The Siren's Song

Chapter 25- will the pain ever leave me?

(Y/N) POV:

I stare blankly at my bedroom door, eyes unfocused as I continue to mindlessly look at the wood, at the handle, the lock, the hook hanging on it. Just at it. There's a weariness that weighs down on me, an exhaustion that's sunk heavily into my bones and a burden that causes my shoulders to crumble and my barriers to disintegrate, just as if they've been washed away in a giant powerful wave.

I can't sleep even if my eyelids are heavy weights threatening to shut out the sight of my room. Can't sleep and won't sleep. Because I know how bad the nightmares will get. Know exactly how petrifying and crippling it is to be lost in sleep and unable to awaken- forced to relive the memories, rewatch the scene and recall the way bodies had sunk under the water's surface. I can't do it.

I'm scared to give into my fatigue, a tiredness that penetrates my soul and weakens it more.

But I just can't, I'm scared of closing my eyes.

There's a gentle knocking at the door before the object of my focus is drawn open to reveal two equally drained and exhausted faces, to see Habaek oppa and Mi-sun unnie look at me with similar expressions, and they try to dredge smiles onto their faces but they slip off and silently they just enter, sliding under my blankets on either side of me as they sit next to me, shoulders brushing mine.

There's a different sort of comfort in this, a grounding force the two hold without even trying. The feel of their warmth and their very much live bodies on either side of mine gives me a reassurance that nothing else can, gives me two pillars of support I can lean on without coming crashing down.

There's nothing that's said as we seek out comfort from each other, eyes falling to the way the blankets cover our laps but even so I feel their hands reach out to take either of my hands in theirs, holding me to give comfort in the same levels and measures that it gives them comfort too.

I don't know how long passes; don't know how long we sit there holding each other- waiting and willing and praying for the numbness to fade but suddenly the silence is broken by a monotone voice.

"I really thought I was going to lose you yesterday; I thought the Ocean was going to take you away without giving us a chance to beg Her and we'd be left incomplete." Habaek oppa says without turning, the three of us facing the wall that had slowly began to become decorated with photos, more memories created in our time here.

"I thought so too." I mumble, peeling back stiff and frozen lips to say those few words, to hear the way they come out hoarse and broken and shattered- gruff and scratchy.

"I hate Her. I hate Her so much." Mi-sun unnie says, voice low for all the resentment and bitterness I feel behind those sentences.

I don't say anything, don't turn to face her and see the look of stone on her face, the blankness aside from her expressive eyes.

"I hate Her for making us sirens. I hate Her for Her twisted ways of justifying it. I hate Her for the way She always reverses it onto us. I hate Her for the way She holds all the power. I hate Her so much." She mutters, voice becoming more and more pained, more agitated, and frustrated, rising with volume and then she breaks off, voice wavering and thick with tears, tears that pour down with heart-breaking cries.

I turn to her, the frozen stiffness in me thawed by how hurt and broken she sounds, how much she's hurting- alongside me, alongside Habaek oppa and alongside the other sirens too.

Tears are brimming over and coursing down quickly over her cheeks, absorbed by the soft material of her shirt.

It makes my heart ache with a pain so deep it feels like I'm being torn open, left raw and vulnerable and hurting.