After struggling to his feet, Blaine wondered down the beach, keeping his feet in the water, and pushing his wet curls away from his hazel eyes. He watched the retreating back of the hunters with a sense of peace-he had not been this far away from them for months, and it was as though he had broken free of his old chains, if only for the day. There was no one to shout at him, demand more wine, and hit him.

Instinctively, he rubbed his arm, the one with the purple finger marks on it, from that night, a few days ago. He winced slightly, before kicking off his shoes, which had gradually filled with wet sand. Salty water lapped at his bare feet as Blaine watched the two boots floating off into the deep blue ocean. Wind sang through the trees, rustling the leaves, and Blaine turned to watch them, suddenly realising that here he was-on an unnamed, unchartered island, so far away from the chokingly dirty city of Uldridge.

His lips stretched into a small smile, which spread into a huge grin. It was the first time he'd smiled for months-years, maybe. On the hunter's ship, he'd lost track of time. The white sand was hot beneath his feet, and he found himself regretting leaving his shoes to the waves. As he stepped into the cool shade of the strange forest which lay beyond the sand, the world lapsed into a peaceful quiet. Occasionally, a twig would snap nearby, causing him to spin around in fright, before chuckling to himself. The canopy of dark leaves suspended high above his head cast dappled shadows onto the forest floor, golden pools of sunlight reflecting breaks in the ceiling.

Beneath his feet, the ground was covered in an emerald green moss, which was soft on his toes. Ferns and shrubs grew in abundance, patches of exotic flowers, the likes of which he had never seen before, bloomed around the bases of the trees, which appeared to be oak, though with darker trunks and bright, vivid leaves.

He cast his eyes around in pure wonder. The forest grew quieter and quieter as he journeyed deeper and deeper, his worries melting away, like wax from a candle. A few times, he thought he heard the sounds of rushing water, or of a singing brook nearby, but these sounds, too, eventually melted away into the near-silence of the forest which seemed to grow more and more enchanted with each step.

How long he had been walking for did not occur to Blaine, until the light started to fade into a softer hue, which began to darken as the light faded. Blaine started to panic-he had no food, no shelter, and no idea where he was in the world. Walking would be the best thing to do, Blaine thought, even though a tiny voice in the back of his mind had started to whisper that he was cold, hungry, tired, lost.

As the world slowly dipped into an inky darkness, Blaine sunk to the ground, preparing to lay there for the night, praying that nothing harmed him. He squeezed his eyes shut, and then, not knowing what made him, opened them, to find the forest around him bathed in silvery moonlight. A smile lit up his face, and he clambered to his feet, casting his eyes around at the whole new world the moonlight had revealed in the forest, one full of shadows, of silvery pools, dark and light. Faint sounds punctuated the night-an owl somewhere, hooting softly, and the rustle of the leaves on the trees as some creature moved stealthily through them.

And again, he heard it-the sound of water. Blaine moved towards it almost instinctively-he had been drawn to water his entire life; he loved the smooth, cool, silken feel of it on his skin. The way the light danced off it, how it sand and burbled in the brooks and streams. A faint glint of light caught his eye between the trees to his left, and he turned to face it, as though it were a guiding star. The silvery glint grew closer, closer, until Blaine stepped out from between two trees, and onto a rocky outcrop, gazing up at the full moon, shedding its silvery tears over the land and sea, for, at the base of the outcrop, lay a sprawling lagoon, and a cliff face nearby, off which ran a waterfall, which sparkled and threw the moon's light. Breathless at the sight, Blaine almost didn't notice the lone figure in the lagoon.

Curious, Blaine made his way fully out of the dark trees, and onto the edge of the outcrop, where he lay on his stomach and looked down. Whatever it was in the lagoon was at least the size and shape of a person, from the waist up, as far as he could see. Blaine caught glimpses of what appeared to be a shimmering, smooth tail flicking in the silver water, but then, he supposed, he was tired.

His eyelids slowly begun to droop, and, as he watched the figure in the lagoon, he somehow found himself reaching the conclusion that it was a merperson-the very creatures which the hunters had come here for. A half formed plan to investigate in the morning, and even warn the merperson in the morning, formulated inside his mind, before he drifted into an exhausted slumber, filled with an empty nothing.