The First Encounter

Sirens. These mythical creatures first appeared in the literary record with the Odyssey. In a briefer segment than you would think, considering the cultural impact of these mystical, singing creatures. And no, I'm not talking about the ones with the lady head and the wings, I'm talking about the ones people confuse with mermaids. These creatures were much scarier and much more feared. Every sailor knew the tales of the sirens, the songs that would lure sailors to their death, the beast with only one known weakness. A bronze dagger and its victim's blood. It is said that the only way to kill a siren is to stab it with a bronze dagger dipped in the blood of someone it has infected, the death of the siren then releases its victims from its hold. But sirens aren't real, those things are just myths. Right?

The waves were towering and fierce, crashing against the sides of the ship with a deafening roar. The wind howled like a pack of wolves, whipping through the sails with a force that threatened to tear them apart. Lightning streaked across the sky, illuminating the darkness with a blinding flash, followed by a bone-rattling crack of thunder. The crew worked tirelessly to keep the ship afloat, their faces etched with determination despite the fear in their eyes. It was a storm like no other, a test of their strength and resilience. They needed to get as much fish as possible before the freeze hit that winter, so they had to navigate the rough seas and high waves.

The bell for the net rang loud, it was full and it needed to be reeled in. The weight of the net was almost too much to bear as it was slowly pulled up from the churning waters. The wind and rain made it difficult to see and even harder to hold the rope, but the crew worked together, their muscles straining as they heaved the net onto the deck. The catch was plentiful, the fish wriggling and flopping in the confines of the net, but there was something off about one of the fish they had caught.

Ian: "What is that?"

Amelia: "Go get the captain, he needs to see this."

The captain of this ship was Eric. Eric Huntsman. He was the toughest sailor on the seven seas, everyone knew of him, every fisherman at least, he was known for hunting the most deadly sea creatures, the sharks. Normally, sharks would tear through the nets and escape, but Eric has never let even a single shark leave one of his nets. He was called down to the deck to see this catch, which he quickly obliged. He grabbed his dagger and headed out into the pouring rain with nothing but a dim candle in a lantern to see.

Eric: "What is it, men? What have we got?"

"We think we caught a shark Captain!" one of them shouted from the deck.

Eric: "A shark you say? Well, won't that make the boss happy, ay?"

Eric laughed along with his crew as he walked up to the net. Straining to see through the pouring rain and pitch-black sky, Eric peered into the fishing net, his heart racing with anticipation. The wriggling and flopping within the confines of the net made it difficult to discern any specific shapes or movements, but he couldn't shake the feeling that there was something strange and otherworldly trapped within. It didn't look like a shark from the little light the lantern gave. Despite the treacherous conditions, Eric's determination to catch a glimpse of this mysterious creature drove him forward, as he got closer in an attempt to make out any details in the dim light.

He heard a strange clicking noise, just then, a bright flash of lightning lit up the dark sky, making just enough light for Eric to see what it was. His eyes went wide and his blood ran cold once he got a look at what was trapped inside his fishing net. He was in pure shock, but mostly fear, because of the creature. A siren. A huge one at that. The thing looked to be the length of a tiger shark, the lower body of a fish but the upper body of a human, It had to be around ten to twelve feet long.

The beast had webbed fingers and silver eyes, gills along its neck, very sharp teeth, and what looked to be sharp spines on the sides of its tail, similar to the pelvic fin of a shark, but bigger, wider. Speaking of the tail, it looked to be a black base with red swirls along it, which was the opposite of the human part of the body, which seemed to be a dirty white or grey color. It seemed slimy and gross, anyone would've run by now, but Eric was frozen in fear.

A sudden loud crack of thunder broke him from his trance. What felt like an hour of staring at this thing in his net was only a few seconds, but once he could move again he grabbed his dagger and in one swift movement, cut the rope. The net crashed into the water with a defining noise. Almost, like a scream. The creature did have its mouth wide open when the lightning struck, if that scream did come from the creature, Eric was sure it had to have been a siren.

But it couldn't have been one, they don't get that big, not even close. They are slightly shorter than humans on average, ranging from five feet to just over six feet tall. Eric fell back to the wooden deck of his ship, his crew asking a million questions and helping him back inside the cabin. Eric was unresponsive and he could hardly see his hand in front of him. He didn't make it halfway there before falling unconscious in someone's arms, who hurriedly brought him inside to his bed and laid him down, leaving him to rest for a while.

Eric woke up early that morning to the sound of waves crashing against the side of the ship and the bright light from the sun shining in from the windows. The storm from last night was intense, and he felt a bit disoriented as he sat up in his bed. Looking around the room, he saw that everything was still in place, which was a relief. Despite the rough night, he felt calm as he gazed out the window at the water. Until the sudden memory of that night. Those razor-sharp teeth, those soulless eyes, the webbed slimy hands, and even the tail of that creature unsettled him.

Eric walked up to the deck of the ship, his eyes straining from the sudden bright light of the sun as he opened the door and walked out. The sea was calm, the deck wasn't that damaged, surprisingly, and the crew was already back to fishing. Amelia, one of the older crew members, walked up to Eric once she saw that he was awake.

Amelia: "Eric, how are you? You were very shaken up."

Eric: "There was something dangerous in that net."

Amelia: "Dangerous? What was it?"

Eric: "I think that thing was a Siren... Or, perhaps a mermaid?"

Amelia: "A siren or mermaid? You don't actually think that, do you?"

Eric: "What do you mean?"

Amelia: "Those things aren't real, they're just myths, made-up stories."

Eric: "But I saw it!"

Amelia: "It was pretty dark out last night, and it was raining hard, it was probably just a shark or big fish that looked weird in the off-lighting of the lantern."

Eric: "But-"

Amelia: "Let's get you something to eat and drink, you're probably hungry and dehydrated"

Eric: He sighed before he spoke. "Yeah, you're probably right."

She and Eric walked back inside the cabin to get breakfast, which that day was ship biscuits. However, every day is ship biscuits since they didn't have many food options while out at sea. Most of the crew were outside working, but the ones who woke up late were eating breakfast as well. Eric walked to the table of food and grabbed himself a plate of food and a drink of water but Amelia stopped him from getting the Grog he wanted.

Eric: "Come on."

Amelia: "You need water."

Eric: "That is water!"

Amelia: "No, this is rum diluted with water."

Eric: "It at least has water in it?"

Amelia gave him a stern mother glare and Eric whined as he took an actual water this time, then headed up to the deck to eat in the sun. He sat down on the top port, left, side of the ship, and started to eat his breakfast while staring out to sea. Once he was finished he tossed his leftovers into the ocean and turned back to the Hull, the body of the ship, to watch everyone, not expecting what was about to happen.

His leftover biscuit fell slowly to the ocean floor, but it didn't have a chance to touch the sand before it was quickly and aggressively grabbed by a webbed hand in the deep water. The creature quickly ate what was left of the biscuit, relieved it wasn't taken by another creature. Fish weren't anywhere near this thing, because fish is what this thing ate, and this thing was called a Siren. What Eric saw was real, it was a Siren, but this particular Siren was in trouble.

The creature's tail was tangled up in the fishing net, the rope was tight and heavy, too heavy for the Siren to swim, so it was stuck at the bottom of the ocean slowly starving to death. The mythical creature looked up from where the sudden food had come from and saw something big floating on the surface, similar to what it saw that night when it was caught by accident. The creature made a curious clicking noise before attempting to swim up, unfortunately, it quickly sank back down, and with no food, it was too weak to keep trying. It quickly gave up trying and rested on the ocean floor on the sand and rocks.

It had been making desperate tired cries for help hoping another Siren would hear, but it had been calling for help for hours with no results and was getting too tired and weak to keep going, so he gave up on that as well. It was so close to just giving up completely and accepting his fate when something shiny caught its eye. The ship anchor. The Siren lifted its head in hope It couldn't swim but it had enough strength left to crawl on the ocean floor and quickly made its way over to the anchor, grabbing onto the chain and with all the strength left in its body, started pulling itself up to the surface.

The sunlight hurt the eyes of the creature when it emerged from the water and removed the nictitating membrane, a semitransparent eyelid that covers the eye completely, similar to that of an alligator or crocodile. The Siren only had the top part of its head out of the water, just enough to see his surroundings and the ship above it. It flinched and ducked back under the water when it heard the noise of human laughter, even though humans feared Sirens, a weak Siren feared humans.

It slowly lifted its head back out of the water and looked up, still hearing the laughter, but they hadn't seen it so it thought it was okay so far. The Siren was skittish and hesitant so it was very cautious as it lifted its body out of the water and up to the side of the ship. It moved back down the chain as it saw the back of a human, the human was faced away from the water so it got the courage to lift itself back up. Normally it would never do this in broad daylight, but if he waited any longer it could be life-threatening, more than the situation already was.

It lifted its face above the bulkhead to see the situation that it was being forced to deal with. It got lucky, no one was facing its direction. It looked around quickly and the shiny blade of a dagger caught its eye, It knew that the dagger was exactly what it needed, so the Siren made a dangerous action and grabbed the dagger, quickly jumping back into the safety and cover of the water.

Eric heard the splash of water and looked back to see what it was, but all he saw was the water settling. He shrugged it off and chalked it up to being a fish and looked back at everyone on the deck of the ship. The siren sank back to the floor of the ocean and it held the dagger tightly in its hand as it began to cut the big part of the net off its tail. After a few moments of cutting the tough rope, the tail of the Siren was finally free and it was able to move it freely again.

It stayed lying on the ocean floor for a few extra minutes, resting its body and getting some of its strength and stamina back. The Siren's eyes only opened again when the anchor of the ship was being reeled back into the ship, it had enough strength by now so it swam back up to the surface of the water and looked above to the deck. Everyone was getting ready to sail off again so the creature took the dagger it was still holding and tossed it back up onto the ship, quicking diving back under the water.

The splash caught Eric's eye and he looked over just in time to see the tip of a tail go under the water, he was curious so he walked over, his foot stepping on the dagger that was just thrown aboard by the Siren. He looked down and moved his foot, he was confused about why this dagger, his dagger, was soaking wet on the deck of the ship and not dry as a bone sitting in his holster. He picked it up and stared at it in confusion.

Eric: "Why is my dagger here?"

Ian: "What was that?"

Eric: "My dagger, is soaking wet and sitting on the deck, but I never took it out of my holster."

Ian: "You probably just dropped it."

Eric: "Okay, then why is it wet?"

Ian: "We're on a ship in the middle of the ocean, it's rare to find anything here dry."

Eric: "I guess so, but I still find it strange."

With that, Eric put the dagger back in his holster and continued getting the ship ready for sailing. The Siren swam just underneath the boat, it needed food badly, but because it was still so weak and tired, it couldn't keep up with the fish to catch it. The net that the creature was trapped in that night was full of fish, so if it stayed just close enough to the ship, it could steal the trapped fish and get back to swimming at top speed in no time, and that's what it did.

The Siren knew it would be killed on sight if it was seen, so it stayed directly under the ship to avoid human eyes, and just like he had hoped, the nets were thrown into the water to catch fish. The Siren smiled excitedly and quickly swam to the net, being very careful to not get caught in it again and he started to steal and eat the fish. He left some of the fish in the nets to keep the humans oblivious to his plan.

Eric noticed he wasn't getting enough fish in his nets near noon, or mid-day. He was getting frustrated that his nets weren't bringing up as many fish as he wanted, so he started to put bait in the nets to try and get more fish. Eric got angry when there still wasn't enough fish in the nets. The Siren was taking a bit too much fish and Eric was getting suspicious of it.

Night soon fell. The crew was busy getting everything put away for the night while their captain was staring out at the horizon, unaware that a Siren was hanging out right underneath his ship. Eric looked down at the water and could see something moving just under the ship with the little light the sun had to offer, and he leaned in closer to see what it was. Nothing. Whatever he had seen was gone. Eric turned back to the others and walked off back to the others.

The Siren dove down further into the cold ocean, finding cover within the dark water. The Siren was lucky and the ship was stopped right above an underwater cave, and even more lucky because that cave was not a home to something else, so the creature had shelter for the night. This specific Siren was nocturnal, it wasn't used to sleeping at night, but it had to stay awake for the day to get fish. Once it made sure the boat was stopped for the night and the anchor fell to the ocean floor, it rested its body on the sand and under the rock, inside the small cave, and closed its eyes.

Suddenly, six deadly venomous snakes swam inside the cave alongside the Siren and curled up on top of, against, and next to the Siren. Snakes don't have eyelids so they didn't close their eyes, but they did fall asleep with the Siren. Sailors don't sleep much, they spend all day working and most of the night drinking, but luckily for the creature, it was so far down under the water that it couldn't hear much of the commotion above on the ship.

The next morning, the siren was ready for all the fish that the sailors were gonna get, but the sailors in question had other plans. It stretched out its body and woke the sea snakes that were resting with him, but they didn't attack. Instead, they swam out around the Siren and greeted it with little nuzzles before heading to the surface to refuel on air. Sirens have gills so the creature didn't need to get oxygen, but it followed the snakes to the surface anyway.

It stopped halfway up when it noticed the anchor. It was still lowered. The creature tilted its head in confusion and curiosity then swam back down to the anchor to examine it. It was stuck in the sand like the day before which made the Siren realize the ship was still stopped and that it wasn't going to be moving any time soon. The creature wasn't exactly happy to realize this.

It swam back up to the surface to figure out what was going on with the humans and why they hadn't started sailing away again. The Siren was still very hungry and it wanted more fish to eat, but the ship wasn't going to be moving that morning. It peered out of the water and used the chain from the anchor to lift itself higher up and see the top of the ship and onto the deck.

That night was full of drunk sailors and laughter, nothing got done and hardly anyone got enough sleep, not to mention the hangovers everyone had. Correction, almost everyone had. One sailor did not have a hangover because he did not drink that night. Ian Hadrock. He wasn't a drinker, he was also a lightweight and hated having a hangover, so he hardly ever touched alcoholic drinks.

Of course, that meant he was in charge of mothering the rest of the crew when they all had hangovers. He started to clean up the bottles of rum, and other alcoholic bottles, tossing them away with the other bottles from other nights of fun. He made sure everyone had plenty of water before, while, and after drinking, but that didn't stop the hangovers from happening.

Soon everyone was leaving their rooms, by mid-day. The captain wasn't very happy with how late everyone, including himself, was getting up but there wasn't anything he could do about it besides move on and continue with the day. They were a bit behind schedule, so they needed to catch up and catch tons of fish by nightfall or they would be in trouble.

Eric: "Alright everyone! We woke up late and we got shit for fish yesterday, so we need to work faster and harder today to catch back up and get back on schedule! Understood?" He shouted from the wheel of the ship.

Everyone: "Yes Captain!"

Eric: "Good! Now get to work, I don't want to see a single person on this ship slacking off!"

Everyone: "Yes Captain!"

Everyone quickly went off to do their part as the crew. Eric was firm with his crew when he needed to be, he was their boss but also their friend. Just because he was good friends with his crew, doesn't mean he would let them off the hook when they got in trouble, he is still their captain. Soon the anchor was back up and out of the water and the sails to the ship were down, which quickly caught the wind and they were off.

The Siren dove back into the safety of the water once it felt the chain to the anchor start to pull up, and once the ship started to move, so did the Siren. Eric spoke nonstop about the Siren while drunk, so everyone was kind of annoyed with him since they didn't believe it. Others thought it was his way of pranking them, but no one believed him. Not one person on that ship believed him.

Eric: "I'm telling you guys, it had a human-like top with a fishtail instead of legs!"

Finn: "How do you know it wasn't just some guy that was getting eaten by a shark?"

Ben: "I think that's worse than a Siren or Mermaid."

Eric: "Humans don't have webbed hands and gills!"

Ian: "The lightning probably made this thing look different than what it actually was."

Hugo: "Not to mention you have no proof that this creature of legend is even real. And how do we know you aren't just pranking us?"

Eric: "I know what I saw!"

Finn: "Like that time you saw farries dancing in the forest?"

Eric: "How was I supposed to know they were fireflies??"

Hugo: "Or that time you thought you saw a dragon but it was just a bird eating a snake?"

Eric: "It looked really convincing from far away…"

Ian: "You have to admit, you've said that you've seen many things that were something else."

Eric: "Well this time I am sure that it was a Siren! Or a Mermaid!"

Ben: "I love a good myth as the next guy, but that's all they are, myths, made-up stories."

Eric: "Someone had to have seen something for that myth to become a thing!"

Hugo: "Yeah? Then prove it. Prove to all of us that Sirens are real, other than you just thinking you saw one."

Eric: "Fine! I will!"

Eric huffed and quickly stormed off to the wheel of the ship, pouting and glaring at the water. No one believing him was frustrating for Eric. He had encountered a creature that most people believed to be a myth, and yet nobody on his crew seemed to take it seriously. They assumed that he was just mistaken and that he had caught a large fish or some other sea creature, but Eric knew what he had seen. He needed to find out more, to learn the truth about Sirens and their existence.