TW : again, very mild thoughts of suicide

Rose sat on the dining chair, eyes boring a hole to the table. The house was quiet. It has been since last night until that afternoon. No voices. No sightings. Nothing. There was only weight, pulling Rose down to the underground of her house. She wished she would just be buried, away from the sun’s touch and everything else moving above the earth.

Her tears were dried up, no better than an abandoned house’s well. Her body was weak. Her heart barely beating, every beat just trying to keep her alive. No emotion driving her. She couldn’t tell if the emotions are wasted away or were she too spent to muster any.

Matthew.

Her lips twitched. She closed her eyes for a few seconds. A very real and physical pain. The grief of loss she was very familiar with but grew no sorts of defense against it. It felt different, the pain. More crushing perhaps, darker in the back of her mind.

To see Matthew’s body disappear. His eyes not even his for the last moments of his life. Rose ran to the cliffside, eyes shaking. Matthew’s body never surfaced. She ran to the small pier, hoping she’d find his brother there coughing up water and apologizing for his dumb action. She hoped for a lot of things. But the pier was broken apart. It made her nauseous. It was all real. The night she walked upon it, falling down to the water.

And meeting the monster.

She walked back to the house, lantern dying on her side. And sat on the dining chair until this moment. Where she screamed. For the last time, loud and heart-wrenching. The house was quiet. so quiet. It drove her mad.

The legend says, there was once a young woman who fell in love...

But did not possess the luck of being a lady from a good family.

She was a mere slave, sold from one pirate to another.

From one lord to another.

A hundred slaps to the face, to a hundred whip on her back.

Rose went to Matthew’s bedroom. Opened the creaking door and almost vomit at the sight of blood on his bed. And on the floor. Splattered like paint. She searched the room, holding back her puke and trembling legs. She found the shotgun under the bed and left the room immediately.

Yet she fell in love with a certain lord’s son amidst the hell in her life.

The lord’s son was a kind, warm man.

He gave her hope, made life easier for her under his roof, away from the pirates.

Cared for her as a human would to another.

But humans tend to do that thing they can never seem to stop.

They lie.

Rose stared at the single bullet left inside the shotgun. She learned how to use guns a few years ago from her father, against her mother’s objection. She also knew where to shoot herself to make it fast and sure. She closed her eyes. Feeling the numbness in her soul. The pain underneath it maddening and rotting her from the inside very, very quickly. She just wanted to see them again. Mother. Father.

Matthew.

She took a sharp inhale like she was in shock. Everytime Matthew’s name visited her mind she felt her body still unable to comprehend. Her whole being rejecting her memory. Sooner or later she’ll turn mad, she was sure. She’d keep denying his death and let the grief eat her up like maggots to a dead body. She trembled. Her lips, her fingers. She took a deep breath. And she looked at the opened front door of her house. Facing the vast sea. Facing the cursed, wretched sea. Home to those monsters. And it fueled her. It burned her mind.

The young Lord got married and it ruined her.

Broke her heart like nothing else.

She was drowning in grief when the young Lord pulled her in the daylight into the mills.

Kissed her lips and confessed his love.

Made her promises that acted like the strongest wine.

She swayed, got dreamy once more against the married man.

He would love her like she had it in her dreams.

Give her glances like it was love letters behind his wife.

Until she was pregnant.

And there went his love.

Rose went to the underground shed behind the house. Found the boat his father put away after he bought a bigger, stronger ship. She pulled on the ropes hanging it, her hands cut by the rough material but she felt barely anything. The small boat fell to the ground and she checked for damages. It should be alright, she told herself. It should be only enough. To reach whatever is in the waters. She took Magna, the horse looking strangely quiet. She tied a rope from the boat to Magna, made her pull the boats until it’s close to the house’s front door. She brought food, water, and a knife. Took her warmest coat and drop it all on the boat. She almost left the house before she looked back at the place that used to be warm. The sun was setting and she walked back inside. Took a paper and tint, wrote a letter to whoever that would come to their house after some time of no news nor visit.

To anyone.

She left the letter, explaining her leave and Matthew’s. Couldn’t bear to write the word ‘killed’, nor ‘death’. She simply said Matthew was captured by them. By the siren. She decided to use the name if anyone ever come to find the monsters. Call them ‘sirens’.

The fairy tales often told by pirates and slaves who gone mad. A creature mocked by the people, being called illusions caused by the pirate’s sins. Parents would tell about it to their children, keeping them away from playing near the ocean without guardians. It wasn’t real, people would snicker at old dying sailors. Oh how Rose hoped it was true. She couldn’t write much. She left the letter on the dining table. Put a knife above it, and a single dry flower she picked from the garden.

Sold to a pirate once again by the Lord, thrown to the sea.

Living like a low creature once more, between the salt.

Her child died before it had the chance to breathe world’s air,

the pirate threw it into the sea like it’s dead fish waste.

Such grief could only drove a person mad.

Rose pulled Magna until she reached the pier. Pushed the boat until it floated on the water, past the crumbling old pier. She watched the boat floats weakly and turned back to Magna. The horse made no sound, she silently followed her needs. Rose reached out to her slowly, between her eyes. She stepped even closer and rested her forehead against Magna’s.

“Leave, girl.” Rose whispered as she let go of the rope keeping Magna. Magna made no move and simply watched Rose as she walked away. She rode the boat and led it to the sea as the sun disappeared on the horizon. The moon hid behind the clouds. And for the last time Rose turned to look back, Magna was still there. Staring.

The woman never felt an urge more tempting, more inviting.

It was an itch under her skin and she couldn’t help it.

She took the unused chandelier the pirate stole from somewhere.

Point the sharp edges at him, hovering above her.

Who was lost to his own pleasure, his dirty hands up to her thighs.

And nothing has ever made her eyes glow, other than the blood spraying out from his neck

Nothing.

Rose held the shotgun close to her chest. She stopped rowing the boat after a faint sound of singing in her ears. The cliff where her house stood looked so far away already. It felt like it’s another world. And she was then in hell. She looked back at the darkness in front of her, she could almost see nothing. The lantern beside her only giving light to see around the boat. It was a cold night. It got colder the moment another hum of song brushed her ears. She flinched. And held her gun tighter.

She was deemed mad.

The pirates were scared of her.

And for the first time in her life, she felt whole.

She felt like she deserved the ground she stepped on.

The pirates tied her against the pillar in their ship.

She would sing songs every night, laughing at the moon like someone was talking to her.

The pirates were scared of the mad woman.

Decided to shoot her with an arrow between her eyes.

And threw her to the sea.

The water stirred around her boat. Making trickles, circling her. She took a deep breath and peeked. At the water on her left. Nothing. The same for the right side. She gripped the gun so tight, her fingers felt numb. She looked upfront to the black water.

All she could see... was the reflection of the full moon.

She looked up to the sky with a shiver running up her spine. She felt her courage slipping away.

The moon was nowhere to be seen. It was not a moon she saw in the water. The moon-like circle in the water blinked. And thus opened another two moons, staring at her from under the dark water.

The water is full of sin.

Death and lies linger in it, fed by the pirates who kill and throw their victims to the ocean.

The water is dark and cold, but the water blesses those who are chosen.

And chosen she was.

Water gave her another life, yet her soul woke up on the sinister side.

Her beauty returned, so did her grief.

Her wound transformed into a part of her.

Her anger shifted into a song.

A song she sang in nights where someone out there griefs, lulling them to her embrace.

Granting them wishes, only to drag them to the ocean at the end.

Where everything is dark and everything is blind.

But everything that happens in the dark is everything that’s real.

 Rose fell back to the boat, her legs and body gave up at the sight. The song became louder in her ears. She wanted to cover her ears but she couldn’t let her gun go. Not this time, not this close. The water grumbled and she shrieked. Fear. Fear so strong, she felt like she’s in death’s den.

Her boat was pushed back as the water surface broke, revealing her nightmare.

The white eyes... three of them staring back at her, burning her sanity. Her pale bluish skin looked silken. Her hair looked like a tangle of dark long strings, heavy and thick on her back. Felt like it could strangle and devour you. She was large... It made Rose felt like the whole water is her body. And it will her into the seafloor, open up a hole that will pull her in and burry her within. No air, no light, no sound. She would die in pain and loneliness. Death brought her fear, and at the sight of her three white eyes, Rose realized she was indeed a foolish young girl. She thought she understood what death is all about, thinking her grief was everything she could possibly learn.

You have come, dear

Rose cried. Sobs bubbled and popped out of her chest. She was so scared, so lost. She felt lonely at the empty house where her family used to be but in the middle of the sea, the creature of darkness upon her, she felt doom for the first time.

You realized death... is the only thing here for you... and yet...

She smiled, the cursed lips formed a smile that made Rose wished she could pluck her eyes out. She wished to be blind and deaf. And nothing more.

Who do you wish to see?

Rose tried to speak. Not because she gained courage, but because her mind has turned into a puddle of mess. A dead construct of thoughts and means. She blurted it out like a mindless child.

“M—Matthew”

Ah... Yes... I wished I could grant your wish, dear... I do... But one of my children has touched your life, I see.

Memories of the siren she met flooded into her mind, and it made Rose even more shaken. Her tears are running down, drools all over her chin because she couldn’t stop mumbling.

“No—Matthew—“ She choked on her cries “Brother—“

Oh... poor dear... alright then, go see him...

Rose stopped trembling altogether. Her eyes focused on the siren, hands slowly letting go of the shotgun.

“Where?”

“Then what happened?”

A young boy whispered into the dark room, only lit by one candle in the corner. Others in the room were asleep, trying hard to fit themselves in the obviously not enough space. Such is a slave’s resting room.

“Well, the stories say those who got the siren curse will turn into a siren too. They will be her child.” A young woman said to the boy.

The boy gasped.

“Is there no way to run from it? The curse?”

“No.” She said.

“But... how about...” The boy glanced at the other side of the room. Where a man wearing blindfolds lay asleep.

The young woman shrugged, “He is deaf. Maybe he couldn’t hear the siren’s call if it is really what sunk the boat of his pirate lord.”

The boy gulped. He’s always been scared of the old slave, with his blindfold and constant rambling about monsters in the sea. She decided to ask a slave woman who’s nicest to him. He had no idea it will get him a nightmarish story.

“And... and his eyes?” the boy asked more.

“This is just a legend, boy. Old man Barth must’ve gone crazy when he was bought by the pirates, that’s why he stabbed himself in the eyes.” The woman rolled her eyes.

The boy looked away, not wanting to fuel his bad dreams even more by looking at the old man.

“But... the other day... old man Barth held a lady in town, talked to her about... curses and all... it’s like he could smell it! The curse!”

“Ah.. so this is why you’ve been avoiding him?”

The boy flinched, retreating in embarrassment. He was scared of the old man. His appearance and his mumbling.

“Boy, everything will be alright. We live in the mountains, the sea is too far for you to hear a siren if one even exists. And just pray your current lord won’t sell you to the pirates.” She said, yawning after her last words. She pulled on the ragged blanket she has and laid down on the itchy matress. The boy glanced at the old man, sleeping behind his blindfold hopefully before he laid down and beg his mind to sleep.

“Julie,” The boy whispered. The woman hummed.

“Do you think he’s seen the siren before?”

I thought about death once, after a certain Sunday at church. I imagined many. Old age, dangerous sickness, house fire. I did not imagine much about the sea, as father never allowed me to join the cruise. I thought I would never get any harm from a place I couldn’t visit. Only Matthew went once when he was 8, leaving mother praying the whole two days. Father said he’ll need it for practice. He’ll take over the business after all. I asked all about the sea to Matthew once he got back.

How does it feel? Was it nauseating? Was it cold or hot? Was it noisy or calm? Could you see the moon?

“Yes, I could. The moon was very beautiful, Rosie!”  he said. He never went to the sea anymore because father gave him work on the stables. He said he missed it sometimes, the breeze.

The moon I see in the sea was not beautiful, brother. It is frightening me. It makes me think of death and all of it inside the water. Suffocating. No voice. Cold. It scared me so much.

Perhaps this is what you felt Matthew? Lonely. Scared. We should’ve stayed together after mother and father left, shouldn’t we? Perhaps that way... we wouldn’t be like this. We wouldn’t be drowning. Oh, how I wish I could change the past. I would run to you and hold you close. We’ll fight against the world together. Like when we were kids, making forts with blankets and chairs. Hiding from imaginary enemies. You’d let me use your favorite toy sword because you were that kind. You let me have everything. I took away everything. And I couldn’t give you anything back.

Matthew... The sea water was so cold. My body moved on its own, I left the gun and jumped into the waters. I couldn’t control my body, I was falling further and further into the darkness. I was nothing in front of the siren. Her eyes glowed under the sea. As the moon. Her body was glinting grey scales, down to the base of her tail. If someone were to paint her, I believe some would call her a beauty. Mysterious and dark, all blanketed with her gentle moves. I was only the size of her palm, I believed. And as her tail moved, I felt like the whole sea got blown away. She circled around me, as I fall down like a body tied to an anchor. I could not move. I could not struggle. To her, I must’ve been a mere dead insect that fell to the sea by mistake. I wasn’t even worth a bite.

You remind me of a past, dear... of a foolish girl... I couldn’t remember who, might be one of my children...

Her voice came as a whisper without her lips moving at all. My lung hurt so bad. I needed air. I was burning from the inside.

You are brave... coming to find us like this... visiting us in this void of a land...

She chuckled. I managed to move a finger. A twitch. I screamed in my mind, begging myself to move. Anything. Do anything.

Dear, there is nothing for you in the sea...

Matthew. You told me he was here.

And he is... You shall see him as promised... But dear...

Her face approached me. The three white eyes staring at my small self. It burned, the stare of the wicked creature.

He is already ours

She descended to the sea. Her tangle of hair followed slowly. It still made me churn, the sight. I screamed louder and louder at myself. But The fingers that moved couldn’t do much. I coughed and the water invaded my chest. At that moment, at that fleeting moment...

I saw him from afar, once the hairs were out of my sight...

My Matthew... Brother.

I could no longer survive. My body gave up, my sight blurred. But I saw him, I finally saw him... I thought perhaps... this is alright. This death is alright.

He approached me. Fast. Are you trying to save me, Matt? My heart asked. Like always. Like you always do, you always saved me. You are everything one could ask for. Did God made a mistake and created you perfect? The siren was right... I was a foolish girl.

His body...

It was a siren’s.

At that, the grief of seeing him was more painful than the seconds of my death. If I were able to, I must’ve dropped a tear.

He came closer.

His eyes were white. As the moon.

My dear, brother. My poor Matthew. I am so, so sorry.

Please, to whoever out there... Let me live once more... Give another chance to be born by his side. Let me be his sister again. And I promise I won’t make the same mistake. I will stand by him. I will be as kind as he would. Please...

God—

Blood. Bloomed like a flower under the dark water. It looked like a red rose. Matthew bit and pulled her neck off. The blooming blood rose was an invitation to the sirens. White eyes emerged from the dark sea. Ten... Hundreds.. Rose left nothing to be buried. Nothing fell to the sea bed. Only her blood remained, the drops became one with the waves that crashed the shore.