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Let me tell you about my best friend, Colby Green. We've known each other since 5th grade, when he accidentally socked a kickball at my head during gym class and made me cry. It didn't take much to get me sobbing back then. Our teacher made him walk me to the nurse's office so I wouldn't pass out, but in hindsight, she didn't need to ask. Colby would have walked with me anyway.

Even with my eyes clouded by tears, I could see he felt remorseful. Not every 9 year old is capable of that. He even asked the nurse if he could stay with me, though she sent him back once I had an ice pack in my hands. No one told him to do that. It was a nice gesture. Or, maybe he just wanted to skip class? Both might be true, at least a little. I never got to ask him.

In our seven years of friendship, I never brought that day up again. It's not something a couple of teenagers think about at a beach party. In Hawaii. It's more like one of those moments you talk about in your forties while reminiscing together at a bar -- pouring shots of cheap Patrón that taste completely gnarly but help block out bad memories and highlight the good. It's easier to see the world in Tequila-tinted glasses.

Most teens wouldn't even get a vacation to Hawaii for an 18th birthday present, but Colby was never like the rest of us. His family was wealthy, though absurdly kind. They cared for him deeply and the rest of our friend group by proxy. His mom always drove me home after our swim practice. To this day, it was the only time I ever sat in a Lamborghini, which sure beat walking two miles since my father always worked til midnight.

Colby's good upbringing came through in his optimistic demeanor and his own willingness to help others. He taught me how to swim in 7th grade -- which is to say he saved me from drowning more than a couple times. It was astounding that we ended up racing together on the high school team. I barely knew how to do a backstroke when we started, and Colby was already team captain by his second season. His parents hung all his medals over their fireplace, and not just the gold ones.

It goes without saying that he was a natural in the water, even more graceful than on dry land. Whenever I said that, he laughed awkwardly, unable to take the compliment. Colby was humble, to say the least. He admitted that he wasn't the best student, and all the hours spent swimming probably didn't help his grades. But the moment he hit the pool, he had a self-confidence that I always admired. Almost always.

Not that day.

Colby had been thinking about his 18th birthday for the last nine months. Who wouldn't be, honestly? With graduation around the corner and college a few months away, his future looked bright. He'd finally be an adult of legal drinking age -- at least when visiting his grandparents across the pond. Puberty would be a thing of the past, although his growth spurt couldn't be described as anything less than a glow-up. I wasn't so lucky in that department. I'm lanky, which might explain why I could clear the pool faster than most of our teammates. It had nothing to do with skill. Colby would always be better than me.

As I stepped off the boat, gift bag clutched in my hands, I tried to seem happier than I really was. What kind of asshole would be miserable during a free trip to Hawaii? Me, I guess? I honestly couldn't help myself. My head was still reeling from the night before. It was almost midnight when Colby called. Not texted...called. I thought someone had died.

"Ji-ho! Dude, holy shit, I got the scholarship!" It felt like he was physically pushing his head out of the phone and into my ear.

I shot up in bed."Wait, for...for Stanford?"

"Yes! Yes, yes! Division one, baby!"

"Are you going?"

"Yeah, duh!"

My brow furrowed. "Really? I thought you were on the fence? We were looking at Florida State, too. More local?"

"Dad says that's how bad they want me on the team! And Stanford looked cooler anyway. You said you liked their chemistry program more."

"I do. I did. But..." I thought back to the email I'd received that morning, the one that made me skip class entirely and lock myself in my room like a convict.

"Colby, I didn't get in."

He was quiet suddenly. I could still hear his dad in the background -- calling one of their relatives to relay the good news. He sounded so proud.

I heard a stutter. "What? No, dude, what? How? You're like third in the class or something."

"Second, which I guess is too high up for them." My free hand curls a fist into the blanket. I didn't mean to say it like that. Not really.

"But you're on the team with me, and what about your math competition thing? This is insane."

"Maddening, yeah."

Colby sighed in my honor. "Ji, I'm really sorry dude."

I bit my lip, wording my next words as carefully as I could in the moment.

"How set are you on it? Stanford, I mean?"

"Well, I have to go." Zero hesitation in that response.

"You have to?"

"It's a full scholarship."

"You don't even need a scholarship, your parents are fucking rich."

"C'mon, dude!" Colby raised his voice, a rarity. "That's not fair. They do a lot for me, so I can at least take this off their shoulders."

"And I don't? I didn't tutor you through all of Bio? Trigonometry?"

"Ji -"

"What happened to us rooming together? I thought we were splitting this."

"I know, but -"

"Way to drop me, Colby! Thanks!" I leapt from the bed and stomped on the floor like a child.

"Listen, this could be big for me. Olympics? The coach literally said "Olympics" in the future. I could be swimming in the big leagues."

"Or flopping, y'know." I chide.

A groan of irritation. Colby was frustrated. I was hurting my own cause here, but I couldn't let it go. "Seriously, Ji? Why are you -"

I was pulled from my memory by two sun-kissed arms wrapping around me, thrusting me back onto the dock in Honolulu. My shirt felt wet against his chest. Of course, he'd already been swimming today.

"Hey man," Colby whispered. "I'm really sorry about last night. I didn't mean to snap at you. And I'm sorry about Stanford too."

I forced my arms around his waist. "It's fine. I'm sorry too." Of course, he he's apologizing after I insulted his family -- and he meant it. More than I did, at least.

We pulled away, and I haphazardly handed him the little blue gift bag. "Happy birthday. Don't drop it."

"Thanks, man! And don't think you're getting rid of me that easy. California's only three hours away."

San Francisco is almost six hours away from Jacksonville, but I wasn't about to start another fight. Not today.

Colby was fortunate enough to be born in the middle of spring break, which for our school meant a week and a half. Generous, by most standards. His family had booked several rooms at a nearby hotel for me and the rest of our friend group. No charge, of course, not even for the flight or ferry. Colby and I were sharing a room, which was a little ironic given the circumstances -- more so, since he wasn't aware of my lingering frustration.

On the first day, we held a beach party just like you'd see in an anime episode. Colby's aunt had the sole duty of shooing seagulls away from the cake. That night we had a bonfire around one of the dugout pits. His parents let us each have a beer. Just one. We spoke with English accents as we drank.

The morning after, we window-shopped around Hawi before our big hike. The third day, beach again. Day four: Zipline tour. Spring break is a lucky time to be born.

That evening, we returned to our rooms after a movie night -- there's a whole theater for rent on the third floor of the hotel -- and immediately Colby faceplanted onto his bed.

"Wow, being an adult must be exhausting," I laugh. It was hard to stay mad after four days of free Hawaiian BBQ. There'd be plenty of time to mope when we got home.

"I ate too much again," Colby groaned before rolling over onto his back. "And I've been sleeping so shitty lately. I keep having this weird dream over and over."

"Ew," I gag for effect. "I thought you were over puberty."

"Not like that!" He whined, seizing one of his pillows and tossing it my way. "It's like there's a bunch of lights. I'm underwater, surrounded by lights. Or candles?"

"Candles...underwater?

"And when I reach out and grab them, they go out. It's just dark, but I can see, like, shadows moving in the darkness."

I glanced over at him, his eyes fixed to the ceiling like he was trying to picture this all while still awake. He was lost in thought.

In need of a shower, I removed my shirt and drifted towards the bathroom. "Wow, you should keep a dream journal."

Colby sat up in a huff. "I'm not five, Ji."

"Put some stickers on the front maybe? A little horse. Or a dolphin, that's more you."

Another pillow hits the back of my head.

I didn't say it, but I suspected he was just seeing the flicker of the lighthouse that peered in through the blinds at night. It was one of those classic, red and white spiral towers, like the spinners you see outside of barbershops. The lantern must've been so bright that it was creeping into his dreams. At least, that's what I thought at the time.

The rest of the trip went as planned. Kayaking, dinner, s'mores, whatever else a group of mostly-underage high schoolers could do on a tropical island. Colby's uncle tried to teach us how to surf, but it was an abysmal failure. The birthday boy was surprisingly uncoordinated on his board. It was a nice change of pace, seeing him fall flat into the water. I guess he's only good when he's fully drenched.

Everyone stayed together for the most part, except for the evenings when Colby's relatives would go barhopping. At first, I thought Colby was secretly going with them. He never came back to the room right away. Then one night, I saw him from our window. It was dark, but the shine of his blonde hair was unmistakable in the lighthouse's glow.

He was standing down on the beach alone, just staring off into the dark waters. It's like he was searching for the lights from his dreams. I watched him for a while and wondered if I should go say something. Maybe we could talk about our future together, or lack thereof, after graduation. Maybe he was worried about it too. I didn't want to leave things unresolved, either way. Before I could think of the words, he pulled off his shirt and dived in despite how dark it was. Colby always went swimming to clear his head.

He slipped into bed sometime later, and I pretended to sleep even when I wasn't. We repeated this silent routine every night after.

The last day came faster than we expected. It was up to Colby how we spent it, though every day had been sort of like that anyway. Of course, he wanted to go to the beach again. He said the water's cleaner than back home, which I guess was true. He had to soak it up while he had the chance, despite the cloudy day we were having. I resigned to sit back on the towel and popped open a bottle of Coke. If my skin pruned anymore this week, it'd probably stay that way. After a few hours of splashing and shooting water guns, it was time to pack up the towels. We were flying out that night.

As I turned my back on the beach, the weight of the future returned to my shoulders all at once, and suddenly I didn't feel like packing. I dragged my feet through the sand.

We were halfway to the hotel when I noticed Colby separating from the group again. He was heading back towards the water, but I pretended not to notice. Maybe this was his last chance to find those "candles" he was dreaming of. It'd certainly be harder in the middle of the day, but at least there was an overcast. I also felt compelled to procrastinate. Neither of us had much to pack anyway.

This was as good a time as any to talk about Stanford. There probably wasn't a way to convince him at this point, but I at least needed to state my peace.

I returned to the beachfront and peered down from the grassy ridge overlooking the ocean. There was Colby sitting a few feet from the water, his eyes locked on the horizon. To my surprise, he wasn't swimming yet. He seemed lost in thought, just like those other nights. I kept my distance up on the hillside, thinking of what to say, or really how to say it. I didn't want to come off as angry again -- though the more I thought it over, the more frustrated I became.

I didn't want to fight. We could talk things out like adults. He was an adult now. I was only a few months shy. We could certainly act like grownups. Although, I guess adulthood comes with a price.

Mustering up what little courage I had, I walked up to the edge of the cliff and prepared to descend. Hopefully, the words would come to me by the time I hit the sand. That'd be about thirty seconds. It wasn't a particularly steep hill. Just thirty seconds. Thirty seconds to convince my best friend not to follow his dreams.

Before I could even lift my foot off the grass, Colby let out a loud groan from the bottom of the hill. He curled forward in the sand, arms wrapped around his waist, huffing hard. I'd never seen him so out of breath given his swimmer's lungs. Was it a stomach cramp, I thought? He probably overate at lunch again. It wouldn't be surprising.

Then, his chest heaved as he rocked back and forth, and his hands began scratching madly at his arms. He could've been covered in ants or having an allergic reaction -- it was hard to tell either way. Did someone drug him? There's no way he'd use anything voluntarily. My hand gravitated to my pocket and dug for my phone.

I froze when Colby yelled. It was directionless and desperate, preemptive panic like when you're about to fall and tear your knee open on the sidewalk. Colby bandaged me up plenty of times, so I'd know. Now he was coddling his arm, his lungs still breathless. I couldn't see quite clearly, but when Colby extended his right arm out to the side, I noticed something connected to his wrist. Rather, it started at his wrist then trailed down to the base of his elbow. It was covering his whole forearm.

A strange object, a sort of blade was curving out from his skin. Not metal at all, yet it glistened, flickering in the light despite the cloudy weather. Speckles of a bluish gray were peppered around it. A tinted gunmetal. Was it a jellyfish or something latched onto his skin? No, it had spines. It looked like a spindly parasite. An urchin?

"What the hell..." I heard him say. I had the same thought in silence. I leaned over the edge to see better, but hesitated to approach. What was I waiting for?

My balance wavered on the slope, so I ducked down behind the hill's crest, my eyes still fixated on his arm. I listened silently as his groans of discomfort worsened. Colby gripped his right wrist and whimpered as the alien object swelled larger. The spines lengthened, each connected by opaque sheets of teal. He twisted his arm about, shook it a little to see if he could dislodge the thing, but its base was fastened hard.

I know now that it wasn't something latched onto Colby's skin. It was his skin. I was watching his own flesh warp and pull into a jutting mass of spikes. A mutation. Just the beginning. I can only imagine what it felt like...

With what I now recognize as a fin attached to his arm, Colby scratched frantically around the bottom of the spikes, where the skin was turning steel-blue and calloused and dreadfully itchy. He went so far as to pull on them, wanting to tear them off completely, but he learned the hard way that it'd only hurt more to try. This fin was a part of him now.

The "change," for lack of a better word, seemed random and unbalanced. It jumped from his right arm to his neck, where waves of heat flickered just beneath his jawbone. Colby couldn't help but wince and stretch his head from side to side, trying to relieve the growing ache. It was futile. The burning intensified. Hands clawed hastily around his neck. Something was wriggling under his skin and tearing its way through the muscle. It quickly made a break for the surface, and the growth on his arm was suddenly the least of his problems.

As if Colby's skin was peeling off, little slits flowered from the sides of his neck--two on the left and two on the right. His breath hitched, and a hand quickly pressed against his neck. He mustn't have liked how the slits felt, however, as he immediately pulled away in disgust. Colby started hyperventilating again, and with every breath, the flaps flittered against his will. They stung like deep, sudden cuts had been made by a knife, but there was no blood seeping out. Still, he could feel...things... twitching beneath the twin growths.

The fire gripping his neck turned to a dry singe as Colby tried to think clearly. He needed to see what was happening around his neck. He needed to call someone. His hands clamored for the pocket in his auburn trunks. Nothing. He didn't have his phone. Of course, he'd left it in the room. The water would've fried it. Now he was marooned, and something was seriously wrong with him. His head flipped left and right as he scanned the beach. He had to find someone. He needed help.

The beach was so empty that afternoon.

Terrified by the burning around his throat, he paid little mind to the pinching in his ears. The outer rims started to pull upward, and three little points formed from the fleshy curves. What purpose they served was beyond me, and still is to this day. The arm fins made sense, in a sick way, but these almost seemed cosmetic at best. Whatever their use, they were showing signs of the same metallic blue tinge overriding Colby's natural tone. His suntanned skin was fading like the afternoon.

A stronger pain managed to grab Colby's attention, this time focused in his lower body. At least he could see what was happening. Maybe that made things worse. Fear flooded his eyes as he scanned his legs for signs of change. He thought he was imagining things at first -- it was so subtle -- but there, between his third and fourth toes, a small growth of blue flesh began pulling the digits together in a tight bind. Two of his toes were literally growing together.

Colby grimaced at the sight, but before he could even process the crunching in his bones, the change ricocheted into his left arm to repeat its earlier handiwork. It was somehow worse the second time around. Heat waves rippled across his forearm as the skin began to warp like melting metal. Colby cried out as a new row of fleshy spines formed from his skin, each connected by thick, opaque webbing. The discoloration continued its march, and in seconds, his forearms were adorned with matching sails.

Twisting his hands about, Colby examined his new fins with disgust. The jagged edges were threatening. The sickly cold hue made him shiver. His sense of self was ready to shatter. Was he going insane? None of this made sense. He was no doctor, but people don't just start mutating out of nowhere, right? His parents and all their adolescent advice books never mentioned this. Shaving, his voice changing, awkwardly timed boners in class -- those he'd been ready for. Looking back, he found them to be a breeze through his teen years. But this...this wasn't normal. This was wrong.

Hot lightning ran down into his fingertips, and Colby was forced to extend his arms out to avoid another cramp. His hands were shaking, partly from nerves, but mostly from the oncoming change pulling at his muscles. More unwanted adhesion struck his hands as the skin between his fingers began to grow. Like glue stretching across a tear, his fingers connected to each other through sticky sheets of webbing. Colby groaned in pain as his skin kept pulling beyond its normal limits. It strung across his fingers bit by bit, sewing itself together until the gaps were nonexistent. Unfortunately, the change still wasn't satisfied.

The tips of his nails blackened as if they were succumbing to frostbite. Worse than falling off, however, they began to grow at an unnatural rate, the ends clipping into the shape of pointed claws. Claws like you'd find on an animal. Each needle-tipped finger began to thin and grow outward into a spindly extension. Losing much of their human grip strength, his hands resigned themselves to a life of paddling and clawing at stray trout.

Glaring down at his gangly, webbed hands, Colby swallowed hard and held back his tears, as if he had some unspoken reason to maintain his composure.

"I...I'm turning into a freak..." I heard him mutter. I mean, I think that's what he said. I'm sure that's how he felt, at least.

The picture was growing clearer by the minute. This wasn't some disease, not one that modern medicine could cure. No genetic disorder or late-stage puberty that I'd ever heard of. Whether a scientific accident or a supernatural event, it was all inhumane. Colby was losing his humanity.

No time to doddle on its origin, the change continued without mercy or remorse. The same heat that had slit open his neck now drilled into Colby's chest. Of course, it felt worse this time around. Deeper. Wider. Hotter. It stabbed with pinpoint accuracy between his ribs and tore at the muscles connecting them. Colby fell to his side, arms clutched around himself in anguish. His rib cage was pulsating beneath his fingertips.

His muscles twitched and tore open between each rib bone, making room for strange new filaments forming beneath his skin. Pressure built beneath the pain until bursts of heat were expelled from his torso, forcing Colby to cough and spit onto the cold sand. His sides were writhing. Beneath his arms now rested two pairs of slits, barely larger than his hands.

Trying to catch his breath again, Colby sat up and looked down at the morose cuts in his sides. He guessed they were similar to the things on his neck, so he didn't dare touch them. Still, he wondered what the hell they were, what purpose they served. I myself didn't know at the time. Neither of us was thinking critically in the moment. We had no idea that they weren't fully formed yet. We didn't know they were ticking clocks.

Before Colby could come to his senses and finally run for help, sharp sounds fired off into the air. Pops, crackles, and snaps. Little fireworks, quieter though not as pleasant as the ones we lit up on the beach Tuesday night. No, these bursts were centered within his feet, bringing a vicious pain with every little blast. The tension grew, and the cramping pulsed harder than before, worse than even the slashing inside his chest. Colby screamed as his head thrust back and fists clenched, sending those sharpened claws into his palms. There was no holding back tears anymore. This was the big one.

Up to this point, it wasn't clear to me what was happening to Colby. A handful of spines and blue skin surprisingly didn't paint a clear picture --- not that I was thinking clearly anyway. Maybe I was actually too sane, too rational, to understand. In the end, what really sold me was his feet, or rather what became of them. Calling the whole process ugly would be an understatement.

To put it bluntly, Colby's toes began to elongate. They all grew at different rates, each more spindly than the last. They twitched and curled wildly, whether by his own will or the force of the change. Maybe a little of both. Tears rolled down from tightly clenched eyes as his bones splintered beneath the delicate skin of his feet. While his fingers had thinned and stretched earlier, this was on another level. His second toes grew by inches, his pinky toes even longer -- soon, his big toes were dwarfed in comparison.

As his toes lengthened, it was only befitting that they start webbing together. Colby's third and fourth digits were already conjoined, but it was time for the rest to join the party. Just as his fingers had, thick webs of skin began interlocking with his remaining toes. Flesh whipped from one toe to the next, pinching and pulling, twisting itself into familiar blue flesh. It was getting harder for Colby to wiggle his toes separately despite his best, most desperate efforts. Maybe he thought he could keep them from growing together if they kept moving. This would fail, of course, as the webbing just forced them to twitch and writhe in unison.

Colby dug his heels into the sand and continued to cry, barely able to look at the rapid mutation of his legs. As they moved farther away from his soles, the rounded tips of his toes began to grow out into points -- not claws like on his hands, but literal spires like the fins near his wrists. Each digit thinned down to pencil width, far slimmer than his fingers had become. With no room to stay attached, his toenails flicked off like dead skin. No sharp replacements came in this time, which actually makes sense in hindsight -- if anything about this could make sense at all.

It wasn't enough for his toes to lengthen. Nothing would be spared on his body. Colby's soles were next to grow, stretching his arches and pushing the balls of his feet far away from his heels. His days of footwear were officially over...not that he wore shoes much being around water all the time. He once told me that he only owned two pairs of socks. I confirmed with my own eyes that this was true.

Anyway, something must have realigned in Colby's feet, as the joints let out a sharp pop and forced another yelp from his tired throat. The lengthy bones had shifted in their sockets and spread wide, fanning out before his eyes. His toes splayed at crooked angles and pulled their webbing to its limit. What were once his smallest toes now measured a foot in length and curved out to the side like dangerous hooks. The webbing even seemed to retreat from them, carving indents into the base of his foot. As Colby's feet settled into their new shape, for now at least, the chilling blue-grey hue rode up his toes before meeting another band of blue around the knee.

No longer interested in walking, the entire structure of his feet had reformatted. Colby's arches had grown significantly longer and wider, but there remained a heel and ankle on each foot. They resembled some disfigured hybrid between a human foot and the fin of a fish. Eventually, there wouldn't be anything human left of them, but this middle stage was probably the hardest to look at.

Colby's eyes went wide in abject horror, scrutinizing the terrible change that had taken hold of his legs. Everything about his body felt wrong, even the parts of him that still looked human. He'd been so lost in the pain of his metamorphosis, but it finally dawned on him to call out for someone. Anyone.

"Help! Hello!? Mom! Dad?" He looked around in panic. "Ji-ho?"

I felt my stomach flip. My hands clutched the grass. Even still, I couldn't get myself over the hill. My whole body was glued to the ground, my eyes fixed on my friend's writhing body. I couldn't even reach my phone. What the hell was I thinking?

"Somebody, please! I need help!" Colby yelled in desperation as he kicked his aching half-human feet out before him. He wanted nothing more than to get rid of the painful cramps and kick off those enormous flippers like plastic trainers. But it wasn't so simple. When he tried wiggling his toes, the tips of his fins just curled in response. They were his own. They weren't going anywhere.

His calls for help remained unanswered and only further strained his throat. The gills in his neck dried out as a result, and Colby couldn't ignore them any longer. Somehow, maybe by instinct, he knew they needed moisture. Desperate for relief, he pulled himself to his inflated feet and stumbled towards the water. His gait was as awkward as his sense of balance. The change in his ears, which were now fully pointed and sealing up with cobalt skin, left him disorientated as he wobbled. Worse, he couldn't tell if he should walk on the ball or heel of his foot now. Neither seemed particularly strong.

With every step, his bizarre flipper-like toes kicked up excess sand that would crash down onto the webbing between them. Each foot was a shovel picking up sand and dropping it endlessly around him, like an unruly kid digging up the sandbox. The grains irritated his feet from above and below, worsened by the growing pattern of dry scales on his skin. Everything felt so dry now.

Four steps proved too much for Colby's legs as they quickly gave out, sending him forward into the sand. Without his knowledge, his calf and thigh muscles had atrophied to leaner, more water-friendly proportions. His arms barely braced for impact, and Colby slammed into the ground with a muted thud. The sand, though coarse, made a decent cushion. He'd grown so used to the grains on his skin. It was almost comforting to lie in. It made him hesitate. Before he could get back to his knees, he felt a tightening crick in between his shoulder blades. Another snap.

The same wrenching heat that had warped his arms and legs overwhelmed Colby's back, where the blue discoloring kept creeping farther around from his chest. Swirling skin and muscle pulled in towards his vertebrae before molding into a familiar fringe of spires. Colby screamed as the sharp sensations rippled too close to his spine. No, this was his spine pulsating on its own, giving life to his new dorsal fin. It was more sensitive than the fins on his arms. He'd be able to feel the water current through it. Lightning torched his nerves, but brought them back to life.

Another crack of bone, sharper this time, and Colby's neck pushed outward, growing just long enough to add two new vertebrae to his spine. It was only a few inches, but the change disrupted his whole nervous system. A sharp cry left Colby's mouth with a glob of spit, and his vision blurred. For just a moment, the pain was numbed. His ears rang like church bells. He didn't even feel the gills on his neck open further with the additional space. Their undersides now glowed a deep, hungry crimson.

The world returned all at once, just in time for pressure to build within Colby's jaw. His cheeks flushed and twitched. His lips felt horribly dry. Reflexively, he clutched his face in terror, anticipating the next change. What would become of his last remaining human feature? He vaguely resembled a merman, that much was clear now, so why would anything change on his face? All the mermaids he'd ever seen were human above the neck. I could only think of one exception, really.

Lack of precedent be damned, Colby screeched as his skull crunched forward into his palms. It grew more and more no matter how hard he tried to force it back. And he did try. Colby struggled with all his willpower to finally resist the curse that had fallen upon him. Inwardly, he refused to allow his skull to expand out into a blocky, almost shark-like muzzle. It made no practical difference as his body continued mutating, but it made a difference to him. He writhed in the sand, clenching his growing maw with both hands. His grip held fast to the only string of human reflection that remained. Maybe that resistance made the whole thing hurt worse. Clenching a jaw that desperately wants to unhinge and stretch. It was like bending a limb the wrong way on purpose. Willpower was fuel, but eventually, he burned himself out.

Exhausted, Colby let his elongated jaw fall open and made room for his teeth to sharpen into daggers. Black invaded the whites of his eyes, and his irises flickered from sky blue to a haunting yellow -- a golden island floating in an inkwell. As his muzzle finished forming, Colby gagged and clutched a webbed hand to his breastbone. He'd stopped fighting the change, or at least it wasn't his main priority anymore. Something felt wrong within his core. Very, very wrong.

As his chest heaved and his gills began to flitter rapidly in the open air, it was clear that he was having trouble breathing. I guess that was inevitable. Colby's lungs wouldn't serve him underwater. Once more, he steadied himself to his knees and moved to stand, but his abnormal footing was even weaker than before, and both flippers quickly sailed out behind him. That was the last time he'd ever try walking.

I knew it was the end when Colby started to crawl towards the water. His legs weren't working anymore. They could only warble along the ground like a slug's tail as his enormous flippers floundered in mid-air. It looked like he was swimming through the sand, wincing as rogue grains and dirt flew into the large gill slits on his sides. Nevertheless, he pushed on even as his stomach began to turn, figuratively and literally. As his lungs began to fill up with buoyant air sacs. As his heart grew more chambers. As his red blood turned cold. He pressed on.

He was always so persistent.

Neither of us saw it at the time, though Colby surely felt the next stage of his mutation. The flesh of his thighs and groin began to merge within his swim trunks. The problem became more apparent when it reached his calves, where his skin was pulling and wrinkling up like sheets of tissue paper. Without thinking, Colby kicked as if he was still in the pool mid-race. He desperately wanted to force his legs apart, but the pain of doing so must have outweighed that of the change itself, since he gave up again after a few tries. I can't imagine trying to tear your own skin off.

His heart pounded like a war drum, a warning sign. Colby had no choice but to continue his crawl and ignore everything behind him. Just when more merging seemed impossible, the gluing effect reached his ankles and forced his insteps to touch. On cue, a new wing of skin emerged to connect his flippers. His already deformed toes grew even longer --longer than the base of his fin. The bones within started flattening and simplifying, turning to cartilage and lighter rays of bone. Every second made it harder to tell where his toes ended and the webbing began.

Despite his determination, Colby stopped abruptly and reared his head back. His voice tore through the air with a bellow. It sounded less human, more guttural. Thick and scratchy. No discernible words left. Whatever you want to call it, it signaled his agony. Pain washed over him for the last time, and what remained of his lower body thrashed about in the wind. His legs were undergoing their final change.

With his thighs and calves molded together on the outside, the muscles within began to unwind from his bones. Pain shook Colby's pelvis as his femurs were forced out from their roots. His hips narrowed and smoothened, no longer having to support two enormous limbs. In their place, Colby's entire backbone slithered downwards and connected to his femurs in an unnatural fusion. Each leg lost more individuality by the second. Soon, they only kicked together.

His awkwardly bent flippers were settling into their proper orientation, though not without struggle. Bone merged and twisted and flattened in double time. I even saw his heels twisting about at crude angles, practically rotating backwards, as they positioned the remains of his feet as a proper caudal fin. Whatever bones remained were thinner and lighter than they used to be.

Rewrapped in muscle, his fully formed tail slapped down onto the sand, the flesh no longer supported by human joints. Only a single set of bones ran from his waist to his fin, guided by newly formed vertebrae. Fresh nerve endings burst open along his tail, but in spite of the cascading pain in his back, Colby pushed forward. As an army of blue scales conquered the last inch of his body, he finally made his way to the mouth of the sea.

It wasn't such a great distance to the water, but the journey for him must have been an odyssey.

With the wild ocean before him, Colby pulled himself out to the water's edge. The waves lapped at his gill slits, and the sudden wetness made them flare up, revealing more red flesh underneath. An awkward moan pushed past the edges of his maw, the sound a mix of despair and shameful relief. As embarrassing as it was, he eagerly splashed his neck and ribs with haste. This is what would keep him alive. He reached his ultimatum with an illusion of choice.

Catching his breath in the most unusual of ways, he glanced back at the rocky world he was leaving behind. I ducked down for a second.

He didn't see me.

I waited a moment before looking back up.

He was sobbing, eyes locked on the incoming tide. I saw tear streams run down his blunt muzzle and fall into the sea. Whatever he'd become, he was still Colby at heart.

The decision was made for him. There was no time to wait. In a show of surrender, Colby rolled onto his backside and pulled at the waistband of his trunks. The inseam and legs had been torn apart by the fusing of his thighs. Still, the elastic was cumbersome. He flexed his tail about and struggled to flick off the tattered remains. Ultimately, he had to pull it over his tail fin by hand. It would have been embarrassing if anyone else had been around to see...and if he hadn't just mutated into a disgusting fish monster.

Defeated, Colby rolled back onto his stomach and clawed his way through the water until it was deep enough to swim. He floundered for a minute, clearly not used to the tail that had replaced his feet, but before long, he could wade in the water. Then, he could swim. It almost looked natural, like a dolphin jumping through the waves. He didn't look back. He just dived under and pushed himself out into the darkness.

That's what happened to Colby Green.

In reality, I don't know how the experience felt to him, physically or emotionally. I only know what I saw. It couldn't have been pleasant if his screaming was any indication. Feeling your bones stretch and your legs merge into a tail doesn't sound comfortable. And as much as he loved swimming, I don't think he wanted to stay in the water forever. Maybe it was a cursed fate. Or, maybe I'm playing it up to make myself feel worse. Both might be true, at least a little.

I've thought about this a lot though...stayed up late playing it over and over in my head in excruciating detail. Every crack of bone in his warping body. Every scale forming on his skin. I imagine what Colby experienced transitioned from uncomfortable to debilitating over the course of those five minutes. When I checked my phone after, that was exactly how much time had passed. A meager five minutes. It felt like a lifetime. To him, an eternity.

No amount of tequila shots can keep the memory at bay. Still, I tap the bar counter, and the attendant pours another glass. Meanwhile, I glance over my shoulder at the cold sea. It's overcast again. Looking out to the beachfront, I find the exact spot where Colby dragged himself into the water so long ago.

After his departure, I returned to the hotel silently, too stunned to say a word. I showered and packed my bags while leaving Colby's side of the room untouched. Maybe I thought he'd come back that evening in time for the flight, fins and all.

Hours passed and daylight faded as our time to leave grew near. When his parents asked if I had seen Colby around, I said no. When everyone started looking for him, I went along as if I hadn't seen him turn into a sea monster just that afternoon. His phone was still by his bedside, so naturally, we returned to the beach first. There we found his torn swim trunks, swallowed up and spit out by the black waves.

It was presumed that Colby went for a last-minute night swim and drowned. Ironic, to say the least. While our friend group returned home for the end of spring break, his family stayed on the island for the rest of the week, hoping to find Colby, or at least his body. Obviously, nothing turned up.

I remember the day of the funeral, and the day after in school, where the hallways were lined with candles. In a way, I was grieving too. I couldn't help but think about his life being pulled away by the tide. A doting son, washed away with his perfect life and perfect future. I should've cried with everyone, but I couldn't. I still can't, despite everything.

For what it's worth, it wasn't a lie. Colby really was gone -- at least who he used to be. The young man who would've been captain of Stanford's swim team by his second season. The guy who'd listen to me ramble all night about 60's sci-fi films that he'd never seen and let me play all the out-of-context clips on YouTube. The clever bastard who once slipped a love note into some guy's locker so he'd go out with me...since I was too scared to ask in person. The apologetic little boy who walked me to the nurse's office all those years ago.

My best friend.

I wonder what he was thinking through it all. Pleading for his family -- for me. Silently cursing me out for not helping him. For being a coward. No, that's narcissistic. Did he even have any idea I was there?

I wonder if he ever found those candles, or if they were ever real at all.

Most importantly, I wonder what I should have done for him. What could I have done? My best friend turned into a fish...how do you fix that? What should I have told his family -- "Oh, I saw your son grow fins and gills and swim off into the sunset like Free Willy?" That sounds sick just saying it out loud. Instead, I was frozen, lying in the dirt like a corpse. Was I so afraid of him? Afraid of my oldest friend becoming a potentially ravenous monster before my eyes?

Or, maybe the smallest part of me was happy that day. Now neither of us would be going to Stanford. Was I really so cruel? Did the idea paralyze me...or empower me to stay out of sight? That possibility has haunted me for years.

I take a shot and tap the bar once more. The bartender knows my name but never asks why I'm here all the time. He doesn't know how short a walk it is from my home now, or my reason for sitting in the same spot every night, my head turned towards the sea. I couldn't explain it if I wanted to.

I don't know what caused Colby's change. Was it something in the water? We all went swimming, and no one else grew gills that day. One of his birthday gifts, maybe? Hopefully not the mini-lava lamp I'd bought him for our...his dorm room. Or, maybe it was just a matter of time. Colby was just born to turn into a fish. A shark? A merman? I'm still not sure what he was in the end. It didn't seem natural, regardless.

Worse, it wasn't fair. He didn't deserve to go through that. Not Colby.

Maybe I should have called for an ambulance -- ran back to the hotel and got his parents -- or at the very least helped roll him out to sea. Even if he lost his voice in the change, I should have said something to let him know I was there. He wouldn't have felt so alone, like he was losing everything and everyone he loved. Nothing I could say would've stopped what was happening, but he would have heard me. He would've had someone to come back to. He would have known to come back.

I should have stayed with him.