52

"That's what you always say," Tamru says with a sigh. "Listen. I'm going to tell you what it was, and then you're just going to forget. You're in a broken loop, and you don't even realize it. It's the same loop I'd put myself in if I accepted their offer. Seeing it in action terrifies me, but here goes." He sucks in water slowly before continuing. "You, well…you're not actually a merperson."

Wait, what?

"You're a…a human," he continues. "All of you merfolk are. The whales gave you immortality and all those other gifts because they wanted you to be really good at defending them. The reason you don't remember it is because one of those gifts is selectively forgetting those specific parts of the deal." He turns his eyes down. "It's what keeps you all from going insane. Especially when the squid take over your minds. At least…that's what the whales tell me every time they offer me the same deal."

Your mind wraps around it. The memory loss, the mysterious origin, it all makes sense. But even as you grab onto the explanation, it starts to slip from your mind. How can you forget already? With a rising panic, you recognize that your memory is trying to scrub the thought from your mind.