<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 140%; line-height: 116%;"><span style="font-family: Papyrus;">The sands of time. <br/>Once upon a time there was a little mermaid. Her story did not turn out well, and she turned into foam. <br/>Who knows how many other mermaids turned into foam from that moment on, but where did the foam go? <br/>It gathered together, sunk into the earth, was distilled a few times, and then, the droplets of water formed a small cave underneath the earth crust.  <br/>From there the second generation of merpeople started. <br/>Generations passed, and the cave’s lake dried out. Time passed, and it was forgotten. <br/>Mountains grew, minerals formed through pressure. The cave had an especially rich amount of them. <br/>People went there and excavated a lot of the materials.  They made jewelery and other decorations out of the minerals. <br/>Sometimes, though, when a mineral met a special condition in human’s hands, a magic effect took place.<br/>This was the third generation of merfolk, unknown to most of the remaining few merpeople. <br/>Reacting on a full moon, bathing in a cave with mermaid foam residue, ingesting one mermaid soul embedded in a mineral. <br/>Those things rarely happened, you may think...<br/>However, they did happen.</span></span></div><br/><br/>Allen folded the parchment, he was reading. ~ Wasn’t this information too much of a kids fairytale? ~<br/><span style="color: #00FFFF">“Merpeople and foam. Humans have funny stories…” </span>he murmured, stowing the reason aside, that made his parents abandon him and his brothers, making them all go different ways.<br/>Standing up he looked at his two perfectly normal human legs, which did not hurt a bit, when he walked, and shook his head again.<br/><span style="color: #00FFFF">“I should get used to human life. Maybe I will never be able to go back, after all.”</span>He talked slowly to himself.<br/>His voice was clear and melodic, with a soft timbre. It was very much there, and not crippled at all.  Turning his head, he looked at a reflection of a mostly normal human in the mirror. Maybe the face was a little bit too smooth and young. The hair and eyes seemed a little unnatural. But nowadays, people just thought that it was either a ‘rebellious phase’ or a ‘crazy taste’. Too bad, those things were what he had been born with.<br/><br/>At least he had good control over his transformation. Turning away from his reflection, Allen looked around and his eyes stopped at the clock. It was almost seven o’clock afternoon.<br/>~Time to prepare something, maybe. ~<br/><span style="font-weight: bold"><div style="text-align: center;">[***]</div></span><br/>While mixing the spices, Allen was talking to his dinner. Or more to himself...<br/>„I hope you will be reborn in a great, deep ocean.“<br/>Looking at the crippled fishfins and tails due to a life of being raised, his face darkened a little, as he was rubbing the mixture of spices on the fishe's tummies. „ In your next life you will be free like the Ocean and not locked into a prison...“he murmured.<br/><br/>„Allen?“ a voice interrupted the young man, who was cooking dinner in the kitchen.<br/><br/>„Mhm “ he answered absentmindedly.<br/><br/>„You are streaming in tears, you know? Don’t take too many onions... oh its fish today.“ his roommate nodded, used to this scenario already. She tactfully disappeared from the kitchen.<br/><br/>Honestly, he had not noticed himself weeping, before he even got to cutting onions. Sighing, he stroked the fishes a last time, who seemed to look at him understandingly, with clear, innocent eyes, - then he put the sea breams into the oven with a solemn look on the face.<br/><br/>The only thing missing to a cremation ceremony was the 'Amen. Thanks for mother natures gifts.'<br/><br/>Allen wiped his tears off and pulled down his apron.<br/><br/>~ Its quite hard to get used to be a Merman...~ he thought, while brushing back his lucid green hair. His roommates mostly were thinking that he had a crazy taste for hair coloring, however, it was the other way around. He stopped coloring his hair black a few years ago. Green – sea-green - was his natural hair color!<br/><br/>He got his transforms under control, mostly, but his appetite and his natural habits were something he could not stop anymore.<br/><br/>A well known Dilemma for merpeople – their favourite food was fish, in all their variety and way of preparing it. But why was that so? Nobody knew.<br/>As a rational human(?) in a modern society, even Allen knew about the term 'cannibalism', so each time he was having his favourite meal, he could not put off the concerns in the back of his head.<br/>But... it was too tasty.<br/>His friends learned to tolerate his behaviour – for the fish he cooked was so mouthwatering, it would even addict a fish-hater.<br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold"><div style="text-align: center;">[***]</div></span><br/><br/>It had gotten quite late last evening, playing some games with his roommates, so Allen was quite pressed on time, actually, when he ran towards the bus stop.