What the Sirens Do to You
Vampiresswolf
Will knew what the sirens did to you.
His mother always told him Never, ever, under any circumstances go to the beach once the sun went down. Once the sun began to color the sky, and before it colored it once again, the beach went from the daylight lover's paradise to the Siren's deadly playground. He had heard stories, he had seen what could happen. Those who were unfortunate enough to frolic among the night washed sand, lost in the beauty of the night, usually returned only weeks later, their bloated corpses littering the cove known as the Cemetery of Lost Searches. The beautiful sounds had been recorded on tape a multitude of times, the sweet, melodious tunes enchanting even through speakers until the recordings were outlawed. For the recordings had been known to bring men, women, and even children, searching aimlessly for the singers. Lead to the ocean and into the currents, on a deadly, desperate search of longing. The sirens would entrance you, lead you to your death, and return your lifeless body to the cove once they were finished with their games.
That was if you were lucky. A majority of lost souls would wash up on the cove's banks, leaving the families a body to mourn, to bury. If you were unlucky, you never saw your family, your friends, your coworkers again. The clothes they had last worn would show up after weeks away, but the bodies never would. It would leave families torn and wondering what became of their loved ones.
He would know, it had happened to his best friend. Cecil had been out with his brothers, Michael and Lee, after a late night game. Lee's body washed up on the beach after two weeks, and a week later Michael's had shown up, accompanied by Cecil's clothing. It left him in tatters, his best friend was gone. He had no one else to lay his shoulder on, besides his mother and younger sister, Kayla, neither of which were in any shape to comfort him. He sat through three closed-casket funerals, one coffin which had no body, and two with the eldest of his siblings.
He never went to the beach once the sun went down. He wouldn't be able to shoulder the memories, the guilt his ghost would feel should he leave his family without another of their children.
Once he turned eighteen, he became a volunteer to bring in the bodies from the cove, to get over the deaths by helping those he could. Once he graduated high school, he headed to a nearby college, so that he could keep up with his volunteer work while studying he pre-medical studies needed to become a pediatrician. He never expected to see the eyes in the waters of the cove, during the daylight hours, where he was removing a small girl's body, and three months later, after a particularly nasty accident with a boulder, knocked him unconscious as he was removing the body of a red-haired man which had wedged into an out-of-the-way corner, he never expected to wake to darkness.
Will's first sensation was one of pain, emanating from the base of his skull where he had hit it. He groaned, trying to roll over until he realized he had slipped in a rocky corner and was now wedged between the rocks. When he opened his eyes and saw only shadows, he swore his heart stopped beating for a moment. He closed his eyes, hoping against hope that when he opened them, this would all be just a dream. That when he woke, that song, that alluring, canorus sound that filtered into his pain-filled brain would just be a dream, that he would wake up with the sun rising, the birds chirping, and his comforters tangled among his feet.
He lay there only a little longer, until the sound became louder, and he could no longer deny its dulcet tones any longer. His pain seemed to be fading, nothing but the wordless music seeming to matter as he pulled himself up out of the stones to look for the voice. The song was haunting, speaking of pain, anguish, really, love, and every other emotion one could feel. He was reminded of the moment he realized he was bisexual, the moment he realized his brothers and his best friend would never come back to him. He felt, more than heard, as there were no lyrics, the love he felt surrounded by family, a promise and a hope of the future mixing in with every memory he had, all laced with a newfound light. His pain was acknowledged at the same moment it was swept away. He never wanted to hear that noise end. He wanted to drown in it. He didn't notice himself crawling from his place among the jagged edges of the world, looking around him as he was led toward the mellifluous tune.
He imagined that this is how one would feel drunk. His movements seeming detached from what his brain was screaming at him. His mind fuzzy, focusing only on the dark figure who sat hunched on a rock in the center of the cove. His mind picked up that this was where the voice beget, from that dark figure. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind a tiny voice of reason warned him not to go forward, warned him that he would die if he followed this song all the way to that boy, and he hesitated, but only for a moment, as the figure turned its bare torso into his direction and his eyes caught.
He was beautiful. The planes of his face shimmering under the light of the moon. His hair was dark, slightly long, and flipped at the tips. The water seemed to not have affected its shape. The boy's eyes were dark as midnight, blacker than onyx, and his tone was pale but somehow olive, as if he was of italian descent, which Will's brain supplied was impossible, as sirens did not come from the human world.
Will's eyes traced lower, over the planes of his toned torso, specked here and there with scars, until reaching to where the skin transformed. Gradually epidermis turned to scale, sinking at a waistline into an aquatic tail the color of pitch. it lazily circled in the water, creating ripples in the otherwise still surface of the cove. When the tail disappeared into the water, Will's gaze travelled back to the face, to the thin upper lip and the full lower lip, perfectly parted to allow the sounds to emit. When his eyes alighted on the siren's, he was transfixed, the warning voice in the back of his mind having been muffled by the perfection sitting in front of him.
The song ceased, and Will's heart beat as a sad, wicked smile replaced it on the boy's mouth. He lifted a hand, lazily gesturing in a 'come hither' motion, and then the boy dived out of sight.
Will panicked. He couldn't live without that song, and so he dipped below the surface of the water, searching out the boy. A flash of scales lured him deeper out to sea, where he was caught in the undertow just off the edge of the reef. His brain was muddled, his heart was yearning, and his lungs screamed for air, but he just continued to follow the siren deeper and deeper, until only the moon's slight shimmer far above allowed him to see.
The siren suddenly turned, swimming to him, and had they not been underwater, he would have sworn that the boy was about to cry as the last of Will's air was released and his lungs opened for air that was not there. His mind screamed, crying as it realized he had done the one thing he had sworn not to do. He had left his parents and sister alone, had been caught by a siren's call, and he hoped his body returned to them soon.
The last thing he knew before his world turned dark was strong arms catching him and propelling him deeper into the water.
Will didn't expect to wake.
A/N:Yeah yeah, I show up once in a million years with a story. This one's actually going to be finished though. 5 chapters, that's it. I have them written already. =] I am not abandoning my other stories, I just haven't gotten to them yet, and for that I'm really sorry. But here's a little one that I will update and finish quickly, cause like i said, its already written. =]