The Beaked Mermaid Story
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The sea off the coast of Higo was glowing. Not with the soft silver of the moonlight, but with a sickly, ethereal emerald green that pulsed beneath the dark waves. For several nights, the local fishermen had whispered of the strange light, but no one dared approach. Until tonight. A young town official was sent to investigate, expecting a trick of the tide. He never expected the sea to speak.
It was the year 1846, in the domain of Higo. The night air was thick with salt and the oppressive humidity of late spring. Shibata, a low-ranking but diligent town official, stood alone on the pebbled shore. The village behind him was locked tight, the shutters drawn out of fear of the unknown. For a week, rumors had spread like wildfire through the taverns and docks: a phantom fire dancing on the water, a bad omen sent from the dragon palace, or perhaps the lanterns of a foreign smuggler ship.
Shibata gripped the hilt of his sword, trying to find comfort in the cold metal. The ocean before him was usually a source of bounty, but tonight, it felt like a vast, breathing entity. There was no wind, and the waves lapped against the shore with an eerie, rhythmic calmness. He squinted into the darkness. There it was. About fifty yards out, beneath the surface, a green luminescence began to throb. It was slow at first, like a heartbeat, but as seconds passed, it grew brighter, illuminating the murky depths.
The light did not stay submerged. It began to rise. Shibata took a step back, his boots crunching loudly against the stones. The water bubbled, and the surface broke with a soft, hissing sound. A silhouette emerged, glowing intensely against the pitch-black sky. Shibata drew his blade an inch, his heart hammering against his ribs.
It was not a ship. It was not a man. As the creature glided closer to the shallows, the emerald glow revealed its impossible features. It had a face that seemed violently stitched together from different nightmares. A sharp, diamond-shaped beak protruded from where a human mouth should be, snapping gently in the cool air. Staring at Shibata were two large, unblinking eyes, round and empty like those of a deep-sea fish. Long, matted hair, thick as kelp, cascaded down its back and shoulders, dragging in the water.
The creature hauled itself onto the wet sand. Shibata gasped, dropping his stance entirely. Instead of human legs or a serpentine tail, the beast supported its weight on three distinct, fin-like appendages. Its body was entirely covered in thick, iridescent scales that caught the moonlight and its own internal glow. It stood there, a bizarre chimera of the ocean, smelling of ancient salt and damp earth.
For a long moment, man and yokai simply stared at each other. The creature made no aggressive move. It did not bare its claws or raise its fins. Instead, it opened its beak.
Shibata braced for a monstrous roar, but what he heard was entirely different. The voice did not seem to travel through the air; it resonated directly within his mind, clear and echoing like a bell struck underwater.
'I am Amabie,' the voice intoned, calm and utterly devoid of human inflection. 'I dwell in the depths of the sea.'
Shibata found himself unable to speak, his vocal cords frozen in awe.
'From this year on,' the creature continued, its unblinking eyes fixed on the trembling official, 'there will be an abundance of crops for six consecutive years. The land will be fertile, and the people will not starve.'
Relief washed over Shibata, but it was immediately shattered by the creature's next words.
'However. A sickness will follow. A terrible epidemic will sweep across the provinces, taking many lives. When the fever begins to spread, you must not panic.'
The creature took one clumsy, three-legged step forward, the glow from its scales reflecting in Shibata's wide eyes.
'Quickly,' Amabie commanded, the mental voice growing urgent. 'Draw a picture of my form. Show it to everyone who falls ill. Show it to the healthy. Let my image spread faster than the disease.'
As suddenly as it had spoken, the creature turned. It dragged its scaly, three-legged body back into the dark water, sinking beneath the waves without a splash. The emerald glow faded, swallowed by the depths, leaving Shibata alone on the pitch-black beach with only the sound of the ocean.
He ran. He didn't stop until he reached his quarters, where he frantically ground ink and grabbed the cheapest paper he could find. With shaking hands, he drew the beak, the long hair, the scales, and the three strange legs. The next morning, the woodblock printers were working furiously, churning out kawaraban broadsheets bearing the creature's likeness and its dire warning.
The image spread across Higo and beyond, a strange, crude drawing of a monster meant to save humanity. Decades turned into centuries, and the original broadsheet gathered dust in archives. Yet, looking at the faded ink today, one cannot help but wonder: if the sea began to glow tonight, and a creature rose to warn us of tomorrow, would we be wise enough to draw its picture?