Mermaid 2

Meri poked her green head out of the coral, right where Cordelia expected. "Don't be a spoil sport," Meri teased. "Come in!" The head popped out of sight again and Cordelia swam to follow. Turning onto her back, she looked up at the brilliant sun overhead. It nearly blinded the mermaid that was so used to the dark. Light reached her home at the bottom of the sea, but only a little and filtered. This pierced the water, like a knife cutting through to Cordelia's eyes.
Cordelia squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them next, she was in the coral next to Meri.
"Look at this," her friend said, knocking out a piece of coral to reveal her treasure. "It's very different, very human."
Human garbage was constantly sinking, polluting the ocean. Even the wreck Cordelia lived in was something deposited by the people on land. Most of it, the merfolk simply ignored, but this was different.
"What is it?" Cordelia asked. The fish was dead but looked as though it might start swimming again any moment. That freshness made it clear to both mermaids that this wasn't any species they had seen. "Where did it come from?"
Meri shook head head. "I don't know. It fell from one of their boats."
Cordelia continued to turn the fish over in her hands. She was sure she had never seen one like it, but at the same time, it was familiar, like something she couldn't quite remember.