Goodnight Sweet Princess

The Song of the Siren

Walking along the path on the boundary between living and dreaming is just the same as walking into an endless fog.

A girl awoke in the cold darkness. She felt herself float within it, as if being swayed by the currents. All around her the cold swirled void and darkness. It was swirling, but it was also still. It moved in and out, up and down, clockwise and counter-clockwise, but it was also still.

Somewhere in the swirls and stillness, she saw a faint glow. She glided towards it, got closer and closer. The cold swept past her as she twirled through the dark.

There was an orb of full light, a fluorescent cyan. The orb floated towards her, but right before she could catch it in her hands, it went right through her chest. She felt an electrifying warmth surge through her entire body. Slowly, her short hair began to glow. The glow settled at the lower half of her hair, giving her an ombre. Her dress began glowing the same fluorescent hue. It glowed such that she could still see but barely her own body.

A force pushed her upward out of the abyss, bubbles hurrying past her. She exited the darkness through a crack, taking her to a brighter area of the ocean. The vast deep blues welcomed her as she adjusted her eyes to take in her surroundings. Nothing but dark blue saltwater stretched into the horizon. Below her, dunes of white sand gave the ocean floor texture. A thin jagged line running across its surface.

She glided forward, as if the nothingness of the ocean beckoned for her to come closer. Soon, the ocean desert began to slope upward. She stopped. A forest of tall kelp was before her. It was dark inside. Without a second thought, she walked in.

The darkness of the forest didn't scare her. Compared to the darkness she woke up in, the dimly lit forest was not terrifying at all. In fact, the moment she stepped in, her dress and hair illuminated her immediate surroundings.

She wandered quietly through the kelp. The silence was still like the unswaying forest, except for the faint muffled sounds of crickets chirping in the water. It was much colder than outside, almost freezing, but it did not bother her.

After a while, a small school of bioluminescent fish swam from behind her. She followed them to wherever they were headed, which were both somewhere and nowhere.

One fish broke off from the school and swam towards her. It was small and could easily fit in the palm of her hand. The fish blew a tiny bubble from its little mouth to say hello. It rubbed itself along her arm like a cat, its slippery scales and satin fins warm against her skin, before returning to its school.

The girl continued go follow them until they reached a clearing in the forest. Several blue dots winked and twinkled against the darkness of the forest, like stars on a moonless night.

The lights began to glide towards her, enclosing her in a whirlpool of swirling blue. The currents moved swiftly around her, knocking bubbles out of her lungs.

When the swirling stopped and the lights dissipated, she found herself again in the open ocean, but it was brighter. Rays of light poured down from the surface. She swam up, hoping to see what was beyond the surface.

More blue. But there were whites and yellows. She gazed at the sky in awe, the wind blowing her hair in every direction. In the distance, a large ship was sailing.

But as soon as she spotted the ship, a loud wailing-like singing echoed through the sky. It sounded like roses and caramel, but with its enchanting sweet melody swayed centuries of agony and of loss.

The white clouds gathered round. The wind whistled hard to the song. The waves began to feel restless. Tears fell from above as choruses of countless sobbing fell with it.