Sounds of a Siren

The Truth

V. The Truth

I woke up on shore with my clothes back on and my hands frozen together in a block of ice. I squirmed and struggled to move, but the ice was too heavy for me to move at all. I looked around only to find Phoebe standing in front of me with her clothes back on. "HELP!" I cried. "HELP!" "Hush! Hush! It's me! It's still me," she said with a failing attempt to calm me down. "Get away from me! HELP!" "You know, if I wanted to kill you, I would have let you drown." After one and a half years of dating, I could tell when she was lying, and this time, she wasn't lying. "Then why are my hands frozen together? How are my hands frozen together!?!"

"If I didn't, you would have run away. I need you to stay and listen to me. I have to get you to understand that I'm still me." "You don't know that I would have run away," I said. She just looked at me. I didn't even think I sounded convincing. "Okay, but that still doesn't explain how you did this. Is this one of your mermaid powers?" She came close to me, squatted down, and looked me dead in the eye. She looked offended. "The politically correct term is siren." She rolled her eyes and stood up. "And if that's what you want to call it, then sure, that's part of my 'mermaid powers,' Along with some other stuff." "Could you let me out of here. I'm cold and I'm getting cramps."

"You promise you won't run."

"I promise." She clinched her right hand into a fist and kept it by her side. As she focused in on the ice, it started to melt. When the ice was fully melted, I picked my hands up from behind me and looked at them. They had turned red from the chill of the ice. "Thanks," I said. I got up and looked at her for a second and took off running down the beach. Phoebe grunted. She waved her hand and pointed it toward the ocean. Water began to rise up from the sea, and then she waved her hand toward me. The water began to chase after me, but it began to fall on its way. I just knew it wouldn't catch me. The water hit my feet, and I just stopped and laughed. "You missed!" I yelled back. "I wasn't aiming for you," she said with a smile on her face. She waved her hand and the water began to rise above my feet. It stopped at my ankles, and froze. I tried to move, but just like before, it wouldn't budge. Not again, I thought. I put my hands in my pockets and sighed.

Phoebe walked over to me and just looked me in the eye. "Would you just listen? I'm trying to talk to you."

"What are you?" I said. She sighed, trying to think of a way to explain herself.

"Remember those Greek myths that you learned about back in grade school?" I nodded my head. "Well... they're not really myths-most of them anyway. They were greatly over exaggerated. Like the stuff about the Greek gods, not real. Everything else, pretty much true. I would be a siren, not a mermaid"

"How did you get like this?"

"I was born like this. It runs in the family."

"Wait... you mean, The Professor?"

"Not exactly. He's what you would call a merman."

"What's the difference?"

"Sirens are mermaids that have a special gift. Very few mermaids are born with this gift."

"Are there others?"

"They're all over the place. They mostly inhabit Greece."

"Why Greece?"

She sighed. "It's... complicated..."

"I got time. It's not like I can go anywhere." I said sarcastically, looking down at my feet.

She sighed. "Okay... Atlantis isn't really as lost as people think it is... Yeah, it sunk, but a few of them survived."

"How's that possible?"

"Everyone in the city wasn't vain and greedy. I guess God didn't want everyone to be punished."

"So you're saying... God turned you into... this?"

"Pretty much. I mean... there's some speculation. You can't expect an entire race of people to stay faithful to God, but that's what I believe. It's how I've always believed, even before I knew about my family."

In my constantly failing attempt to try and fathom the idea of mythology and Christianity, I had a thought.

"Wait a sec. You said that you were a siren. If my memory serves me correctly, sirens seduced, hypnotized, and lured sailors to their death with their songs. How do I know that you didn't just trick me into loving you? And if you did, why didn't you just kill me?"

"No! No! That's not what happened. What we have together is real, all of it. It's just another long story."

"I have time." She sighed

"After a few generations, some of the sirens grew evil. No one really knows how or why. They were the ones that killed the sailors, not us. This is one of the reasons that I wasn't supposed to tell you. We figured that if humans knew what we were, they'd all be terrified and run from us, or worse..." Her voice trailed off. Her head dropped and she looked at the ground in sorrow. I looked at her closely again. She still wasn't lying.

"That's what happened to your mother." She nodded, her head still hanging. "Phoebe, what happened to the evil sirens? I mean, you can't have two groups of people with two completely different morals and expect them two live together in peace."

"We've been at war for generations."

"Where is the war taking place? You can't have a battle without a battlefield."

"It's in Atlantis. That's where everyone lives. The center of the colony is is now the battlefield. It used to be the town coliseum, but it's been turned into a war zone."

"And where exactly is Atlantis."

"Er... uh... I don't know." I looked at her closely.

"You've always been terrible at lying."

"I'm not supposed to tell you. I wasn't even supposed to tell you what I am, but this is way too much information."

"You've trusted me with this much information. Why can't I just get one more piece?"

"Fine." She looked aggravated. "You know how ships are always disappearing in the Bermuda Triangle?" I nodded. "Well... it's kinda' because of the sirens. They start to sing and everyone on board is either drowned and killed, or forced into the army that protects the sirens from other sailors. The ships eventually sink to the bottom of the ocean." Awkward silence. I couldn't say anything. I was too astounded. "So you're telling me... that the City of Atlantis... is in the Bermuda Triangle?"

"Yeah." She looked and sounded worried. "I can't believe it. All of these years spent searching for the Lost City, and it's been under our noses the entire time. Could you please melt my feet?" She looked at me closely, the same way I do her. "You swear you won't run?" "I swear." I said. Just as she did before, she clenched her fist and concentrated on the ice. When the ice had completely melted, I said "Thank you," and, like before, everything that Phoebe told me hit me at once. I fainted again...

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A/N - In NO WAY am I trying to say anything about Christianity. I am a Christian myself. Please don't take this too seriously. It's just a story. I wanted to figure out a way to have these characters to be what they are and still be Christians. Again, PLEASE don't take this too seriously...