Angela is greeted by warm sunlight that has pierced through the glass of a tiny, arched window—a window that is sealed shut between the thick, grey-stone wall of the bathroom the siren now finds herself in.

Her eyes flutter open. She tries to swim away. But, where she expects to find the comforting and endless void of the ocean, is the frail porcelain of a cream-tainted, marble tub instead.

Angela’s knuckles collide with its flooring. She lets out a curse that does not exist in the languages of human men. There is an ache in her left arm—whether it is from the previous events that befell her, or from punching the tub, she cannot say for certain. All the siren knows, is that she is already sick of being here, despite it not having been a single minute since her awakening.

The birds—who were once joyfully twittering outside whoever’s home it is that Angela is now prisoner to—cease their song. It briefly occurs to the siren that she has scared them with her crooked hiss; though, to her, this does not matter that much. Rather, as soon as Angela manages to open her eyes to a world that is, in her opinion, much too bright: she begins her attempts at wriggling free of this horrendous, man-made abode.

As Angela moves with chaos, and chaos moves with her, the siren knocks over a few items off a nearby shelf. The many trinkets go tumbling to the floor without a fight. As she continues to thrash about: dark, violet scales glitter across Angela’s tail—like the stars in the sky do, that she has watched for centuries alone.

The siren barely has a moment to take in the sight of the mess: A pot filled with honey that has drizzled onto the ground. An old, thick book with yellowing pages that once held a multitude of dried out flowers, which now, too, lay scattered across the floor. All of this accompanied by a lone, emptied jam-jar, which seemingly served as a resting place for a multitude of used paintbrushes, before the entirety of the shelf’s contents go soaring across the room, only to end their flight with a loud crash, and a few extra unnecessary noises—like marbles which roll with enthusiasm across the other side of the bathroom’s tiled flooring.

The siren cringes. It seems that she has made enough of a ruckus to catch the attention of this house’s mysterious homeowner. As Angela hears the modest thuds of footsteps coming her way, she rolls her eyes, then curls her tail back into the bathtub, so that it forms the shape of a crescent moon, instead of a disheveled and dried out ocean-plant. “Great…” the siren mumbles, all the while crossing her arms and letting out quite the upset huff. This is just what I needed to start my morning off right, she thinks to herself with a scowl.

Soon enough, the young man she had attempted to seduce yesterday comes waltzing in with a proud stride. He is not wearing as much clothing as he had the night before, however. And the siren wonders if this is intentional, or if it is because he was left without choice—over the years, she has witnessed quite many human kin with very little garments to spare, who sometimes leave their clothes outside in the winds to dry overnight.

The mere thought of this has Angela salivating. As the siren licks her lips, a devilish grin tugs at the corners of her mouth, revealing the sharpness in her teeth, still stained with sailor’s blood spilled last week. Yes, that’s right, she thinks to herself, as she looks back on some memorable hunts. Unsuspecting villagers always make for the best prey, especially the ones who tend to partake in the ritual of washing their attire after-hours. The siren cannot put her finger on why it is that they taste better after such frights are inflicted upon them, when she appears out of nowhere to drag them out to sea, yet the meat is always tenderer. Better. Perhaps, it is like lobsters.

But in either case, Angela is hungry. She did not get a single catch yesterday, thanks to that good for nothing fool, who continues to ignore her even now, as if nothing is amiss. “Hey,” Angela hisses the word toward the young man, who has already begun to kneel in order to pick up the mess she has wreaked inside his home.

Yet, still—just like in all of their other interactions—he does not pay her any heed, whatsoever.

Angela’s nose twitches. Her eyes fixate on the rosary that dangles from side to side across his neck. The young man smells of strange herbs—in fact, his hands are covered in them. She wishes she knew how to grab his attention, for it seems that speaking, or even singing to him, is not doing much for her.

Soon, the siren spots a bar of soap reeking of fresh roses and crushed lavender. She shrugs, then figures it is this, or nothing—and Angela will always almost, choose something over silence, stillness. When the world is not moving, bobbing up and down afloat like a boat sailing the ocean, it does not feel natural.

It does not feel right.

Angela reaches for the soap. She digs her claws into its middle, until small, pale pink ovals are birthed from the modest rectangle. The siren grabs them all.

One by one, she flicks the pieces and bits of soap, onto the young man’s head. And for the first time since their encounter by the shores of Brittleneck Island, he looks up. Finally, she has caught his attention.

The young man smiles. He lets out a laugh that does not sound quite right; it is crooked, in a way that makes Angela’s usually-silent heart beat a tad faster. He holds up his hands, then draws the same signs he had before, between them.

Angela wonders if this is a spell.

She grows apprehensive when he perks up, as if having gotten an idea. Before she has a chance to ask him any questions, he runs off, past the bathroom’s open hallway and into his living room, whose floorboards creak uncontrollably with every step he takes.

The siren lets her head fall back into the tub’s water. Slithers of dark hairs surround her like the net of a fishermen she had once enjoyed stalking for quite some time during her younger years, before she finally gave in, then devoured him to bits.

He tasted… old. Angela regretted having eaten him for a while. The only form of consolation she found to feel a tad better, was that he was technically a minor threat to the ocean’s ecosystem with how much he and his loved ones would fish on the daily, for hours, without end. At least, if anything, a good deed did come out of this—the entirety of the dead man’s lineage never returned to the sea, once they discovered Angela next to their ship, as she delicately suckled on three of the man’s fingers.

Sometimes, she finds it strange, how these humans have all given up on hunting her. It is like they’ve realized they can do nothing, and have slowly come to accept—

Well, Angela chuckles to herself, as she backtracks on her thoughts. Slowly is a relative term. It did take them a couple hundred years for them to stop putting up those shabby posters, which would offer rewards in exchange for a Siren’s head.

But it was a good time.

Angela nods to herself. Indeed, she does not remember any other moment in her life, where her food would come to her like in those years.

The modest yet sudden ringing of a potted plant being knocked over onto tile takes Angela out of her thoughts. The siren immediately perks up to turn and face the bathroom’s exit. She notices the young man, who has returned with a notebook in his hand that he holds up with pride and his usual grin, carelessly smeared across his peach-tinted lips.

Without a bout of hesitation, he approaches the siren and shows her what is written inside. Upon seeing him come closer to her voluntarily, Angela raises a brow at him—he should definitely be afraid, or begging for his life right now; even if for some reason, he is unable to hear her song, she could, without a doubt, lurch at his neck and claw out his eyes in the instance of a second.

She doesn’t, though. Something about him has her intrigued.

The young man taps at his notebook with his pen.
Angela groans. And an inpatient one, he is, too, she thinks.

Truly, I loathe him.

His handwriting is not the neatest she has seen—in fact, Angela is confident she could do better with a bit of practice, despite her barely ever holding a pen, or a quill.

She clears her throat.

Then reads his message.