Stone Walls Short Stories

The Siren's Song

The salt water stung on Emmanuel's chapped lips. The sun hung high in the sky, and he could feel the danger lurking in the waters beneath the unsteady beams of his raft. A slight fear swirled low in his guts. If he focused on it he could feel how it swirled in the same pattern as the shadows in the water.

His tongue felt like a cork, dry and rough. He wondered if he could ever get it unstuck from the roof of his mouth. His vision blurred, but with nothing but the seas surrounding him, he felt like that didn't matter anymore, anyway.

Drinking the salty ocean water was becoming increasingly inviting. Slowly, he gripped the edge of the raft and leaned his head over the edge. Just as he was about to touch his mouth to the waves, he saw something.

An unfamiliar face that decidedly wasn't his own reflection stared back at him. He shrieked and toppled backwards, the beams of the raft sharply digging into his back.

"What on the seven seas," he gasped, trying to calm his erratic breath. He watched in horror as long, slender fingers wrapped around the edge of the raft. Slowly, dark hair and dark eyes rose from the water, and two arms came to rest upon the edge of Emmanuel's makeshift float.

"Hi there," the girl spoke. Her voice sounded like shells rolling in the tide. Emmanuel just stared.

"No need to be afraid," she smiled, giving him doe eyes. "I was just going out for a swim." Droplets of water shimmered like rhinestones on her brown skin. She laughed like chimes in the wind.

Emmanuel used all his strength to separate his tongue from his palate so he could speak, "What do you mean, a swim? There's no land around for as far as the eye can see."

"Don't you worry about that, silly." She smiled, a long slender finger coming up to poke in the direction of Emmanuel's nose. He recoiled, even though she couldn't nearly reach him.

"Your own situation seems to be much more dire," she sighed.

The deep intake of air pushed her chest against the beams, and Emmanuel involuntarily felt his gaze fall upon the swell of her breasts that peaked above the raft's edge. A droplet of water travelled from the tendons of her neck down to her cleavage, and Emmanuel felt how his tongue once again fused with his palate. His eyes quickly snapped back up to the girl's face, but her features seemed to have darkened.

"Let me sing you a song," she said, and Emmanuel heard the unspoken command.

Her voice sounded like the silence before a storm: hauntingly peaceful. The more she sang, the more her skin seemed to glow, but her eyes darkened.

Emmanuel felt his heart speed up as something pulled in his guts. A mix of awe and fear swirled in his chest when their eyes locked. She held his gaze, but the longer it lasted the more visibly upset she got.

"Why don't you come here?" She breathed, almost inaudibly.

Emmanuel heard it anyway and he huffed. "Listen, I know it doesn't show by the looks of this dire situation, but I'm not stupid."

She looked at him quizzically.

"You're not out for a swim," he scoffed. "I know what you are. I know my days are counted on this raft, but I'm not going to end up as fish food."

She growled at his disdainful tone, and he could see sharp fangs raise in the back of her mouth. He was so right. She was a siren. Beautiful but deadly, too.

"It doesn't matter what you know," she growled. "Men like you can not ever resist."

"You haven't ever met a man like me," Emmanuel grinned.