Nnedi Okorafor - Lagoon

“ Relax ,” Ayodele said.

Adaora heard Ayodele’s voice in her head.

She opened her mouth and tried to speak. Again, no sound.

“ Think your words ,” Ayodele said. “ Move your mouth if it helps, but think your words. ”

Adaora moved her mouth as she thought, “ What is happening? What have you done to me? Is this permanent? Where is everyone else? Agu and Anthony? Where are they? Are they OK? ”

She heard Ayodele laugh. “ Calm down ,” Ayodele said. She reconfigured her body. Ayodele was now a dolphin. No, she was too long to be a dolphin. And dolphins did not have such large eyes. Ayodele swam in a circle around Adaora.

“ Swim with me ,” she said. “ I will explain .” When Adaora didn’t move, she laughed again. “ Your Agu is fine. Anthony is fine. They are all fine. Your president is meeting with the Elders, as you see. You cannot join them. Now come .”

Adaora hesitated. Beyond the President and the Elders, she could see a very large swordfish monster hovering in the background. Was it the same angry swordfish that had nearly killed them all? She shuddered.

“ Come ,” Ayodele said again.

Adaora followed only because Ayodele was swimming in the opposite direction from the swordfish. Ayodele moved fast and Adaora was surprised to find she could keep up easily. As she swam, she realized that all around her were bone-white edifices that were at least thirty feet high. As Adaora and Ayodele passed, some collapsed, and others grew. Sea creatures from fish to crabs to sea cucumbers clung, swam through, crawled and wiggled past. Adaora could not tell which were the aliens and which were the earthlings.

“ Everything you see here is the ship ,” Ayodele said as they swam through a yawning cave. Some kind of fish with a sucker mouth clung to the lip of the cave above them. “ The longer we stay here, the more we shift and become like the people of the water .”

“ What about on land? ” Adaora thought. This time, she didn’t move her mouth.

“ Yes, there, too .”

“ Why am I not sick anymore? ”

“ Why is your body part-fish? ”

Adaora paused. “ Because this is… what… I wanted? ”

“ Is it what you wanted? ”

Adaora had always loved the water. And she didn’t want to die of whatever pollutants were in the water. Yes, it was.

“ Is this place your ship? ” Adaora asked.

“ Yes ,” Ayodele answered. “ One of them. ”

“ How far does it extend? ”

“ Many many miles, I suspect ,” Ayodele said. “ That may change .”

“ If I swim beyond, will my body change back? ”

“ I don’t know. I think you will change back when you reach land. Isn’t that how you imagine maidens? ”

“ Mermaids .”

Ayodele laughed, shifting into a mermaid herself. Her face looked nearly identical to that of Adaora’s friend Ayodele Olayiwola, the one Adaora had named her for. Adaora found herself smiling.

“ Will you take me to see Agu? ”

“ That’s where we are going .”

Agu and Anthony were trapped in a bubble. They’d woken up inside it, at what they thought might be the bottom of the sea. They stood on hard white stone and above swam monsters and sea creatures. Most ignored them but a few came for a curious look before moving on.

Anthony paced back and forth, muttering in Twi. He was no longer sick, and he was viciously hungry. He rubbed his hands over his rough wet hair. Images of being underwater as all those monstrous creatures came at him kept crowding his mind. When he pushed these away, he would look around and see more such creatures swimming about, watching him, perhaps even plotting revenge. Which was crazy. If he didn’t get out of here soon, Anthony realized, he’d go mad. “What are we even doing here?” he muttered.

“No clue,” Agu said, sitting down in the center of the white stone. He rested his head on the palms of his hands. “Don’t even know how we got here.” He looked at his hands. He had punched that kid so hard when he was twelve that the boy had lost consciousness. Less than two days ago, the power had boiled up again and he’d nearly killed Benson. And, last night, when he’d run through Lagos trying to get back to Adaora, he was sure he had killed some people.

“You are useless,” Agu said to his hands. “I am useless.”

Now he and Anthony were imprisoned at the bottom of the sea, to starve to death or eventually be eaten by the first sea monster aggressive enough to bite into the bubble. He noticed two figures swimming toward them. They were not as large as some of the other creatures lingering around the bubble, but they were moving fast. He got up and moved a few feet back, as far from them as he could.

Agu and Anthony were trapped in a bubble. Its shimmery surface made it difficult to see inside but she was sure it was them. It was a dome the size of a small room. She waved her hands as she swam toward them and they both waved back.

“ How did they get in there? ” Adaora asked.

“ The same way you got to where you were .”

This answered nothing and Adaora sucked her teeth, frustrated with Ayodele’s vagueness. Sucking her teeth yielded no sound and this annoyed Adaora more. When they got to the bubble, she hovered before Agu and Anthony, unsure of how to communicate with them. She waved her hands and moved her lips and she tried to say, “Are you OK?”

“What?” she heard Agu shout, the sound of his voice muted by the water.

Anthony was frowning deeply and pointing at her fin. Agu looked at it and then his face went slack.

Adaora thought for a moment, then she turned to Ayodele. She wanted to ask, Will I drown? Will I die if I go in there? But she didn’t. There was only one way to find out, and she wanted to find out for herself. If I can’t breathe… I will just crawl back in the water.

She put her hand through the bubble’s surface into the dry air. Then she pushed herself in up to her waist. Anthony and Agu quickly pulled her in the rest of the way.

As they lay her on the dry ocean floor, Adaora felt fully disoriented. Up became sideways and sideways became up. The dry air bit at her skin and the inside of her gills. Worst of all, she couldn’t breathe! Her body arched as she fought for air. “Put me back in the water!” she wanted to scream. But her new body was not capable of speech. She bucked, hoping Agu would drop her and she could crawl back through the bubble.

Agu struggled but managed to hold her tightly. “Can she—”

“Throw her back in the water!” Anthony screamed.

Adaora twisted again, turned her head to the side, and vomited water. It felt like she was heaving from the very tip of her tail. Then she threw her head back and inhaled loudly and long, air rushing into her lungs like the wind itself. Lungs. She had them. Now.

She shut her eyes and felt her neck. The gill flaps were still there. “Who am I?” she whispered. Her voice was her own, albeit rough. When she opened her eyes, she was looking into Agu’s. A tear was falling down his cheek. He was shaking from the strain of her weight.

“Something new,” he said.

“Something old,” Anthony said. He laughed. “Something borrowed, more than gold, something true, never sold, goddamn aliens too fuckin’ bold. Chale , see I spit am!” Then he grinned and shouted, “ I dey Craaaaaaze! ”

Adaora was so surprised that she burst out laughing, which made her cough,