoodie, tossed it towards her, and looked away.

After giving her sufficient time to dress, he had turned, a barrage of questions on the tip of his tongue – but the words caught in his throat and erupted as an incoherent croak.  The girl held the damp cotton loosely in her hands.  She’d made no movement to cover herself, and her eyes were fixed on him. 

She let the jacket drop to the sand and held out her hands, beckoning him to come to her.

Seung-Bae had been flooded with confusion.  What was she thinking?  Even though the spot seemed secluded, they were out in broad daylight.  Did she not realize that someone could walk up and find them there at any moment? He searched her expression for an answer, but she simply looked puzzled at his lack of response.

His confusion began to morph into alarm.  The alarm quickly transformed into embarrassment.  Surely she wasn’t serious.  This most certainly wasn’t what he’d imagined his first intimate encounter to be like.  He’d kissed a girl before.  He’d even been kissed before.  But what she was implying was something else entirely.  Suddenly, he’d felt exposed.  As if through her own ness, she’d managed to strip him, baring all the insecurities he kept hidden inside.  Mortification and its accompanying fiery blush raced to the tips of his ears.  He’d had no idea what to do.

So he ran away.

And now – now that his body had stilled and his mind quickened – he felt foolish. And childish. And guilty…

He wasn’t certain if what he saw was real or a shock induced figment of his imagination, but he did know that he’d left the girl alone and vulnerable in, essentially, the middle of nowhere.  When had he become such a coward?  The thought hit him like slap in the face, leaving him stunned and hallowed out. 

He stared blankly as the bus he’d been waiting for pulled up to the curb. It came to a shuddering, squealing stop and opened its door.  Passengers swarmed and then poured inside. 

As Seung-Bae watched the line dwindle, a sense of urgency descended, building until a nervous panic griped him. Ugly thoughts of what could happen to a girl left so helpless flew through his mind. His eyes widened in horror at his mistake.

He shot up from the bench and sprinted back towards the beach.

.  .  .  .  .  .

Help me.

The creature clutched the medallion to her forehead and called for him. She needed guidance. But she was too far from the dream world where James’s voice was clear. In the waking world, she could only feel his purpose, feel him compelling her to keep moving. To search. To bring him home.

Seoul.

She tried to stand, but it had been over fifty years since the last time, and the creature’s newly formed legs refused to cooperate. She wobbled then tumbled back onto the sand. Pulling herself to her knees, she crawled.

The jagged edges of the cove’s rocky overlook cut into the creature’s palms and knees. The flesh of her new legs was especially tender, and tore easily where it dragged against coarse stone and sharp fragments of broken shells. The pain pulled her farther out of herself and made her more aware of the physical world. Its un-muted starkness, incisions of color and sound, terrified her.

Everything was new. She had never done things this way – never had to do things this way. All the creature’s prior bondings had been over quickly; their hunger for her body had never been in question. Even the weakest men had not refused her.

But James had told her this time would be different; she had to make it different for his sake. To help him. To save him. Because she had not been able to … before.

The young man’s reaction, his running from her, was unexpected. What if he did not come back? What if she could not find him? What would happen? She had bonded with him, given him part of herself. Now it was too late to bond to another. Without him, she was lost. And though the creature’s body forced her to keep moving, to try and follow the boy, her mind quieted and wondered if perhaps, after all the long years, she had finally found her end.

The creature gripped her bond’s clothing in her fist and crawled northward over the rocky coastline. Like a trampled flag, the white cloth trailed along beside her.

.  .  .  .  .  .

Seung-Bae found the strange girl almost half a mile from the cove, on an untamed stretch of shore where the tree line jutted out near the water. As if she were nothing more than an abandoned fragment of sun-bleached driftwood, the waves crashed into jagged boulders and sent streams of water rushing up and over the edges to batter and tug at her.  She reached out with one hand and pulled herself forward a few inches. Her shoulders trembled, and her red hair whipped in the wind.

He hurried closer.

She looked up at the sound of his shoes scraping against loose pebbles.  The look of relief on her face sent another wave of guilt washing through him.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled uncertainly. He took a step closer. “Do you understand me?” 

She nodded. Her bottom lip quivered as if she were cold.

“Here. I brought these for you.” In Sokcho’s market, he’d stopped at one of the dozens of tiny tourist traps that sold beach gear and other local souvenirs. He bought a few things he thought would fit, and these he laid on the ground next to her before turning away.

“Are you alright?” he asked after a few minutes.

“Yes, I think so,” came a soft answer.  Her voice was odd, but he couldn’t quite make out what it was that made it so.

“Oh? You speak Korean?” He turned to her in surprise.

The powder blue “I ♥ Korea” t-shirt was on backwards and the pink sweatpants weren’t quite long enough to cover her ankles, but, other than that, she looked like one of the hundreds of foreign vacationing tourists – from the shoulders down anyway.  There was nothing ordinary about her face and hair.

Seung-Bae moved closer and knelt down beside her. He took one of the canvas tennis shoes she’d left on the ground and slipped it onto her left foot. Then he paused, brow furrowed, and looked up into her face.

Her blue eyes stared back at him, wild and stricken. 

He turned away and looked towards the sea, suddenly chilled, and remembered the fall and then the cold, bottomless dark.

“I thought I was going to die,” he murmured.

“I saved you.” Her voice seemed to come from somewhere far away, a dream he’d forgotten ever having.

He turned back to study her for a moment, gathering his thoughts before speaking.

“Who are you?” he finally asked. “Where are you from?”

She cocked her head at him, as if confused by the question.  Then she turned and pointed out towards the blue horizon.

 “So it’s true then?” he breathed in awe.  “It was real? You … the tail. It was real?”

At a loss, he gaped at her, mesmerized by the single coil of scarlet hair that danced across the porcelain bridge of her perfectly shaped nose.  When she reached up to tuck the strand behind her ear, he shook himself in an attempt to focus.

“You rescued me?” he asked.

“You were close to death, but it had not yet taken you.  I brought you here and watched over you as you slept.” Her soft, high voice carried a deeper lyrical undertone.  It was as if two voices spoke at once in synchronized harmony.  And beneath it, a melancholy sense of longing. It was sad and yet so beautiful. The music of it made him want to pull her close.

“Your voice …”

“Can you hear it? It is the curse. It is our curse.”

“Curse? What do you mean?”

“Any man who hears my voice will be driven to madness. Because of our bonding, you are the exception.”

“What?” Alarmed, Seung-Bae sat back on his heels.

The girl reached out and took his hand. Her skin was silky and warm. At her touch, the shift inside him was palpable, as if the stars themselves were realigning in his heaven.

“What do you want from me?” he whispered.

“Please.” Her eyes were deep, swirling pools of blue. Tears spilled over and ran down her cheeks. “I need your help. I must go to the place called Seoul. Will you take me there?”

Suddenly, Seung-Bae Kim knew he would do anything for this strange girl.

Overhead, the seagulls screamed.