The Lonesome Ocean

WARNING: Gore

I stare up at him in awe while but inches beneath the water, his image is disfigured by the waves and ripples, but in my mind, I can picture his beauty. I see his curly brown hair soaking up the ocean spray and his gloomy brown eyes sparkling in the sunlight. Captain of a crew he is; Captain of a ship. He is a sailor, and a good one, but while his dark and weary vessel sails calmly among the waters toward our island, he is ignorant to the treachery that lies ahead.

He knows not of the danger that lurks within the unforgiving waves; the death that fills the salty crisp air. Do I pity him? Do I care? There is no use caring when in my situation; when in my skin. My love for him is false: a trick of the mind and a weak spot within my mentality. I pity him as he pities a wounded dog. I do not feel love, for love is a mortal emotion, and come sundown, I will be feasting upon this sailor.

We are forbidden, we are never to be as one, for he is a sailor, and alas, I am a foul and ravenous creature. I am manipulation using song as persuasion; I am greed imitating love to feed; I am a monster simulating beauty as a lure; I am a siren, and hunger fills my yearnings. His crew and ship will be no more, for my sisters will destroy and abandon the bodies ashore; his beauty will be of lore, for we will inflict a slaughter no one can ignore. No sailor shall pass, unless our demise is desired. We are troubled with this burden and must stay strong, because once a mortal hears our alluring songs, they can no longer leave our borders alive. Otherwise, fates are exchanged, and a siren is instead the victim of death. But we do not control this power of ours, the moon commands our song, and once he has risen, the air fills with our gentle lullaby of eternal slumber.

The sun sets below the liquid horizon and the sinister moon approaches behind our island. Accordingly, the concert begins, and the elegant voices of the sirens rise up and out of the water, we reluctantly start our ritual, harmoniously stalking the prey. Bargaining with the moon would make no difference, so along we follow with his sick desires, and I scale the side of the ship with my sisters alongside me. Once at the top I peer over the railing. They are oblivious. Focusing only on the sharp rocks and murky waters deterring the ship’s path ahead. The Captain believes he and his crew will make it through, but a gory blood-filled shipwreck is the only way this night can end.

As more and more of us appear along the edges of the ship, certain crew members begin to mindlessly notice our gradually rising hypnotic melody. I hear whispers, in my head, of all the sailors’ deepest desires: an advantage we have when hunting. The sirens listen to their wishes and disguise themselves as their dreams; they create illusions of love. Once the sailors glimpse the angel-masked-demons from whom the song flows, gazes are locked, and the sailors – blinded by lust – follow the tune to a deep unforgiving sleep. Men are picked off, one by one, and inconspicuously dragged into the water. I watch as they fall silently off the boat, held tightly by their butchers; they are victims filled with comfort, staring lovingly into their murderer’s eyes.

I scan the deck for my options, but it’s too late now for classy dining: the sailors are coming to their senses. They struggle desperately to pull their mates away from fixed gazes and attempt hysterically to kill us off. It’s a bloodbath. The brutality escalates, and I witness sailors being devoured right on deck. Men are still alive and screaming while my fellow sisters rip out their tender guts and ruthlessly tear off their limbs.

Our song rises louder than the terror, and the scene calms. Calms at least as calm as a gruesome massacre could ever calm. I’m still looking for my main course when I spot an unexpected gaze. The Captain stares straight at me; straight into me. He peers directly into my soul, and I know not what he sees. Darkness or luminosity; sin or purity; grace or indignity. I search frantically among the few whispers that are left, but I can’t, for the life of me, find the Captain’s. Does he not have desires? Does he not have yearnings, cravings or requests?

He walks towards me, and I notice the confusion that litters his face with the wrinkles of a young sailor who has seen much. Confusion is not all there is, though: Pity. Does he pity me? Does he not know what I will do to him? What my sisters are doing to his crew? He stands almost before me; his beauty is clearer now. I don’t have to imagine. His soul shines brighter than I’ve ever seen anyone’s before, brighter than the moon on a clear star-filled night. I am in a trance that I can not escape; I am imprisoned within his eyes. He is close enough now to touch, within half an arm’s reach. He is one grasp away, yet so far away, for if I touch him I may scare him into retreat as a noisy hunter spooks a majestic dear to flee.

I am not a noisy hunter, though. I am stealthy and quick; I'm an excellent hunter. Grabbing him forcefully by the waist I yank him off his beloved boat. We fall. He holds me dearly as my stomach moans desperately; moans for my appetite to be satisfied, for my thirst to be quenched. My captain does not look me in the eyes, as I am accustomed to with other sailors, instead he buries his face in my neck. I feel his long calm breath on my shoulder, and it eases me. However, once I smell his crave igniting, hunger provoking scent my entire body screams to devour his whole existence. Splashing into the water as one, we are immersed within a liquid blanket, and silence surrounds our isolated environment.

Hunting, at this point, can become problematic: once submerged in water, the song of sirens can no longer be heard, and disguises are unveiled. Sailors, then – once they’ve discovered our true and dreadful form – begin their writhing underwater. That is, if they haven’t already been torn to half eaten shreds. Yet, with my Captain there is no struggle. He does not resist nor fight. There is no effort to escape my cold grasp. He sees me for who I sincerely am, but still he remains affectionately wrapped around my torso. I can no longer feel his breath, I can only feel short and quick jerks as his body strains for oxygen. Still, he does not struggle against me, even as the last inch of air leaves his person, and all the ocean’s water enters and floods his lungs.

His grip weakens. He is dead. He belongs, now, to the devastating depths of the black sea. I observe him: his eyes are closed; his hair is flowing lifelessly in the water; his skin is darkening, lacking oxygen; and still, he holds a loose embrace. Despite it all, even after death, he does not let go.

Within both our hearts there lives a forgotten, mistaken, neglected emotion. An emotion that was overlooked, and clouds both our minds with a murky passion. An unexplainable, irreplaceable, uncontainable emotion: love. He surrendered his soul with understanding and sacrificed his body with sympathy. I did not hear his desires, for his desires were me. I had already granted his wishes, I had already become his dreams. My hungry covet for my Captain fades to dreadful angst, and I soon feel benevolence overflow my senses with its tormenting judgements and guilt. What have I done?

Emotions I’ve never felt before fester and boil within me; it tears my skin apart. I’ve killed the one I love. I’ve executed the only creature to ever look passed my instinctual cruelty and ignorance; to ever peer within my soul, dig out my concealed emotions, my unknown compassion, my impossible humanity, and throw them in a pile, exposed upon the cold and rainy ship deck for all to see, including me. He allowed me to see my emotions, and then he organized them and lined them up neatly, so I could not only see them, but understand them. No one has ever given me this much attention, this much appraisal, this much devotion. I have always lived within the crowd, hid among the group; I’ve been surrounded by like-minded, primitive beasts for as long as I can remember. There has never been anything else but the hunt. For the first time ever, for a few seconds, though, there was something else; someone else. And within a blink of the eye, I had ruined it, ruined him; killed him.

A siren has the ability to – though it has never been used on a human – revive a being to their original state. We have this mysterious gift for unknown reasons. Perhaps, somewhere up in the vastness of the sky, passed the immoral and wicked moon and farther than the twinkling stars, some higher being still holds faith within us.

My Captain and I share a weak kiss, and I fill his lungs with the life that I took from him. His pale gray face lights up with warm lively colour. As we rise closer to the essential air above, our connection grows in tender passion. His embrace becomes stronger as he regains his strength. We burst out of the water and his first breath is deep and hollow, but it regulates as he comes into realization of where he is. I’ve placed him back on the ship with indifference, and he feebly reaches out to me, shivering vigorously as he lay exhausted on the deck. I look into his sad brown eyes one last time before I swiftly jump back into the water. The strong Captain yet with unseen weakness, gathers the last men finds. Some hide unharmed in the cabin under the decks but others aren’t so lucky. The sailors who were above decks during the massacre are either lost at sea or lay half alive in their own pools of blood. The Captain still, with his limited number of men, gives out orders and corrects his ship’s course quickly and smoothly. They luckily manage to get out of our borders. I’m letting him go. I’m letting him go with my heart, my soul, and my life – my heart that he stole, my soul that he changed, my life that I gave – and I’m letting him keep it all. I will lose everything, save one thing: his love, his memory, his kindness; I will not loose him.

Beauty is – in some shape or form – everywhere: in everything, in everyone. Some people, unfortunately, choose ignorance over understanding, and those who deny the elegantly cruel reality that lies before them, die hopelessly and unaware.