I was hiding behind the coral to eavesdrop what they were saying about the disease. I didn’t want to be seen worrying, so I could lie to myself that I’m wasn’t. But the dread was in the water. Any one of us could catch it.

It was a friend of a friend. A week after he came back from his trip to pacific, he started to lose scales. His sisters collected every one of them and swam from village to village asking witches if they can put them back. Some tried to help, but most wouldn’t even listen. Everyone knew about the disease by then. The sisters came back crying and kept the scales in the bottle.

Without the iridescent scales, his exposed flesh hardened to a pinkish leather as if half of his body is now a scar, then it began to split.A slightest white line, like a warning of an earthquake appeared. Exactly at the end of what used to be his tail. It crept the length of his body til it reached his lower belly, and became deeper, until one day it separated into two lumps of flesh, like human legs.

He said you can’t feel it happening. That was the scariest part for me.