Curia had completely lost track of time as she swam.  She could tell whether it was daytime or nighttime only from the amount of sunlight permeating the ocean’s surface; otherwise, time for the most part ceased to be a concern for her.  She was starting to get acclimated to life as a mermaid, even though most of her thoughts still centered around her desire to be changed back to her normal, Wonder Woman self.

Every now and then she would swim up to the surface, push up, and try to fly; but it was no use.  As Siren had told her so mockingly, ‘mermaids can’t fly’.  Curia finally gave up and focused her energy on swimming.

She knew from the sun’s position in the sky that she was heading west, and from her limited knowledge of geography she thought that if she kept on that course she would eventually hit Australia.  She thought that if she could make it there, hopefully somewhere populated, she could get a message to someone who could help her – Aquaman, or the Justice League, someone – and figure out a way to change back.

One thing that Curia had never thought about before was what mermaids do for food; but she was now getting quite hungry, and she knew she was going to have to find something to eat.  She hadn’t seen a McDonald’s anywhere in the ocean, she laughed to herself, so she was going to have to find her own food somehow.

She swam by a large growth of seaweed near the ocean floor and stopped, reaching out to grab a handful of the green underwater plant.  She took a bite – it wasn’t like the green leafy vegetables she was used to, but it wasn’t half bad, especially given her situation.  As she chewed on the kelp, she glanced down and saw a clam below her.

‘That might be tasty,’ Curia mused as she slipped down to it and carefully pried it open.  With no way to cook the meat, she reached in, pulled it out and slid into her mouth.  It was chewy and actually quite delicious, she thought as she finished it.

Once her appetite had been sated, Curia resumed swimming.  She realized a number of things the farther she swam: first, that the ocean was a LOT bigger than she had realized, and a lot deeper; second, that most of the creatures she passed or encountered didn’t seem to find her presence unusual in the least; and third, that the longer she spent in the ocean, the more at home she felt in it.  There was so much beauty to admire below the ocean surface, and she was looking at it with a far different perspective than ever before.

Finally the water depth began to decrease, which was an indication, she thought, that she was approaching some sort of land.  She started to slow down and approach the surface; finally she was able to make out the shoreline, and her spirits rose.  She started to swim faster again, keeping her head close to the surface, as the coast came even more into focus.  

A couple of hundred yards from the beach, she spotted a group of young women in the water.  She counted – there were eight – and she started to approach.  Even as she did, she felt anxious, nervous; she hadn’t encountered any human beings since her sudden transformation into a mermaid, and she wondered how they would receive her.

The eight girls were splashing and cavorting and oblivious to her as she got closer.  Curia was about to wave, or shout out to them, when she felt a movement behind her.  She turned her head to see a large, black fin rising out of the water.

Curia had seen sharks before, plenty of them lately in fact, but most of them were her size or smaller.  The dorsal fin she was staring at was almost her height all by itself – the shark that owned it must be huge!  She frantically began to swim towards the bikini-clad women.

“Shark!” she shouted.  “Get out of the water!”

The eight beauties heard her scream, saw her waving her arms frantically, and then they saw the fin and panicked, rushing towards the shore as fast as they could.  Curia’s eyes were darting back and forth between them and the fin as she bobbed backwards out of the shark’s path.  The women made it to the beach and quickly scrambled to their feet, out of the water, all staring in shock at the shark which had almost gotten them.

Curia breathed a sigh of relief as she watched the shark fin slow to a stop about twenty feet from the shore.  She couldn’t tell if the shark had noticed her or not, her heroine instincts had kicked in and she had been far more worried about saving the women.  One of them saw Curia’s head above the water and shouted, “Aren’t you getting out too?”

Curia figured this might not be the best time to reveal what she was, so she stayed put, as the women relaxed, safe in the knowledge that the shark couldn’t get them now.  What happened next was completely unexpected.

Eight long tentacles suddenly shot out of the water, moving at a high rate of speed towards the shore.  Before the young women knew what happened, each was caught by one of the tentacles.  As they screamed bloody murder, the tentacles lifted them into the air and pulled them towards the shark, which was emerging from the water.

“Great Hera,” Curia gasped, “there’s a shark AND an octopus here?”  She started swimming towards the shark as it rose out of the water.  As the shark’s body came into view, Curia saw that the tentacles were actually attached to the shark! It wasn’t two sea monsters, it was one!

“A shark-octopus? Sharktopus?” she exclaimed, as the tentacles pulled the panicked girls towards the shark’s opening mouth.  Curia realized that if she didn’t do something, the shark-topus was going to eat them all!

Curia swam as fast as she had ever swam, building up a great deal of momentum; when she got close enough, she leaped into the air and delivered a punch square into the Sharktopus’s head, between its eyes.  The blow was mighty and stunned the creature so badly that it let go of all eight of its prey, letting out a hideous squeal as it fell back into the water.

Realizing they might not be safe for long, the eight women shot towards the shore, running far away from the water’s edge this time.  Meanwhile, Curia wasn’t finished with the creature; she swam after it, grabbing its tentacles two at a time and tying them up in knots.

"There," she smiled as she watched the creature struggle to free itself, "You're not going to be dining on anyone around here today. Now be gone!"  The creature slinked it's way back into the depths.

Curia made her way back to the beach to find it was empty.  "Hello? Is anyone there?" she shouted, but there was no reply, no sound at all. The sun was setting and there wasn’t any sign of the eight women Curia had saved from the sea monster.

"Guess I'll swim along the coast," she sighed, "there has to be someone out there that can help me." And she headed back out to sea, feeling even more like an outcast than before...