2.4 Task Two: Sirens Song

It is midnight, the boat docked in the harbour sways and bobs with the tide, the tide that holds secrets untold, that leers and taunts with its mystery. Through the gloom of the night and past the small white dinghy boats with their red lights blinking lies a pier shrouded in darkness. Once bustling with people, salesman, peasants, women with baskets and children hanging off worn-out arms, the pier sits alone, ominous in its silence. In the harbour, one boat sits alone, separated but not isolated from the others. Its small stature makes it invisible to curious onlookers from the pier. It makes it the perfect target.

Watch, see the waves curl up against the hull, a threating force of midnight navy. The light of a lantern that sits on rotting wood of the dingy glints off the water surrounding the boat. It gives a window of opportunity to see what lies beneath the surface of the water, to see through the shadow. But the light does things. Indescribable things. The light can lie.

It is cold. The water holds no warmth, it turns a cold shoulder and stares with a thousand pairs of dead frozen eyes. The victims who were lost without a trace, who were once fathers and friends, innocent souls who succumbed to an addictive lie now forgotten to the ocean. The boat moves suddenly, cutting through the water in a way that seems almost unnatural. Like a blunt knife, ripping and tearing until it cuts through the waves.

Close your eyes, the shadows of the unknown move beneath the fragile vessel, curling and gliding fluidly. They taunt with silhouettes of monstrous proportions, appearing just below the surface, just out of view, far enough away to wonder if it was really there at all. They appeared from the depths, their blue-green skin glistening dangerously, their breath sickly sweet.

Hush. Hear them now, the voices of lies, of greed and deception, sweet like honey. An invisible string wound tight on the will of the beholder. They drift up and around the boat, accompanied by nothing but the slow wash of waves against the paltry boat. Unwavering silence back to back with the alluring but deceiving melody.

And then you stop, the irresistible lie is laced into the cracks and corners of your mind. The piercing but melodious and angelic song is poured into your soul, heavy like concrete, addictive like a drug. Sinking, sinking, sinking. You grab at the splintered wooden boards either side of the boat and dig your nails into the cracks, a feeble attempt to ground yourself. It’s already delved into your mind, exposed your secrets, embedded itself into your very being. You find yourself leaning over the boat, staring back at a wide-eyed girl whose face ripples with the water. Staring, staring, a tinge of familiarity up your spine but the source of the thought is blank. Your essence has been swallowed up by the deceitful melody like you can’t imagine being anything without it, you want it, you need it. You are it. Down you go, down, down, down until the water fills your lungs, but you welcome it. The ice-blue water pours into your body, like a tap running into a bath. You feel your body hit the sand and the looming shadow from before engulf you. Your conscience, your mind, your soul. It has consumed you.