Animal

Exactly two hundred years ago this world looked different. People were grateful to nature, but were still threatened with extinction.

There were more fables and animals in the world than humans. I still remember exactly how dangerous it was to live as a person in those times. Very rarely, and if so, then with great effort and good luck, a person lived until he discovered a white hair on his head. I just grew up when the person in me died.

I had a family, six siblings, three of whom died in childbirth. I was the eldest son in the family, so I was responsible for my younger siblings. We lived in a small village, fearful of a fable attack every day. Of course we knew how to protect ourselves, but we were weaker than these magical beings. They're big, way too strong, and scary, or at least they used to be to me.

The village had around two hundred people, large families and a few animals for slaughter. Everyone knew everyone and we all helped each other out. From time to time we were joined by strange, small groups of people, these were survivors whose villages were attacked by the fables. They built their straw huts or stone houses and learned our customs and traditions. In our village, for example, it was tradition that the man, as a sign of adulthood and maturity, kills an animal.

I still remember exactly how proud my mother was of me when it was my turn in the village to carry out the tradition. On a dull, damp day, I went armed with a spear, left the village and ran through our forest. I walked for a long time until I reached the end of the forest and got to the beach. The beach was deserted, the sand wild, and the ocean waves big. When I noticed something was stirring in the forest behind me, I realized it was my younger brother. I remember how angry I was at him at that moment and just yelling at him. I kept throwing questions to his head about how he could do this to me, to get in my way on such an important day. I screamed he was going to chase my prey away and he was going to spoil my test.

When I calmed down, I weighed the situation. There was no way he could go all the way back to the village by himself, it was too dangerous, besides the fact that he probably wouldn't find the way. I couldn't bring him back either, because there wasn't enough time to kill one animal at the same time. If he stayed with me, I could at least try to honor the tradition. I would not return to the village without an animal, I had sworn that at the time.

I still remember his crying and desperate face to this day. So I decided to take him with me and impatiently explained to him what he had to pay attention to. Afterwards we walked along the coast and I thought hard about how I could leave it somewhere so that I could hunt in peace. When he suddenly tapped me excitedly and pointed to a black rock rising out of the water, my heart almost stopped. A mermaid was sitting on the rock with her back to us.

Mermaids are hideously ugly creatures, but you shouldn't believe their eyes and voices, because they are able to hypnotize. Their fins are about two meters long and reach their navel. After all, they have green scales that still extend down their necks. And then comes the face.

Cold, slit-like eyes, no nose, just two holes, pointed ears like those of an elf, blue lips and pointed, long teeth. I had never seen a mermaid before, only heard rumors about her adoring their victims with beautiful words. No matter if male or female, they fix their victims, pull them to the bottom of the sea so that they cannot escape and then they devour their souls. It is said that their tongues can reach the victim's brain, killing them in less than two seconds.

It would be one of the best hives our village has ever seen. With a hand signal I ordered my brother to be quiet and ran to the water's edge. I raised my spear and aimed it at the mermaid.

I was the best hunter in the village, my accuracy with the spear was high and I could reach small birds at a distance of 90 meters. The rock on which the mermaid was sitting was only about forty meters away, which made it easy for me. Without thinking about it, I shot my spear and it penetrated the mermaid through her upper body into her heart. The mermaid winced in shock and looked for support in the air until she finally slumped, lost consciousness, and fell on her side. I quickly ran into the ice-cold water, plunged into the next largest wave and swam to the stone rock.

I was lucky that the weather that day wasn't quite as wild as usual. The waves were big but not life threatening. When I arrived at the rock, I first checked with a searching look whether the mermaid was actually dead. Since her eyes were closed, her body showed no movement and green slime escaped from her mouth, I decided to grab her and toss her over my shoulder. Fortunately she was actually dead, as she showed no movement in the water when I swam her ashore.

I was trembling all over as I stepped out of the water with the mermaid in my arms and my teeth chattered wildly. My brother had probably already collected wood with foresight and was about to start a fire on the beach. After a while I was able to warm up by the fire and with interested looks we looked at the dead mermaid. I was so proud of myself that I was already imagining how I could brag about her in the village.

My little brother was proud of me and admired me at the same time. When we got extremely hungry, we automatically wondered how their meat would taste. What should happen big? She is an animal like any other. In short, we decided to take a piece of meat from her fin, remove the scales and sear her over the fire. Happy and excited, we bit into the seared meat and spit it out again immediately after two bites. The meat tasted rotten, sour and pale, and I immediately felt sick from the taste in my mouth. I can still remember the taste exactly and I immediately get goose bumps again.