Secret siren

The hands of sorrow

(Saturday)
Amanda's POV

Once she came home soaking wet she didn't leave her room at all for the rest of the day. After about a minute when she came home I realized something, oh no. I gathered up the courage and managed to go inside her room, I couldn't see her immediately but I eventually found her next to her bed with her eyes buried into her knees in the space where a table was supposed to be next to the wall. "Go away" I heard her say under her breath but I tried my best to comfort her "my dear Sammy, what's wrong?", "Didn't you hear me? I said GO AWAY!" She yelled swatting my hand away. I backed away as she put her face back into her knees, I then looked at her bed and saw a book laying open and turned upside down. I picked up the book and went to the page it was left on, it was turned to the page about sirens. After about 4 seconds, something came out of her that wasn't a warning "I'm a siren, aren't I?".

"Samantha Bloom! What we're my rules?!", "It wasn't my fault! I was pushed into the ocean!" She said finnaly getting up "why didn't you tell me?!" She demanded with the most terrifying tone in her voice. "Sam... I ... Uh?" I tried to think of something but I couldn't think of anything "what was one of the other rules?! Oh right! I must not tell lies!". I didn't know what to say at a time like this, how could I explain everything to her when she yells everything as a response?. "S.... Sammy.. I", "don't Sammy me! You know what you did!" She yelled slowly walking twords me. I didn't know what to do at a time like this so my instincts told me to back away.

"Let's go down the list!: You kept me from doing the things I love even though I was completely capable of doing it!, You lied to me for 16 years!, and you made it seem like there was nothing special about me! Well newsflash! I'm not normal. So do yourself a favor and FUCK OFF!". I didn't realize that she was leading me out the door because once I was a foot away from her room: she slammed the door so hard that the neighbors probably heard it. What have I done?

Elijah's POV

I've been getting really worried about Sam. Ever sense the incident at the beach: she didn't speak to us at all, the only things we were able to get out of her were threats.

Flashback to group chat from earlier today

Elijah: you guys hear anything from Sam?

Bridget: no, I texted her like 20 times

Kylie: same, the only responses I got were either "stop texting me" or "leave me alone"

Bridget: you get anything out of her?

Elijah: I texted her a bunch of times, but I only got 1 response

Kylie: what'd it say?

Elijah: "I'm sorry, but I don't want to talk right now"

Kylie: although I am an obsessed fangirl, this is not the time to make shipping jokes

Flashback over

I've been pacing around my room for hours thinking about what to do at a time like this. I can't just tell Sam that what she saw at the beach was an illusion, I saw it, I saw her tail, she's a siren to. After some time; I decided that I needed to explain all of this to her face-to-face. I put on some fresh clothes, told my parents that I would be going to a friend's, got on my motorcycle, and drove to her house. She was surprisingly only 1 block away so I got there in a minute, I nervously stood there in front of the house until I was able to build up my courage and knock the door. After about 15 seconds a sweet old lady answered the door "good evening ma'am, I'm Elijah Parker one of Samantha's friends" I explained holding out my hand. "Nice to meet you Elijah, I'm Sam's grandma, but you can call me Amanda" she grabbed my hand and shook it before she tried giving me a smile but when I saw her heart, I glowed a deep blue: the color of sadness. "Yeah, speaking of Samantha, is she ok? Me and the rest of her friends are getting really worried" when I mentioned the last part she shifted her eyes to the side and looked like she was about to cry, after a minute she finally managed to utter something "would you like to come inside?".

I casually followed her inside where she offered me a seat at the dining table, made 2 cups of tea and gave one to me before I thanked her. After about a minute of sitting in silence I finally managed to say something.

"Why didn't you tell her?"

"I ... Uhhh?.. it's" she tried to utter something but when I saw the color her heart was, I had to interfere. "Don't lie", "umm........ *Sigh* I just didn't want to lose her" she finally managed to say something without stuttering but I was still confused. "what do you mean?", "Well, mainly 2 reasons" she answered my question before she was able to talk without a pause. "If I let her go out to the ocean every day, I was afraid that she could've been caught by the siren hunters" she sighed looking down at her cup. The siren hunters were evil people who went out of their way to kill us sirens, mainly because they wanted to avenge the ones that we killed, but sirens only kill the ones who DESERVE to be killed. "What's the other reason?" I asked but the face she gave off made me wish that I didn't, she looked like she just received a knife to the heart and a waterfall of tears started to form on her face.

"I......I didn't want to give up my last chance", " last chance of what?" I asked after she muttered a small sentence still with tears streaming down her face. "Back then I had a son" she said with another tear falling out of her eye, I began to listen carefully as she began to explain her past. "His name was Josh, even though he was young, he knew quite a bit of stuff. When my husband died before his 8th birthday, we were saddened for quite a while but over time he learned to get over it, and he helped me too". She explained and smiled at the last part, so I decided to Pat her hand and say "sounds like a good boy". "Oh he was, but........ one day... At the beach" a sad tone began to seep into her voice as she looked down with the waterfall of tears forming in her eyes again.

"What happened?

Amanda's brain

(Flashback to when she was 34)

"Mommy mommy! Come look at what I found!" I saw my dark haired son run up to me with a conch shell in his hands. "That's really pretty! Do you want to keep it?" I asked but he just shook his head and said "nah, I'll put it back in the ocean!". "Why would you want to?" I asked and he responded in his happily bubbly way "it was meant to be in the ocean, so snails and other sea creatures could use it!" He said as he ran off back to the ocean. I always respected my son's decisions, and he sometimes made very reasonable points. When he was about 2 yards away from me, that's when I decided to get up and help him once he got into the water.

When I got into the water he was still 2 yards away from me. All the time I would insist him to wear floaties but he always rejected, was a good swimmer anyway but I'm still a paranoid mother. I saw him swim underwater and gently place the shell in the sand while he was still about 2 yards away. When I looked in the water slowly coming twords us was a dark figure that looked like someone underwater but it looked like they didn't have any legs. "The shell's back in the ocean mommy! The shell's back where it--" all of a sudden, the dark figure grabbed Josh by the arm, pulled him under, and began swimming off.... Without going up for air. "JOSH!" I screamed and dove right into the water. I could see the figure still swimming off while Josh was holding in as much air as possible while furiously kicking at the figure to make the person let go, but nope, that person had an iron grip and refused to let him go. I managed to catch up with the figure and attempt to pull my son free. Then the figure turned around and I saw what had to be the most terrifying woman I've ever seen. She had long seaweed green hair, soul-piercing green eyes, long nails that looked like claws, and her legs were replaced with the tail of a largemouth bass. As soon as she turned around she pulled her arm back and pushed it forwards to where I was. I thought nothing was going to happen but it felt as if the water was pushing me farther away from them. I saw them in the distance and I knew I couldn't catch up to them in time so I began to swim up to the surface. "Someone please help! Something took my son!" I screamed once I got up to the surface and immediately 3 lifeguards came rushing into the water. I swam myself to shore and waited for the lifeguards to come back, but I ended up waiting for over 10 minutes. The lifeguards finnaly came back, but..... "ma'am, we searched the entire ocean but we couldn't find your son, I'm terribly sorry"

Elijah's POV

I looked at her with pure confusion as the waterfall of tears again streamed down her face. Then she finally said something.
.
.
"I lost my son to a siren"