DEEP END // Harry Styles

Daughter of the Sea

Leave your comments and let me know what you think about this first chapter :)

.

The ocean. Deep, dark and scary. Humans could brag about their conquers, wars and invasions on their precious land, but they would forever be afraid of the ocean. They were not designed to live underwater. Most often, even a few inches of deep water was enough to drown and kill even a healthy adult human being. Despite how superior or civilised humans prided themselves on being, the ocean would still be their greatest mystery, with death traps and blood-thirsty creatures hidden in the drowning deep.

Ezili had been spying on this ship for days. She had memorised the faces of all the sailors, their routines, the sounds of their footsteps and voices. Today would be a great day, she believed. Dark clouds had gathered over the ship, lighting striking here and there. The water was rough and black, slapping more aggressively against the side of the ship as the wind grew more violent and spiteful. One man on the deck shouted to the other something Ezili could not hear. Ever since humans stopped travelling to sea on wooden ships, the job had become more challenging for her kind. These white ships wouldn't sink. So she'd have to lure them in.

"Have you seen my camera?" asked one man to the other. "I swear to fucking god if you've lost it–"

"I already gave it back to you, Nick."

"No, dickhead. You didn't."

The men stood on the deck, their loose shirts and hair being blown by the strong salty wind. They were easy targets. To be fair, they were all easy targets. It was so fascinating to Ezili that these creatures had the intelligence to build strong ships and tall glass castles, and yet they lacked the wits to survive on their own against mother nature.

Weak. Pathetic.

Ezili swept her long black hair over her shoulders as she slipped off the rock into the water without making a sound. She swam closer to the ship. The men's voices became more audible. They were leaning over the edge of the ship and taking turns looking through the tiny box that they called 'ka-meer-ra'. Ezili had tried to steal the thing this morning when someone left it on the deck, but her arm wasn't long enough to reach for it, and she didn't want to risk being seen. Her sister Koa had called it a 'mermaid' behaviour. It was an insult for a siren to be compared to a mermaid. Mermaids were more fish than flesh, both fish and human without the beauty of neither. Their deep-blue flesh was dotted with fins that spread up their arms and spines, and their mouth was so wide they could swallow a shark. Despite their deadly looks, they were relatively harmless. Unlike sirens, they were fascinated by humans, and often steal things from drowned humans and sunk ships for their collections that they called 'treasures'. Ezili hated how humans would keep mistaken those creatures for sirens. She'd heard a mother on the beach tell the story of 'a little mermaid' to her child. It was sad, really. The way these small-minded creatures portrayed the ocean and twisted the truth.

A splash of water made Ezili flinch and turn around to see a silver tail disappearing into a wave.

"Did you hear that?" asked one of the two men. The other one had disappeared inside the ship.

Heart thundering inside her chest, Ezili opened her mouth and started singing. She was going to wait, but she could not risk getting caught.

The man turned slowly and stared straight at Ezili as she glared up from under the water and continued singing. The wind grew stronger. The ocean started raging. Then a bolt of lightning struck across the black sky, illuminating the man's pale, wide-eyed face for just one second. Ezili continued singing and the man started walking toward the edge of the ship. He leaned over it, looking straight at her unblinkingly. The little box fell out of his hand and into the black water. Ezili swam closer, seeing the reflection of her gleaming sapphire eyes inside his darkened ones. She reached up, hands on his cheeks. She stroked his cold skin tenderly and brought her mouth to his. She kissed him on the lips, then pulled him under.