Young Writers Society

*This is the final part of my series “Siren’s Desire”. This story is underneath my folder titled “Siren’s Desire”. Gacha Club character designs are under my forum titled “My character designs <33”. Enjoy!*

Lorelei opened her eyes to the absurdly bright light of the sun, the waves lapping at her feet, the sand particles itching around her body.

“Good morning, Lorelei.” Israfel’s voice said.

Lorelei rolled over to her side. Israfel was lying next to her, his long, silver hair seeming to glow ethereally in the sunlight, as well as his glimmering blue tail, casting flecks of rainbow sparks like sea glass.

“Aren’t you worried that someone will see you?” Lorelei asked. It was broad daylight, and Israfel was lying on the beach next to her.

Israfel laughed lightly and then smiled, his pointed teeth somehow seeming innocent, like there was real, genuine, carefree joy.

“It’s still too early for people to go out in the beach. I’ll be fine.” Israfel said.

And then, his expression hollowed into something gray, something miserable. It was all so abrupt and all too familiar.

It reminded Lorelei of herself, when a dark thought overtook a pretty one.

“Lorelei, spending time with you has been oh so marvelous! I had no idea how much I missed humans until youcame along. Because of your help, the world won’t fall to pieces, and the problems that I’ve created have been righted. Which means that everything is as it should be.”

Israfel sat up on the ground and looked down at Lorelei. He swallowed hard, as though he were trying to keep something deep and lodged within him.

Lorelei noticed that she was wearing the exact nightgown that she wore when she first met Israfel, the armor that cutesy pig gave her having worn off.

It was a sign that the magic of her adventures was over, and that she would have to return back home as though Israfel never happened.

“With everything being as it should be, this…this will be the last time that you ever see me. I love you, Lorelei. I love you to the point where I feel like I’m going to crawl out of my own skin. But we can never be together. We’re too different. I deserve to exist only in the deepest, innermost corners of your mind. You’ll find someone else, and I’m okay with that. I’m okay with letting you go. After all, I am a siren, and I’ll find many people to eat. No one can truly love me for the beast that I am. Take care to cover your ears at night, as that is when I sing. Tell any girl you know to do the same, for I would hate to hurt you.” Israfel said.

He was about to swim away, about to leave her, but Lorelei sat up and grabbed his wrist.

Israfel’s swamp green eyes went wide in surprise. He tried to yank away, but Lorelei wouldn’t let go.

She held on tight. She could feel her magic seep out of her and form a barrier around them made of gossamer-white smoke, so that neither could leave.

“If I’ve never met you, I would have never discovered magic. I would have never discovered my own magic. I would have never discovered you. For while you are a monster, you aren’t the worst monster out there. Everybody is dealing with their own demons. You didn’t kill me. You’ve shown me great love, especially after the battle that happened. You’ve grown so much, and so have I. The very reason we went on this journey at all was to save the world from drowning. That’s human, Israfel. You wanted to save the world. You’re good even though you have a hard time believing it. I don’t ever want to let you go…” Lorelei trailed off.

Was she supposed to forget him? Just like how she was supposed to forget the plastic dolls of her childhood and the star-studded world of playdates and fairytales? It seemed cruel to let go of someone who made her world more peach-colored and less wrought-iron, as though growing up into the “real world” was a life destined for miserable feelings and dull days.

Israfel bit the bottom of his lip, as though he too didn’t want to say goodbye.

After a few seconds, he spoke up:

“There is a way to keep you forever, but I shouldn’t try it.”

“What is it, Israfel? Tell me!” Lorelei cried out, gripping his wrist tighter.

If he knew a way, then she needed him to spit it out.

“I’ve had dreams of it with past girls that I’ve grown a liking to, but I’ve never actually tried it. It just seems like something far too good to be true, like a naive hope I planted into myself. I’ve embraced the role of monster for so long that I’ve never thought of what it would be like to pursue real love…”

“After everything we’ve seen, I don’t think that anything is too odd. What is it that can keep me?” Lorelei asked, preparing herself for anything that Israfel had to say.

It couldn’t be anything horribly vile, because Israfel loved her, and he would take great care that she wasn’t harmed.

Israfel sighed, giving in to her pleas, and said:

“If you were to drown and die in this very beach, I could take your dead body. I could bite it. Then, as the dreams tell me, you would crawl out of your human carcass as a silver-tailed siren. But it’s only a dream. It might not work. You might not even love me then. You-“

“It’s worth a try, Israfel. If I resist, let me go. If not, then turn me. My only concern is if I happen to be an old woman at the time…would you still love me?”

She wouldn’t blame him if he let her drift off to sea, but she wanted to know for certain how he would feel about her as an old woman.

“I was human a long time ago. I was a boy a long time ago. I’m trapped in this body. You’ll always be young to me.” Israfel said, all the tears gone from his eyes, only crackling passion remaining.

He kissed Lorelei on the lips, the taste of old blood and salt mixed in together to create a flavor of yearning and triumph, as though he had found her and then lost her.

Lorelei kissed back, bringing him close to her, unsure if she would ever see him again.

…………………………………………………..

“Lorelei! I can’t believe that you’re okay! You missed out on the storm!” Mom cried out, hugging her tightly.

Lorelei had just walked through the front door of her home and was met with her sobbing, ecstatic family.

“What happened?” Lorelei asked. She knew that there was the threat of flooding, but she didn’t know exactly how it affected them all.

“The sea would gain high tide every day, each wave higher than the next. I’m glad that you’re okay, but what were you thinking? Why did you jump into the ocean at all?” Dad asked, his voice cracked from his tears.

“I don’t know. I guess I was having impulsive thoughts.” Lorelei said. She could feel the cold water dripping through her nightgown, but Mom’s hug made her feel all the warmth in the world.

Dad and her little brother, Tristan, joined in the hug, enveloping Lorelei in their arms. Soon, she didn’t feel the freezing water at all.

“I’m glad that you’re back!” Tristan said.

“We all are. Now, don’t ever run away again.” Mom said.

“I won't." Lorelei replied, in an effort to make her happy.

For although she was glad to be with her family, glad that they were all alive and okay, she still thought of Israfel at the beach.

She may have saved the world, but how would she save herself?

Why couldn’t she choose both her family and Israfel? Why did it have to be one or the other?

Well, Lorelei wouldn’t have to worry too much about it. She was alive. That was all that mattered.

…………………………………………………..

A year had passed since Lorelei went out to sea with Israfel. She was seventeen years old and riding on a boogie board alongside her friends, Skylar and Finn.

It was on a pink-sky July night that it happened. The breeze was cool, the smell of the ocean was in the three teens’ hair, and the waves were a tad rough. Only a tad. Nothing that the three of them couldn’t handle. After all, ending a summer night because the adrenaline was “too much” was unheard of. They wanted to have fun while there was still time.

Until the waves began to swell with force. Until Finn called out tearfully for them all to go to shore. Until their thoughts were racing as they desperately swam back to shore, the underlying thought of being taken by the waves was screaming at the corner of their minds.

Skylar and Finn made it. But Lorelei lost control and plummeted down to the bellows of the bashing water.

Her friends couldn’t believe their eyes. In an instant, Lorelei was gone. In an instant, she belonged to the waves. Just like that, they lost a friend.

They felt as though they had betrayed her, that it was their fault that she died, but her family didn’t blame them. How were the two of them supposed to know what would go down?

Many people mourned the death of Lorelei, especially Tristan, who would grow up without a sister, without a companion. Who had found her and then lost her again. Who had nightmares of what could have happened to her, who feared the worst. In that moment, he knew that he would never see her again.

Her body was never found, which made the funeral all the more bleak, as though it marked the end of a soul. Her death wasn’t proven, but everyone knew it. Everyone felt it.

Lorelei was never coming back.

But what did Lorelei herself think in her last moments? What were her thoughts?

Well, at first she was frightened for her life, terrified of being completely forgotten.

Then, she felt arms pull her into an embrace, a silk voice singing in tune to the waves, whispering in her ear as she was drifting in and out of life, and finally, she felt teeth sink into her neck as she drew her last breath.

It only took a few hours for Lorelei to crawl out of what she once was, to reach out at the blooming moon. She was no longer mortal, but a siren. A visage of great beauty and terrible death, her tail glistening silver like the choppy rocks, her blond hair riddled with sand as though she had risen out of the ashes as a warrior, her claws curled to kill.

Lorelei had become something more, but none of it mattered to her as much as Israfel.

Israfel kept his end of the promise. Israfel saved her, just like he said he would.

It is said that no one should go to bed in Moon’s Beach without pushing ear plugs into their ears, for the voices of a siren couple rise and fall, a song of joy and horror sending unsuspecting humans to their liquid, moonlit reflecting graves.

Israfel and Lorelei were once human. Israfel and Lorelei once had to face the harrowing world in mortal bodies.

But Israfel and Lorelei are together now, and they are spoken of in legends that are either told off as “romantic fairytales” or “unsettling tragedies”.

It depends on who you ask.