My Short Stories (+ prompts for you to use!)

Writing Snippet - The Siren

Writing Snippet - The Siren

*the first line is inspired by a prompt by @the-modern-typewriter *

The siren loved listening to him sing. He expected that was the only reason he was still alive.

He thought it ironic that a siren thought his voice was entrancing. A creature built to lure and kill with song. A sharp, beautiful thing, deadlier than anything else in the ocean. Deceptively lovely, yet striking in appearance. No one encountered a siren and lived to tell the tale.

She kept him in an underwater cave, a pocket of air kept secret just for him. He lived, for the time being, on a large, flat rock in the cave that is otherwise flooded with water. His little scar of land, not quite "safe" but free from the cold, drowning hands of the ocean.

Though, the danger of the ocean could not compare to her.

A hum of a song filled the water, a soft buzz that was muffled, and yet clear some how. It became even more so when the siren surfaced, the hum echoing through the air and penetrating every part of the pirate it could reach. The hum was soft enough not to leave him hypnotized and incapacitated, but it was enough to madden him a little. To give him a strong yearning to jump into the water and give himself to her.

She was a flash of scales, seaweed green and dark as the waters she graced, hair an icy blonde curtain of waves. Beautiful, yet pointed, and he was not foolish enough to give in. Though, if she sang out loud in a regular voice, he would have no choice. He would be as good as as a bird in a cage and he wouldn't even have the sense to care: The intoxicating song of a siren.

He was horribly aware of this fact, that she merely needed to open her mouth and it was over. She reminded him of this constantly, with a tease of a melody hummed beneath her breath every time she visited him.

It didn't help that this time, he was starving of hunger and thirst, and could almost be convinced to surrender to her sweet, painless death. But it wasn't up to him, and at that, she didn't even need her voice to kill. Sirens were strong. Clawed. Carnivorous.

He watched her breathlessly as she pulled herself onto the edge of the rock and caressed his jaw. "Good evening, my beautiful captain." Even her speaking voice was an entrancing thing, a sort of song of its own.

He swallowed, the action scraping at his dry throat. The siren flashed him a smile. "I brought you something." She held up a water canteen and waved it gracefully in front of him.

Almost forgetting his place relative to the creature in front of him, he lunged for the canteen in a panicked stumble. It was snatched out of his reach, followed by a sweet laugh.

"No, no, Captain. You will get your treat after you sing for me. Something new, please," she purred, tracing a claw over that delicate, beautiful throat of his.

His breathing hitched at her touch. "As you wish," he said, voice hoarse with dry rawness.

Despite this, he sang. By now, he had sung her just about every song he knew: she always asked for something different, a melody she had never heard before, and he feared this was his last.

The siren smiled at him as he finished and offered him the canteen. He took it, gulping it down greedily. "Careful, Captain," she says, stroking his side now, "drinking too fast could make you sick. Take sips."

He pulled the bottle from his lips, eyeing her cautiously before sipping more water, using all the self control he could muster to not finish it all in one swallow.

"Good," the siren praised, drawing him closer to her.

He stared at her. "Can...," he rasped, "may I ask you something?"