A Day at the Beach

A Day at the Beach
By: Superbau56
Rating: 7+

“Finally, I get a vacation,” I thought. “I’ve been working my butt off for the past eleven months and I’m just getting my first real break.” The company that I worked for wasn’t too hot on the idea of vacation, so they only allowed their employees to take on week off every year. This year, however, was going to be special. I was going to the beach with my friends. I looked up at the office clock; it was almost six o’clock, which is when my shift ended. The second hand seemed to tick slower and slower as it reached the top of the clock. After what seemed like ages, the clock finally read six. “Yes!” I shouted, standing up from my chair. “I’ll see all of you next week.” I looked around at my coworkers, who were all obviously jealous that I got to leave on the busiest week of the year. “Whatever, Jane,” one of them said. “You’ll just have a lot of catching up to do when you get back.” I just waved him off and grabbed my briefcase, leaving all of those losers behind to suffer.

I got back to my apartment an hour or so later. I quickly threw my things into a suitcase, as I had a flight to catch in two hours. “Oh no, oh no,” I muttered to myself. “I can’t miss this flight.” I bustled around the apartment, grabbing clothes and suntan lotion among other things. I packed everything that I thought I would need and ran out of the room, almost forgetting to lock the door behind me. I hailed the first taxi I saw to take my to the airport, and I barely made it. I ran to the departure gate just as the doors were closing, shocked that I had gotten there in time. I sunk into my assigned seat on the airplane and contentedly closed my eyes, preparing for the lengthy flight to San Diego.

I awoke to the sound of the flight attendant’s staticy voice announcing over the intercom, “We are now landing in San Diego.” “The current time is approximately 9:30 a.m.” I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and smiled, knowing that a great vacation awaited me. The plane landed shortly after the announcement was made and we taxied for a few minutes before reaching the gate. The plane finally stopped and I grabbed my small suitcase from the storage compartment, anxious to get off and head to the beach. I stood in the long line to get off of the plane, and that must have taken ten minutes. When I finally got off, I saw that my friends were waiting for me. “Hey!” I said. “It’s been so long!” “Hi Jane!” they all said, obviously excited to see me. “Now,” I said. “Who’s ready to go to the beach?”

All five of us piled into of my friend’s car and drove to our hotel. It took a few hours to get through traffic and to the hotel, and everyone was anxious to get to the beach. We all got the keys to our rooms and agreed to meet in the lobby in fifteen minutes. I got to my room and emptied out the contents of my suitcase to find my suntan lotion and bathing suit. I quickly changed, grabbed my sunglasses and hat, and walked down to the lobby. I was the first one down, and expected them all to take another half hour, which most of them did. After everyone was finally there, we set off the the beach. We leisurely walked from our hotel as it was relatively close to the beach, observing the high-end shops that lined the road. We would occasionally stop and look at the fancy watches and jewelry in the stores, but everyone wanted to get to the beach, especially me. When we finally arrived at the beach, I couldn’t contain my excitement. I dropped my bag in the sand and ran into the ocean, letting the cool ocean waves lap over my feet. I breathed out blissfully; I had forgotten how good the ocean felt. I took another step forward and suddenly felt a sharp pain shoot up my foot. “Ouch!” I screamed. “What was that?” I bent down and slowly brushed my hands on the ocean floor until I found what it was. I pulled the object up and discovered that it was a conical shell the size of my palm. It was about six inches in length and the tip was sharpened to a point. “Wow, this is beautiful,” I thought. “And dangerous.” I called my friends over to see it and passed it around. They all gawked at it and told me how pretty it was when my foot started to go numb. I didn’t want to have to leave the beach and go to a doctor or something, so I just slid into the ocean to examine it. I sat down where the ocean was relatively shallow and stifled a scream upon discovering my foot, or rather, my flipper.

I covered my mouth with my hand as my eyes grew wide. Where my foot used to be there was now a snow white flipper, like that of a seal. I lifted my other foot out of the water to discover that my toes were melding together into one fleshy mass. Horrified, I watched my left foot turn into a duplicate of the right, now a useless flipper. I suddenly felt a strong force begin to pull my flippers together, as if they were trying to conjoin. And sure enough, they were. As soon as my legs touched each other, the skin on my legs became rubbery and white like my new flippers. The skin stretched itself around my legs, pushing them together into one extension of my torso. I was now some sort of seal from the waist down. I no longer had legs, but one strange-looking tail that had my used-to-be feet attached to the end. I then realized that I didn’t look like a regular seal. I looked like some sort of hybrid, almost like a made-up creature. While I was busy examining my legs, I failed to notice that my hands were facing the same fate that my feet had. The fingers were melting together and my arms were shrinking into my body. The rubbery, snow colored skin crept up my torso, and I felt my once lean body begin to fatten with blubber. “What the heck is happening to me?” I cried, not wanting to be the monster I was becoming. My bathing suit bottom began to stretch and rip as I rapidly gained weight, until it tore off completely. I tried to take off my top so it wouldn’t tear off like my bottom, but my useless flipper weren’t much help. The layer of skin that had been inching up my body reached my neck as my torso finished ballooning outward, ultimately ripping my top from my chest. My neck shrunk into my fat body as I felt a small muzzle push out around my mouth. I tried to call for help, but the only sound that came from my mouth was a garbled, “Seel, seel!” “Why am I saying that?” I thought. “What am I?” I felt my bottom canines grow larger and longer until they looked like small tusks protruding from the corners of my muzzle. My nose shrunk until it was small and black, and my eyes moved further apart. The final change that happened to me was a sharp pain in my head. I peered up at my forehead as a small horn grew out of my skin. I had no more human characteristics; I was now full beast. But what was I? The only word I could say was “Seel,” and I didn’t even know what that meant. That, however, was the least of my worries. How am I going to explain to my friends and family that I was now some sort of seal? Ah, whatever. I’m sure I’ll figure something out. In the meantime, I’m going to have fun doing what I came to the beach to do, which is to bask in the sun and enjoy the ocean.