What Water Summons - BellaEX, Sirens

Prologue

~ Authors Note ~
There is a Mature rating on this book as well as content warnings that will be listed at the top of all chapter screens. If you ever find yourself uncomfortable to read any content with the listed triggering topics then please do not feel obligated to. Please do not critique or discriminate against any of the mature subjects when they have clearly been tagged and you have been forewarned.
Please enjoy "What Water Summons"
Viewer discretion is advised.

Content Warning: Mentions of, bodily harm, injury/body horror, gore, and non-consensual contact.

"And the soft song continued and the sailor was led away..." A woman with sun-kissed hair stroked her daughters cheek with a delicate finger. Finishing her story, the child smiled. "Lovely, mother that was lovely. Tomorrow can you tell me another bedtime story about the mermaids?"

"Yes, but remember dear. They are not mermaids... they are Sirens."

On the other side of the quaint town, a man rocks solemnly back and forth staring out at the view. The vibrant sun settling itself over the oceanic horizon. He is alone, grieving: for he has given up this fight and the disease he caries shall prevent his life from continuing in two weeks time.

The chair creaks as he sighs on his porch, nothing to live for, and his families disappointment that death shall come due to his illness. That is when he hears it, a song: rhythmic like the tide crashing beside his abode. Rising and soft like silk but in words he could not understand. The sound beckoning his weakening body to greet the waters.

He stands, slowly treading over the white sand toward the rocks, where in between... she lies. A being of dreams, long chestnut hair waving weightlessly, sparkling eyes aquamarine like the sea. Her voice: just as her victim is imagining, something of heaven. Her shimmering tail was large and lofted the sand under the tide. Hidden from view, the gorgeous complexion of a pale scaled siren went singing to the man.

Elderly ankles now deep in sand as the water flooded up his robe. She led the water forth, as it pressed his chest and he bent back under the water. Peacefully resting his form beneath the waves as it filled his lungs. A calm drowning, and he accepted this fate, for she killed him with no ill intent. She kept him there before the sloshing liquids took his body, and she placed a cold kiss on his forehead as he drifted away.

"He had nothing else to live for..." a voice that cooed like a dove escaped her, and with that the siren swam away.

Her name: Cuimhne, meaning memory in Irish, had been a silent and lighthearted creature that only believed in fairness and would only drown one if this one question was answered positively. Not, "why should they die?" but rather... "what if they lived?" and if nothing good came to them in this life she would end their suffering.

She disappeared back beneath the surface into the empty void of moist darkness. It consumed her always until she heard the call of a broken heart to which she would respond. With that Cuimhne ended her rouse in solitude and her song became quieted further by sleep and the ruckus of shore.

Across that country, a man stood passing. His boots hitting heavily on the dock, barely in full attention to the currents moving around the posts holding him up. Shrouding themselves underneath the surface: a red haired predator was snaking up the planks. Their yellow eyes fixing in on their victim who was unaware to the risk of being out after hours.

A long, slender arm reached up and placed a strange golden box on the edge of the bow. The small box began to echo a small tinkle of notes, the music suddenly catching the sailor's attention.

He neared the side of the boat glancing out into the waters when a song captured his ears and this man was instantly compelled to the wet surface. He plunged face first into the depths only then could he see the fixed, glowing irises and body of his attacker.