A Mermaid for the Lonely

𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝑀𝒶𝓃'𝓈 𝒮𝑜𝓇𝓇𝑜𝓌

The shore was quiet, save for the sound of the waves lapping at the rocks, and the soft rustling of wind through the cliffs above. Sirène watched the man with unblinking eyes, studying him as he sat on the wet sand, his expression distant, his body slumped as though the weight of the world rested upon his shoulders.

His words echoed in her mind: "I wanted to be with her."

A part of her wanted to ask more, to pull at the threads of his sorrow and understand it. But she did not know how. The emotions he spoke of—the pain, the longing—they were things she had observed from afar, but never felt herself. They fascinated her, these human emotions. They drove people to madness, to passion, to despair. But they were also something foreign, intangible, something she could never fully grasp.

He spoke again, pulling her from her thoughts. "She died... in the sea. Like this. Like me." His voice was hollow, as though he had repeated the same story a thousand times, yet it still carved at his soul.

Sirène moved closer, just enough so that the water swirled around her waist. "Who was she?" she asked, her tone devoid of judgment but filled with a quiet curiosity.

The man didn't look at her, his eyes fixed on the horizon where the sky met the water. "She was everything," he murmured, his voice cracking at the edges. "The only thing that mattered. We were going to leave, go far from here. But the sea took her from me."

Sirène felt a strange pull, like a distant echo of something. "And you... wanted to join her?"

His eyes flickered toward her, the first hint of emotion since he had woken. Anger, grief—they both seemed to simmer beneath the surface. "What else is there?" he whispered harshly. "What is life without her?"

Sirène was silent. She had no answer for him, no comfort to offer. Life, for her, was duty, nothing more. But the depth of his sorrow intrigued her in ways she couldn't explain. She moved even closer, her presence like a shadow in the corner of his eye.

He continued, his voice growing softer. "I've been living on borrowed time ever since. Her memory haunts me, but I can't find her, not in dreams, not in life. I thought... maybe in death."

He looked at her then, really looked at her, as if seeing her for the first time. "But you stopped me."

Sirène's silver eyes met his hazel-green gaze, and for a moment, there was nothing but the sound of the ocean between them. She saw something in his eyes she couldn't name, something more than pain. It was as if the man before her was no longer tethered to the world, his soul adrift like the very ghosts she was meant to guide.

"I thought I was saving you," she said softly.

He laughed, a bitter sound, shaking his head. "You can't save someone who's already lost."

Sirène didn't understand. She wasn't supposed to understand. But for some reason, she wanted to try. She didn't know why she had saved him, why she had broken her own rules, but the weight of his grief pulled at her like a tide. And somewhere deep within, something began to stir, something that had never stirred before.

The man turned back to the sea, his voice barely audible above the wind. "I wish you had let me go."

Sirène said nothing. She simply stayed by his side, the silence between them thick with unspoken thoughts, and the waves of the sea rolling in, carrying the echoes of his sorrow.