Young Writers Society

Oycilis sat on the rock, splashing the water with her tail. Bored out of her mind, her eyes darted around the small beach area. It was surrounded by rocks, hidden from humans, which was just fine for her, being so shy and all. A collection of beautiful seashells lined the shore. Then, she heard something. Footsteps in the sand. Oycilis, needing something to do, began to sing a song that would put this human under her complete control.

“🎶Oh, my love, come along with me, you’ll see how much the water knows,🎶

🎶Oh, my love, swim away with me, you’ll be safe in the depths below.🎶”

The sun felt hot on the back of Kat's neck as she walked along the edge of the enclosed beach, but she tried to ignore the beads of sweat clinging to her shirt and t-shirt. She ran her fingers through her multicolored short hair, almost as if she was hoping she could somehow drag the sweat out with her fingertips.

It had been hard getting to the beach. There had been a little hike - which was why she had on a trusty pair of hiking boots - and a slight amount of trespassing an adjacent property, but it was worth it. If Kat had been a mermaid, or a siren, or some other sea being that wasn't supposed to exist, this was where she would have popped up for a change of scenery from the ocean.

She hopped off one of the rocks, landing with a soft thud on the empty, tiny beach. She only took a few steps before she heard an enchanting melody floating through the air. Part of her, somewhere, knew that it was a siren's song. That same part of her knew now would be the perfect time to slip in the noise-cancelling earbuds she had in her pocket.

But Kat didn't want to.

She just wanted to hear that melody.

She took a few more steps. By the time her feet were in the water, she had finally caught a glimpse of the siren singing the melody.

When Kat was younger, she had first learned about sirens when reading the Odyssey in sixth grade. She had always wondered how the men on the ship knew that they didn't really feel love for the sirens luring them to their doom. It had been almost seven years since then, but Kat still was just as clueless.

Maybe it was just the siren's song, but Kat's face started to grow flushed at the sight of her.

"You're beautiful," Kat whispered, a completely love-struck look on her face.

Oycilis wasn’t expecting much from the human, just some bait to kill, but all thoughts of that were completely erased the moment she set eyes on her.

Wow. She was GORGEOUS. The way her colorful hair seemed to glow in the sunlight, her dark eyes such a beautiful shade... Oycilis’s own face started to heat up, and not just from the sun.

Oycilis quickly snapped out of this, however, and shyly continued to sing... but something felt wrong about this. It was as if her aching heart was screaming at her, holding her back from killing the human. And she knew it right then and there, she knew that someone that beautiful didn’t deserve to die. So she stopped her melody, and dove under the water, poking her head up as she waited for the human to snap out of it.

When the singing stopped, Kat strangely felt disappointed.

She paused, for a moment, after the singing stopped. She was almost up to her waist at that moment. But her phone had luckily been in the pocket of her t-shirt hoodie, so she grabbed it.

She didn't take a picture - even though she had always told herself she would.

Instead, she rushed to the shore, dropped her phone off with her hoodie, shoes, and socks, and immediately headed back into the water. She waded over to where the siren was peeking up.

"Hi," she said; only her head was above the water now. "I'm Kat."

Oycilis gasped softly when she saw Kat wading over to her, and quickly hid under the water.

She couldn’t do this. What had she been THINKING?! It was FORBIDDEN to spare a human! Stupid curiosity, getting the better of her...

Oycilis thought of something. Why hadn’t Kat run away..? She assumed that humans would be scared of her, but not Kat, apparently... huh. Oycilis knew that she’d probably be DEAD MEAT for this, metaphorically or literally, but she slowly poked her head up again.

“...I-I’m... Oycilis...” she managed to mumble out.

"Oycilis," Kat repeated - trying her best to get the pronunciation right. That name was just as beautiful as the siren.

As soon as that thought passed through Kat's head, she realized she had to accept the truth. She definitely had a crush on a siren. It wasn't how she expected her first encounter with someone like a siren to go, but she wasn't exactly objecting to it.

"Your singing sounded amazing earlier," Kat said after a moment of hesitation. "I, uh, know that's what a siren's song is supposed to sound like, but it really did sound good. Even without you being a siren..."

“Y-You think so...?”

Oycilis didn’t expect any sort of human to be so nice to her, let alone one that she had just tried to kill.

And that’s when she first started feeling it. Some strange warmth, deep inside. Oycilis had never fallen in love before, so she didn’t understand that she was falling for Kat.

Although a part of her mind was still trying to convince her that it was a trap, Oycilis decided to stay, and poked a bit more out of the water.

“W-Well, um... thank you, K-Kat...”

"You're welcome," she replied, giving a small smile and a tiny blush of her own, too.

She waded in the water for a minute, trying to figure out what to say next. Even though Oycilis had been trying to kill her, she seemed almost shy. Kat didn't want to risk scaring her away.

"Do you usually come here?" she asked. "I've never been here before, but I heard there was a beach."

Oycilis nodded softly.

“Y-Yeah... nice, isn’t it?”

It was her special spot here, where she could go when she just wanted to be alone, or was just bored in general. Despite her past up here, Oycilis has always had a strange fascination with the surface.

She nodded.

"It is," she agreed, her smile growing a little bit. "I love how private it is."

“Y-Yeah, me too.”

Oycilis was starting to feel a bit more comfortable around Kat. Then, she came to the realization that this human was the key to the answers about human life, and her curiosity built up once more.

“...I’ve always wondered. What’s it like up here...?”

"Up here?"

It took Kat a second to realize that Oycilis what life was like on land. Which was a hard question to answer, now that Kat thought about it. She didn't even know what life was like below the water, and there were so many kinds of people and places on land that she had never even seen or heard of before.

She thought for a moment.

"You know how the ocean's really diverse with the creatures it has in it?" she asked. "Like how there's so many kinds of fish, and octopus, and sharks, and other things? Life up here is kind of like that, too. But there's a lot of people who live in a lot of different places, and I'm not sure I could ever do them justice."

Oycilis nodded, seeming to understand.

“I see... that’s kinda weird to me. I mean, these days there’s pretty much only one big kingdom of sirens, Mierlia.”

She paused for a moment, wondering if she should tell Kat this.

“...I’m, um... kind of the duchess.”

Kat's eyes widened.

"You're royalty?" she whispered, incredulous. "I don't really know all of the different terms, but duchess is important, right? Almost like a princess or a queen?"

Oycilis nodded softly.

“Y-Yeah... no need to be formal though, I-I don’t really like it that much...”

She hated all the responsibilities. She hated having to be perfect for everyone else... she just wanted to be free from this boring, uptight life.