Talons and fangs and silvery skin.
But what gives birth to a Siren?
Do they grow?
Are they ever little girls with innocence and laughter?
No.
No, they are not born, they are made.
They do not grow; they become and then they exist.
They say the Siren's song is captivating and beautiful.
A melody that wraps around a soul and makes it impossible to ignore the pull.
Mine was not beautiful.
My song was not a song at all, but a scream.
Mine was a desperate sound of agony clawing up my throat and whisked away on the wind.
How is a Siren made, you ask?
You make us.
You let us fall over the edge and ignore our cries for help.
I fell over the edge and arms were not waiting for me.
Water was.
The ocean opened up like a mouth and swallowed me whole.
And I screamed for help.
I called name after name after name, and no one even bothered to look over the edge.
And when no one came, no rope to pull me up, the waves pulled me in.
It was agony at first.
Cold, abrasive, harsh water stinging and pushing into my nose and pulling at my feet.
It hurt when I fought against it.
So, I stopped fighting.
And when I stopped fighting, the pain changed.
It still hurt, but it didn't bite.
It burned.
Anger became a hot coal in my stomach, and I lit up the darkness of the deep.
I burned from within with years of pain and abandonment feeding the fire inside of me.
The water changed me then.
Or maybe the anger changed me.
Or maybe I changed myself.
Hands that used to be softly grasping out at the world grew talons that could not be ignored.
The mouth that seemed so useless before became the mouth of a monster no one could disregard.
The body that failed me so many times became something fast and strong and new.
This new thing would not be forsaken.
I would not tolerate the silence.
I would scream until someone heard me and came running and they would see what became of the girl everyone forgot.
When I breeched the water for the first time, the cry came out of me like a song of mourning.
The unintelligible words clung to the air and pulled themselves farther and faster and higher.
It poured out of me like something with its own mind.
I couldn't have stopped it if I wanted to.
I didn't want to.
I wanted someone to hear me.
I wanted someone to look.
I needed someone to listen.
A ship rose out of the horizon the way a soul must climb out of a grave.
It was slow at first, adjusting and trying to find the right course.
I screamed again.
The cry pulled itself across the sky and I knew it had found an ear to rest in.
The bow of the ship came clearer and clearer.
And there he was.
Eyes wide and shining with tears.
Yes, cry for me.
Cry for the loss.
Cry for the loneliness I spent my life drowning in.
I caught his arm when he landed in the water and pulled.
The water washed the song out of his ears.
The tears in his eyes mixed with the salt water and he tried to escape.
No.
Don't ignore me.
Not again.
I clasped his face in my hands and made his wild eyes meet mine.
He would see me.
I would be the last thing he saw.
I would be the last thing any of them saw and they would never forget me.
Being heard was intoxicating after a lifetime of being invisible.
Even as I pulled him behind me, I thought of the next set of eyes I would stare into.
I left him on the sand at the bottom of the sea, beneath the surface, beneath the point where darkness swallows up the light, beneath the weight that crushes life out.
I weighted him down with stones and ringed him in with shells.
This would be the trophy room.
And I would fill it with anyone who would listen to me.
