Written by Arya Duta
Oh voice so soft as silk,
bleed no more...
whispers in the breeze,
give back the heart you once tore.
Tears as cold as stone,
a curse sealed with a kiss...
fire raging hatred
take something you’ll never miss
As if floating with the tides, the song washed over the night, enchanting all who dared
listen to it. Sauna flipped her dripping dark hair back and dove into the ocean, letting her song
echo throughout the dark. The salty water was warm compared to the cold, stinging air up
above. She had no idea how those humans could survive up there, in the blinding light and
harmful rays of the sun. The comforting dark of the ocean was obviously better. This was why
they only came out at night.
Sauna swam deeper, deeper, deeper. The water pressure soon started to build up. It
didn’t bother her though. Mermaids were born with strong bones.
Sauna loved nothing more than to be feared by those petty humans. Their painful
screams, the taste of their blood, it was the things she loved most, as any other mermaid would.
They believe that we are flesh eating monsters, which we are. They believe we are hideous,
evil, and bloodthirsty, which we are. They also believe that our beautiful voices and enchanting
songs can be deadly, which it can be.
As Sauna swam deeper into the ocean, she could smell a sorry excuse for blood. She
looked down, and spotted deathly pale, wrinkling human bodies wrapped in seaweed. There
were so many tangled bodies, she couldn’t count them all. Kind of like stars. So many of them
spotting the sky, it was impossible to count them all. The bodies were swaying lifelessly with the
water. This was her dinner, which she absolutely abhorred. Sauna prefered fresh meat, and
some of these humans have been floating around so long, they look like skeletons... almost like
us. Cautiously, Sauna tried biting into one of the older, rotten bodies.
“AAK!”
Rotten blood slowly oozed out of the bite, and out of Sauna’s disgusted mouth- no
longer red, as it once used to be, and how human blood should have looked. Sauna tried to
refrain from throwing up.
The old blood licked at the water. Despite the beauty of the elegant swirls, the odor was
horrible. At least now she knew the scent wouldn’t attract sharks. Sauna was tired of eating
rotten meat. She wanted to hunt on her own, but she couldn’t do that until she had mastered a
song so powerful, it would make her appearance quite beautiful to the human eye. Only a being
with mermaid blood could see her as she was then, during the spell. It was a pity though.
Learning such enhancements could take years to master, and Sauna could eat expired bodies
for only so long.
Sauna was already a century old, still quite young, and every night she tried, the song
she had made up wouldn’t work. Her spell’s lyrics were gibberish, but it was the tune, and how
she sang it that made the magic work. Her spell was meant to bring humans to the ocean while
they were asleep. This spell only affected special people, and those special people could only
hear her song. These people would walk towards the singer, but would still be sleeping. The
humans referred to this as, “sleep walking”. Of course, the spell wouldn’t always work.
Sometimes, the human would “sleep walk”, but they would just wander around, they wouldn’t
follow the mermaid’s voice.
Sauna looked at the lifeless bodies around her, in hope of finding a body more fresh.
Then, she identified a little child’s body swaying with the water, and she looked very, very ripe,
as if she had just been brought down. As Sauna swam closer, she noticed that the little girl was
swaying very aggressively. She only had seaweed wrapped around one of her feet. She was-
she was still alive! And she was trying to escape.
No.
This could be Sauna’s first fresh human she had ever eaten in four decades, so she wasn’t
going to let that pathetic brat slip through her fins- not that she would be able to swim all the
way back to the surface.
Actually, an Sauna swam closer to the her, not caring if she was seen by the frightened
girl, she wondered how it was possible, her surviving under the bone-crushing water pressure.
And how could the girl hold her breath for so long?
Sauna decided she didn’t care. All she wanted was that delicious, mouth watering-
Huh?
A different mermaid had swept down, and untangled the girl.
Damn it! Sauna though, frustrated. Another mermaid had beaten her to it...
Sauna was about to swim away bitterly when she realized that the mermaid was merely untangling
the girl to eat her - rather, she was letting the girl free.
She was dismayed by this. Really, her own loneliness kept her from realizing the signifiance of
life.
Arya Duta is a 16-year old Indian writer from London. They love to co-author with their friends and participate in NaNoWriMo every November! Their latest piece is called “The Loney Siren” and discusses themes of life, death, and friendship.
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