It was never supposed to be this way. Above, thunder crashed and the wind roared like a starved beast on the hunt. The waves churned into a frothy soup at the surface of a midnight ocean. It was here, surrounded by darkness and shifting shadows, where she would die.

While the storm raged overhead, the currents pulled Morgan deeper into the abyss. Her eyes bulged with terror and her cheeks puffed with the last breath she’d sucked in before she had been dragged down. She kicked her feet and clawed at the water above her, but it was like trying to swim through molasses. She wore a tunic and baggy pants rather, but the waterlogged fabric felt as heavy as a dress of a thousand petticoats.

Up until that moment when she had hit the water, it had been a relatively calm night. The weather was bad, but the ship should have been solid. The el Meranda was the fasted sail ship in the Caribbean isles. She had braved thousands of storms and made countless journeys to familiar and foreign shores. This trip should have been no different. But it was. Morgan had only accompanied her father a few times before this trip, but she was confident in her sea legs. Or she had been until a particularly violent swell had launched her over the rail into the tempest below.

The water was a sinkhole that dragged her down faster than quicksand with every movement that she made. Even as she squinted, she could no longer see the hull of the vessel above. She was not even certain anyone had seen her fall from the deck. No one was coming to save her.

With every bubble that dripped from her nose and fluttered up towards the air, Morgan grew weaker. Her hope sapped away and she sagged. It was cold, but a fire burned in her breast. A painful heat that came with the clench of desperate lungs begging for the one thing she could not give them. Her skin had once been like the warmest caramel candies, with flush, freckled cheeks and sun-kissed shoulders, but now it looked blue and alien. Her hair once tumbled like drizzled honey that ended in spring coils below her shoulder blades and now it swam away from her skull in every direction, blackened by the depths. Morgan’s limbs felt heavy, and though the fire in her continued to smoulder as though her chest were an oven, her vision grew fuzzy and began to recede as fatigue took over.

It was here, where the dark swirled and shadows played tricks on the eyes, that Morgan finally heard it. A melodious song that cut through the ringing haze in her ears and silenced the murmuring of the storm far above. The song was enough to rouse her from her stupor and her vision cleared. It started faintly and grew closer until it surrounded her. A ghostly echo of voices rose and fell in harmony, but they were sombre and slow. The sound made Morgan’s heart squeeze in her chest and for a moment, she forgot about the inferno in her lungs.

As she laid eyes on the owners for the first time, she nearly lost what precious air she had left. They were as blue as the water, running from the light of the sky at the crowns of their heads and bleeding to the darkest indigo at the tips of their fins. With skin speckled in white, shimmering dots and eyes that glowed with a haunting presence that made Morgan feel insignificant in comparison. They wore nothing. No cloth, no belts, no knapsacks, and brandished no tools. Their hair flowed behind them with the tempo of the sea itself and the edges of their bodies almost seemed to fade until she could not tell where they ended and the open water began. As she studied them in the brief seconds that seemed to stretch like an eternity, Morgan saw no bubbles. Their chests did not rise nor fall, they had no gills to breathe the water, and no signs of breath left their ridged noses or pale lips.

Sirens. She knew the legends as well as any sailor, better than any villager of the coastal town she called home. Powerful beasts that ruled the oceans with more bloodlust than frenzied sharks and a taste for human flesh.

It was never supposed to be like this. She did not deserve a fate worse than the drowning the storm had decided upon. To be ripped apart while her heart still beat. It would pump her blood into the water instead of through her veins until she died and the agony would be brought to an end. That would be the only merciful part.

Panic ignited in her core and she jerked back as one of them reached for her. She thrashed in the abyss, swimming once more for the surface that might offer her sanctuary if she could only find the ship.

She bit her lip as she swam. Her head was spinning and her lungs were burning. Up started to feel like down and down began to feel like sideways. All she could do was keep kicking and hope it was the right way.

Fingers more frigid than ice wrapped around her ankle and pulled her back down. Morgan screamed and lost valuable bubbles as she frantically kicked down, trying to dislodge the creature clinging to her. But it was not alone, and she had another one in her face again.

It tilted its head to one side and its glowing eyes glanced up and down her form before it trilled softly. They seemed to be in no hurry to feed.

The one before her reached out and brushed her cheek with its fingertips. They were frosty to the touch, just like the one holding her foot. The siren’s skin was rubbery and smooth, and the powerful tail smacked against Morgan’s legs as it continued to tread water. The motions were tender, but if the stories were true, then these monsters had several rows of needle-sharp teeth.

Morgan’s eyes stung with tears, but she could not cry beneath the water, so she wriggled as best she could. I have to get free. I’m going to drown. The thought raced through her mind and spurred more frantic struggles from her.

The siren leaned closer and blinked slowly. Then its lips moved slowly as it answered her thoughts in a voice that was smooth as honey and sweet as sugar but bore the whistling lilt of a dolphin. “Are you?”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The question stunned Morgan and for a moment she stalled. Her heart hammered in her chest and the flames grew worse. The pain was unbearable.

Let me go. Please.

“Why?”

Morgan coughed and more bubbles broke free from her mouth and escaped into the ocean. All around her, the sirens were singing again. All except for the one in front of her, still staring at her with curiosity sparkling in its glowing eyes.

Please. I am drowning! She wasn’t sure if the creature could hear what she was thinking, but she had no words left in her lungs to speak.

“Are you?”

Morgan would have growled if she could have spared the breath. Could it not see how she was dying? Did it not know how much it burned? Why couldn’t she make them understand? If they weren’t going to eat her, why wouldn’t they release her?

The creature in front of her reached out and curled its fingers into the material of her tunic. It ran its thumb over the threading, then pulled. In one swift motion, the soaked shirt tore like wet paper and fluttered away as the siren discarded it. Another grabbed at her trousers and ripped them off just as easily.

The water now flowed against her chilled skin, which seemed to be growing paler and bluer with every beat of Morgan’s heart, but she had been freed of a weight dragging her down. Though she should have felt shame, only relief leaked through her veins. She would have smiled if the agony in her chest had not forced her to double over. Did she even have any bubbles left? If she sucked water in, would it douse the flames that burned her?

The siren leaned forward, cupped her face in its hands. Its touch combated the heat and it leaned forward to press its lips to hers. Morgan’s heart stalled in her chest as ice clawed through her flesh and bone alike. There was no air given, no exchange of breath, but the blaze lessened. Though it was now subdued, it began to slowly return when the siren pulled away.

Please help me. The plea rose in Morgan’s thoughts as desperation began to sink in. She just wanted the pain to end. I have to get to the surface.

The siren gave her another slow blink and tilted its head the other way as though she were an oddity it could not quite comprehend. “Why?”

Because it hurts. I am drowning.

The siren pursed its lips. Morgan did not feel it had the right to be annoyed with her when it and all of its friends were keeping her here, where her pain was rapidly growing worse again. “Are you?” the siren asked again.

Yes!

The siren’s voice shifted to a high-pitched twinkle, like a ringing bell, and mirth flowed across its lips as it spun around her and shook its head. Morgan’s lungs squeezed and her vision blurred. Why was it laughing at her?

When it came up in front of her once more, it pressed a hand flat to her chest and splayed its icy fingers wide. Her foot was still in the grasp of another, but now others were at her back. They were holding her and everywhere they touched, the cold spread through Morgan. More colour faded to blue across her skin and she shivered. The siren before her smiled brightly. It began to press against her chest until its hand pushed into Morgan up to the wrist.

Morgan gasped as the appendage sunk into her. There was no pain and no blood, but the chill of the ocean depths swept through her as the siren grabbed at her very core. Her heart fluttered like a caged butterfly. Each beat grew weaker and weaker as it froze over. The searing embers in her lungs died to ash and then chilled to icy shards.

All the while, the siren continued to smile and hold Morgan’s gaze. Then, it pulled.

It should have hurt. Somewhere in Morgan’s brain, logic told her that having her core torn free should be agonizing, but as the siren pulled, the rest of the pain gave way to frost. It raced from the crown of her brow down to her toes. Her skin rippled like the water around her. As it flowed over her, the ice changed to numb and the sirens released her. But Morgan didn’t sink, nor did she float. She hovered, moving one powerful limb through the water that hugged it and flowed through it.

Her thoughts were hazy now and she couldn’t remember what she had been quite so desperate about only moments ago. I…have to get to the surface. That was it. She needed to rise in the water until she broke through its skin. That was what she had wanted.

“Why?” The question came again, but this time, Morgan had to think hard about the answer. Why did she need to go to the surface?

Because…because I am drowning.

More laughter bubbled from the siren’s lips and it shook its head. “Are you?”

Of course, she was. Morgan was drowning. That was the only explanation for why she needed to get to the surface. It was why she was in so much pain.

The siren was still staring at her as if it knew something Morgan didn’t, but she couldn’t figure out what. Was she in pain? No. She felt nothing. Nothing but water rippling through her. Was she supposed to be in pain? She glanced up at the siren and hoped it would give her an answer.

The siren’s smile widened. “Are you?” It repeated.

“No.” As Morgan spoke, no bubbles left her lips. She had none left. But there were no more flames in her chest that demanded a breath. She wasn’t drowning. If she was, she would need those bubbles still. Going to the surface seemed like such a silly notion now.

She looked down into the abyss and watched as a corpse began to sink deeper into the inky darkness. Its legs and arms were limp and its pretty strands of hair looked like drizzles of honey that reached up towards her as it fell further and further away. That was sad. Some poor soul had found a watery grave and would be forever trapped, forgotten at the bottom of the ocean. It was sad, but it happened. It did not matter, it wasn’t her. She was here, numb and free of pain, and she was not alone or forgotten.

The sirens around her seemed to glow a little brighter now. They pulsed with silvery strands of light. Their features melted into the water until all she could see was a swirl of icy bubbles that flowed into one another. The only one still whole was the siren still hovering in front of her. The siren smiled and held out her hand. “Come,” she urged.

Morgan smiled back and took her offered hand. Once she did, she watched the siren dissolve into the same bubbles that had overtaken all the others. The shimmering orbs spread through Morgan’s fingers and up her arm until her body felt as light and flowy as the water itself.

Her new friend tugged on her and the youngest of the sirens followed the pull. Her mind and body spread everywhere, tumbling with the others, and twisting through the currents. Her lips parted as she joined the song that rose once more. She could no longer remember why she had been so desperate to leave. She had been alone before, but now she was part of many. Part of something better. Her voice rose higher with the others and a rush of power and freedom grew within her as she sand. The ocean was theirs and all of them swam together, as a glossy, free-flowing jumble of salt and sea.