Writing Prompts I Found

8: Sirens

I stared out at the sea, my mind blank with shock. I saw no one, but the song... The song. I knew this song. It filled my chest with warmth, my skin warming at the memory of arms wrapped around me as the music covered me like a blanket. Even now my eyes instinctively became a tad heavy, wanting to curl up and lay on the deck of my ship. Was that normal?

"Let the sway of my voice,

Sway your heart,

Into the warmth of my arms..."

Her voice singing the lyrics run clear, as well as other voices joining in in a breathtaking harmony. I leaned out, staring blankly at the sea as a sudden figure appeared from under the waves.

"M... Mom..." I muttered, watching as the sea rose her and allowed her to gently caress my cheek with the back of her hand. "But... You're dead... L-Lost at sea, they said..."

"Oh, my dear..." She murmured, eyes... So sad.

I couldn't tell if I was seeing a ghost. I had to be. My mother disappeared when I was twelve years old, having gone to the shore without me for the first time in my life and never came back. I was orphaned, yet I never ended up losing that love for the ocean my mother had instilled in me since before I could walk.

This woman had to be a ghost. But I've heard stories of spirits. They were miserable creatures, unable to pass into the afterlife and constantly moaning, grasping for another soul to join them in their cold loneliness. This woman was nothing like that. She was warm and smelled like the ocean winds, just like I remembered. She was so insanely real.

"I should explain..." She said softly, pulling herself onto the deck. The water released her easily, feet that probably shouldn't be there touched the wood as she stood in front of me, looking the same as she did the day she kissed my face and left our home for the last time.

That night we sat there. She took both my hands into her own and told me a story. A story that took place twenty-four years ago. About a siren that went hunting with her siblings. Together, they lured sailors of a large ship into the deep depths, which ended in the ship running into the land, killing many. Bodies were flung from the vessel. The siren and her siblings traveled to the land to collect the bodies and bring them back to their people.

The siren swam to the shore, quickly hearing a sound from the ship. Curiosity overpowering her hunger, she traveled into the depths to find the rooms clearly meant for passengers at the bottom. Inside one was the source of the noise.

A woman laid on the floor, the room utterly destroyed from the previous rocking of the boat and then crash. But that wasn't what the siren was concerned about. It was the flailing, wailing infant kept swaddled into a well-built cradle that was expertly nailed to the floor. The baby was the only survivor.

The siren was stricken by the infant. The baby had a shock of midnight hair and the eyes bluer than the sea itself. The siren was young, in siren standards, too young to be a mother, but maternal instincts were a powerful thing.

The siren took in the baby, cradling them close. Despite the woman being wet from the water, the baby seemed simply soothed by the contact. She then lifted the mother as well and left the ship. Despite her siblings urging her to drown the baby, she lied and claimed she wanted to keep both mother and child to feast on for herself since she'd been the one to find them. Yet while the others were distracted, she placed the infant on a thick and broken board of wood from the ship and had it float next to her as she swam all three of them to a nearby, civilized island.

The siren was ready to hand the baby over to the kind people who saw them all as survivors from a shipwreck, and truthfully say the baby wasn't hers, but she couldn't. The baby had gripped tightly on her fingers the whole swim, large eyes staring at her with wonder and awe. And when she'd went to hand the baby over, they immediately began to fuss.

"Yes... They're my baby..." The siren finally said, rocking the child to end its fussing. "I call them Dylan."

And her baby Dylan was. And her baby they stayed. Although she longed for her family, a sudden, fierce love for sweet Dylan kept her on land. When Dylan was only a year old, she tried to return with the baby, but nearly drowned the poor thing. Since then, she never let Dylan in the ocean. Only allowed them to watch from her arms, where they were safe.

Still, the siren was just that, a siren. She'd sit at the shore with Dylan in her arms, singing the songs that she used to use to harm instead of soothe, like she was now.

"Let the sway of my voice,

Sway your heart,

Into the warmth of my arms..."

For years she took that child down to that shore, sing, and wish she could bring her beloved child with her to their home. After twelve years, she noticed the time on dry air weighing on her. Her skin broke out in rashes and her breathing sometimes cracked and wheezed. She only ate fish, which wasn't doing good for her body that was already failing. So, finally, she couldn't bear the thought of dying and permanently abandoning her child, so she decided she needed to leave long enough to become well again so she could return again. Turns out her body needed to recover from twelve years on dry land with another twelve years.

After the story ended, my eyes burned with tears and my head swarmed with pain and confusion. Still, she kissed my forehead, held me close, and whispered apologies and soft words of love. Then, we both turned and began rocking back and forth, as she started to sing like she did all those years ago.

"The sway of the waves...

The sway of the wind...

Calls to you, in charm.

Let the sway of my voice,

Gently way your heart,

Into the warmth of my arms..."

Just as I wanted to the moment I heard the song earlier, I shut my eyes and let my mind fade to sleep. I woke up in my bed, still on my boat. It was unharmed and sailing back towards the port of my home. I stepped back out to the deck of my ship, leaning over and seeing a small message carved into the wood.

'I love you, Dylan, my child of the sea.'