I think we knew that we would eventually be caught. I think we knew that our attraction was only skin deep. We were young and irresistible demi-goddesses. Half mortal yet created from the fruits of the god; coated in a glow of beautiful features and golden blood swimming in our veins. We are demi-goddesses, higher than all mortals but still below the power of a god or goddess. We are cunning and beguiling and creatively perfect. In hindsight how could Poseidon ever resist our beauty or our charm? We were everything his wife, Amphitrite, was not. Young, fun, and full of hope in our sea blue eyes. My sister and closest friends along with I were struck dumb when we first heard of the god of sea, earthquakes, and horses. We saw pictures of him and heard enough stories to pass any test thrown at us, we knew of him but the moment he sought out for us we wished it was that of a test; one we failed. 

He found us one day, playing in the shallow waters off of Mount Olympus’s shore. Laughing and screaming with joy, finally enjoying the beautiful warmth of summer. Swimming together and baking in the sun like the very scones we baked that morning, wasting away our day the only way we wanted to, there he found us. The stories always said gods were judgmental and all-consuming. But he did not judge us nor the curve of our bodies but fell for them. He was entirely all-consuming though, he leaped from his horse and walked to us in the most patient walk a god could ever muster. He strolled to us with a sick smile that spoke of sinister deeds, but to our young adult minds, we saw it as an affirmation of a smile and contentment. He walked to us, not with urgency but grace. I should have known that his lack of urgency was a telltale sign of uninterest, and only a mere attraction, and his grace was proof that a god with a wife was not meant for mortal or even demi-goddesses trivial things such as love or attraction. He was married, loved, and held a title. We were a half-baked god and half-wanted mortals, we had no means to be in his world let alone his orbit. He was supposed to be a hero, a god, and our protector, yet he fell into the hole of indulgence and found us to be his drug of choice. 

As demi-goddesses we held no responsibility, the mortal world was our oyster and we craved it. We sought beauty in our home and the people around us. The silly things a mortal would do and the feelings they held so dear to their heart. We were born as offspring of a god and a mortal, loved by all but always forced out of the golden gates of Mount Olympus, for only a god or goddess might resign there and our title held none of the sorts. Banished to the fresh and rich soil of the mortal world we were forced to thrive. My sister, Ino, and I have the same father, Ares, the god of war and destruction, but different mortal mothers. We were sent down to the mortal realm when we were two and adopted right away in order to have a home and be safe. We don’t remember anything of our time in the sky but would always tell stories of what it was like though we have no recollection, I like to think we were very spot on though. We were told by our adopted parents that we must stop dreaming and start living in the present and trying to fit in. So that is what we did, for years we learned and tried everything in our power to understand the complexity of the human brain. We tried to understand why people loved each other so blindly; We tried to understand why they were so weak and fragile, we tried to question them, but they never had any answers that were worth any amount of our time. We grew angry as our questions piled up and our answers were becoming less and less of any sort of reason and more of a guess. As Ares daughters, we were forged with fire and anger in our hearts and found it hard to cope with the feelings but instead of blindly lashing out we tried even harder to understand mortals. 

In the year that we both turned 23, we promised each other that we would not try anymore for there was no rhyme or reason why the mortals did what they did or felt what they felt. We instead watched them and grew with them. We never found out their innate nature and need to water a house plant or their craving for goats, we didn't try to comprehend why they drank wine all the time or the fact that they slept their days away. We grew to love them as our own as they grew to love us as the demi-goddesses in their lives. 

After that day Poseidon met us at the shore every day. He made fish to be named after us and a water horse that carried us across the sea. He transformed the sea into the likeness of me and my sister along with my closest friends, but as the weeks went on he fell for me and my sister even more. He said it was our eyes of the calming waters filled to the brim with violence and passion. He was infatuated with us, our hearts, our minds, and even more our beauty. Especially our black hair, the color of the depths of the sea. We completed everything we did for him. Every little errand he sent us on were tests that we passed with flying colors in order to please him; they all seemed so small. The weeks went on and the days grew longer and more time was spent from Poseidon. We were never separated because he liked how we complemented each other, my dark features balancing her gracefully light ones. We weren't the same in anything we did but we laughed the same and Poseidon made us sing to the sky with laughter. 

That was how his wife heard of the whole affair. The demi-goddess and her husband laughing and splashing in the water like he once did with her eons ago before the tide was created and before the sun was a bright ball in the sky but more of a heat source deep rooted from the earth. She heard our laughs of joy and beauty and ran to her beloved. She held him closed while confronting us, threatening to send us to the gates of Hell and have Hades make use of us. She was clutching onto his arm as if it was our fault and he was forced into it. We begged him to save us and we begged him and begged, yet he wouldn't turn away from his wife or even remove her hand from his bicep. He looked for the first time ever, he looked judgemental and all evils that the gods possessed. He held his wife and let her degrade us into worthless creatures which gave her an idea for her revenge on all demi-goddess to roam the earth.  

Her brain and hands worked for countless hours to create us into the worst nightmare from all the men of the seas. Amphitrite could never divorce Poseidon no matter his wrong, and no matter what she would always be tether to him, bound by the hip for life. She knew that she would eventually forgive him but she was extremely angry and would take all that anger out on us and every man that ever wanted to possess the sea like Poseidon. We were forced to live off the sea under the gods, our legs torn from our bodies and replaced with a mermaid's tail. We were trapped in caverns, water, and rock crevices, and a deep, empty, all-consuming black sea below Mount Olympus in the Thermaic Gulf of the Aegean Sea, driven below the high slopes of the city. With waves that turn our bones to ice and winds that whip our hair into an everlasting waved mess. Our hearts were stipped from our beings with the cruel hands of Amphitrite, for us to never fall in love or feel comfort by another soul so long as we live. Our nails, shaped to points for the sole purpose of tearing any flesh we were to touch so we may never know another’s embrace. Our eyes are made to see thousands of miles out to sea but never to be looked into by another, our eyes are made to be binoculars of the waters but never good for anything other than. Our tales, the deep colors of the soiled rich earth, and the dark blues of the deepest depth of the water. Our sun-kissed skin, stripped from our beings and replaced with a white that mirrors the white envy Amphitrite shared for us. Our hair, made in spite of Posdien, for no longer can anyone take their fingers through our tendrils, for our locks will forever be tangled beyond trying. 

My voice is no longer a thing of beauty but a deep shriek of horror and venom laced with harmony only meant for the men of the sea. My tail was made to cut flesh if any were to come in contact with my scales of colors. My lungs are filled to the brim with cold water that melts away any heated anger I ever will hold. My fingers were transformed into a mess of web and flesh, no longer individual fingers but a hybrid fin. My freckles were scrubbed off my face to be put in the sky as the many constellations for the gods to live among and the mortals to gaze upon. My life forever held halfway between the gates of Hell and the mortal world, not dead but I will never truly live another day. We were made to protect the people on Mount Olympus and to shield the waters of the disturbing quake of boats. To forever kill and eradicate as many men of the ocean as we can. Amphitrite holds a deep-rooted hatred for the rest of the men of the sea and will forever send us out to kill them by blindsiding them as she felt she was by us to Poseidon. 

Our voice that will forever keep singing shrieking noise but to the men is the most beautiful lullaby that makes them drunk on illusion and lie. Our singing carries over the water, ensuring that they never get away from us once we've caught them in our trap. Our voice is so powerful that even the fiercest men can't deny our lies and promises of all their deepest desires. Our job once we lure them is to wreck the ship if it was never stirred into the cliffs of Mount Olympus. By swimming below the boat it glides on our backs and to the rocky death of destruction. Then the delusional men are ours. I refused at first, that I would never cause harm to an innocent person but the programming of Amphitrite made us crave the salty, thick, metallic tang of blood. The type of meat that only a human body can provide, and the warm beating heart of a human that was made to fit perfectly in our palms. Our mission in life is as all-consuming as the darkest when it takes overnight. 

She created my new forever future bound in transparent chains to her and her will only; she commanded my every move and watched my every step. The only thing that she didn’t own was my brain and thoughts, for those she could never seize my inner turmoil of thoughts. She would never know just how hard I would fight her, how hard I would resist, and how tough it would be to order me around.. For a thousand years, she would try and get me to eat the human flesh of our latest victims and for a thousand years, I fought the craving urge. Such like a scratch that I would never itch, like a breath I would forever hold I was slowly killing myself. Yet no matter how painful it was to feel my kidneys fail and my heart slow and my blood run colder than the icy waves made them be, I fought. Every sailor that passed my line of sight I resisted the urge to take their life in my hands and feast. On the warm flesh and the sweet tang of fresh blood, the pounding heart, all remained intact for another siren to devour. Until one day, that one rainy day. I didn't fight and my first human was consumed. That day will never get out of my head, haunting my thoughts, trapping my mind, and lurking in the depths to remind me of the monster I am.

The first scent of his wound sent my senses in a whorl, the smell had my hands on him before I could process what I was doing. I was scratching at his face to hush his ear-piercing screams of terror and venom. I was rewriting my thousand years of restraining the streaky flesh of the poor man. I devoured every inch, the remains were his 206 bones, half-broken while half were licked clean to the whitish of clear bone. From then on I finally indulged in my life, my job as a protector, my gifts given to me by Amphitrite were finally put to use, and for another thousand years, I became the strongest siren and the most hungry. I ravaged and gorged myself on every ounce of human flesh I could encounter. When we went too long without any food, I would go to the dock to steal away a snack.

Decades went on with my behavior and I lost sight of who I was. I was no longer a demi-goddess. I was no longer the descendent of Ares, god of war, but I downgraded myself into being a monster. I was a killer and I chose it every day. With every sense of violence and evil I chose, I chose the bloodbath that hid away my white streaky flesh. I chose the screams of terror because it was better than the wailing screams of sirens and my voice. Because as long as I wasn’t the only one in pain then it would be okay. I chose to hurt and not because it was written into my DNA but because as long as I wasn’t the only one suffering then I was going to make it in this life. I fought before and I will fight again. I need to fight my urges no matter who controls them. I need to take my control back. I may have been a killer but I will not keep on killing. From that moment on I promised myself I would fight, every boat that neared the Gulf I would turn away and not help in the mortal destruction. 

I did good, I didn't feast on any man but found myself helping the men and their sea by picking up trash and debris left over from previous boats. I was strong and I knew I would fight for as long as I could, that was until that huge boat came in. A monster of wood and steel. With the tallest sails I have seen and the richest redwood I have ever seen. With brass accents to the boat, it gleamed in the full moon's light like a firefly to the black night. I tried to turn away, I tried to hide away to seek refuge from the sea-sick smell of fresh flesh. But I was drawn out like a snake from hiding, I was curious who boarded the vessel. I was interested in the men that were aboard and if they were Greek or other, I was craving to find out who they were and what they were doing. I knew that we never asked or even care what they were doing around the Gulf but I still ached to know. 

I should have just eaten him, I should have killed him, fast and painless. Instead, I tried to save one, a foolish boy with hope in his eyes, it was so easy to sniff it out. I should have also known that his good nature would want to help me, yet I didn't, and now his death is stained on my hands. 

He was young and way too foolish to ever be aboard a boat as great and important as the one he was on, but I never asked. I barely even looked at him. I jumped up on the deck to survey the area as my fellow creatures were ravaging the new harvest. The air smelt of cold, wet, and rust, the sweet tang of blood calling my name more than any type of urge I have ever had. I quickly moved from the sweet desire and was about to leave the vessel completely when I saw him. Laying down on the floor and bleeding out from the side, and a visible wound that bled a deep river of crimson and scarlet. He looked as if his milky white eyes should scream with dread, yet he was laying down as still as a baby sleeping. He did not flinch when I crawled up to him or even made a peep, if he was scared his body did not portray a single ounce of it. He looked as if he wanted to bare his teeth at me, yet the ends of his mouth twitched up into a small and peaceful smile; as if I was something of beauty and grace the boy smiled at me. I was so bewildered by his strange sentiment that I was struck dumb. I made a quick calculation on what was happening around me and the chance that he would survive and then I made my move. 

I used to make calculated moves but since I was no longer a demi-goddess, I saw no reason why I had to think and analyze and only acted on impulse. That foolish boy was the first to change my reckless decisions. I should have known that he was special the first time I laid my razor-sharp eyes on him. His eyes, even as stark white as they were, scream wanderlust and filled to the brim with aspirations. He wore some stubble on his square jaw with a walnut mixed with a cedar color hair, damped by the rain and saltwater of the sea, it hung low to kiss the outside shell of his eyes. He was not the average sailor of the sea, nor the type to even wield a broom on a boat. I had to save him and I did it the only way I knew how without touching him. I summoned the ocean to carry him. I had the ocean sweep him off the boat and place him down to the very cave where I slept. I knew it would be a risk but I hoped he would have the good sense to leave as soon as possible. Which he did. Then I never heard of him again and I was back to the regular life I was once at, where I refused to harm any humans. 

Half a decade later I heard the rumblings of what the foolish boy had been up to. He had been begging the gods to save me; a siren that saved his life. No matter how true it was, I did it not to receive credit but to save a life. Yet he had been trying to save me for the past five years. I saw no harm in his effort until he went to Amphitrite and demanded a god I will be set free from her control. I wished I could have stopped him, silenced his demands to the gods but it was too late. As soon as Amphitrite came down to kill the man she heard that the lone siren was me. I was the one who was causing her trouble and the only way for that to be rectified was for the situation to be put to rest. She forced me to kill him. She forced me with a single look. He was the lone sailor that I would never forget, he was the lone sailor that I would forever change my entire existence to be worthy of the type of saving that he thought I was.

 THE END