Book of Fate: Siren Stone (Book 1)

Chapter 2

The creature’s eyes were opened and white and its mouth opened wide, as if it had been dead for a long time, with black liquid spilling from its mouth and covering the entire body.  Everyone looked at each other in fright and parents holding their children close or going back to the village, hoping to make their children forget what they saw. The village chief, Xander, was looking at the creature with fear and astonishment on his face.  The guards were holding back the crowd while they continued to check the body.  He turned to the villagers and said in a loud voice,” Do not worry.  I assure you there is nothing to be afraid of.  We will thoroughly investigate this.  Please do not panic and head back to the village.”

I continued to look.  The body was really long but not a hundred meters, probably around thirty.  The scales looked like it just molted.  The color was hard to tell because of a black liquid, but it was obvious that it was a siren, a very young one.  I blinked my eyes and I was able to see its aura, the life force of all living things.  It was very dark, but there was a faint light in the middle of its body.  I could see that it was still alive but barely.  I wanted to say something, but since Chief Xander is here, it should be in good hands.

Everyone exchanged worried glances but did what the chief said, knowing he could be trusted.  Everyone went back except for him and his daughter, Liera.  Liera is considered to be one of the most beautiful girls on the island, but really she is a horrible, disgusting brat who thinks she can have everything she wants whenever she says so.  She doesn’t really do anything special to help the village at all, unless it is to show that she is above every girl in this village or show how kind she is to every person and win favor over the villagers.  Before I turned around, I saw that Elixa, the town healer, was there too.  I was reassured it is in good hands, since she is there.

On the way back Eiress whispered,” I can’t believe a siren actually appeared on the shore like that.  This has never happened before.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I mean, our history always told us that sirens were guardian creatures of the sea and could never be killed by humans or by anything unless it’s poison or an even bigger sea creature,” replied Eiress.

“True, but no human has ever survived going against a siren, unless they have a lot of earwax and hold their breath for a long time in order to successfully poison them.”

“Do you think someone did this on purpose to postpone the trial?” asked Sirene.

“I sure hope not,” I said, fear rising in me at the thought of it.  “If someone on this island were able to poison a siren, I doubt they would be able to act casually and they would probably be all bruised up and everything.”

“But aren’t you worried about people being able to defeat the sirens and invade our village?” asked Sirene.

“No, because we have been waiting for this our whole lives, and they can’t postpone it just because one siren washed up on the shore dead from poison.  Plus no one has ever been able to get past the mirage, I doubt there will be anyone to do that for the next couple hundred years.”

“Yeah, but, you know that could change at any moment.”

“Yes, but we’ll be ready for it.”

“True,” I said,” but if it does happen tomorrow, you know where to go.  We'll be safe.”

After everyone dispersed, I went to Elixa’s healing house.  I learned a lot about my magic abilities from her.  When I got inside, there was a man with an injured foot and cuts all over his leg, rummaging through the cabinets in search of an ointment.  The man was hunchbacked and his clothes were in rags.  I continued to watch from the doorway to see what would happen.  After a while, I lit one of the lanterns and he turned to look at me.  His face was covered with grease and sweat.  His hands were infected by the cuts and the bandages he had were all dirty from previous uses and covered up his arm.  “Did you need something?” I asked in a cool voice.

He jumped as I spoke and then looked down at the ground in shame.  Maybe my voice was a little too cool, or cruel.  I took a chair out and gestured to him to sit.  Without looking up, he quietly sat down in the chair.  I went to the cabinets and took out a new set of bandages and disinfecting chemicals.  There was no need for magic to fix up something so small.

I slowly took off the dirty bandages to reveal a huge deep cut, I guess I will have to use magic for this.  Using my second lens, I saw that the aura in his arm was really damaged.  Only Elixa would have the ability to take care of something like this.  I treated the rest of the cuts on his hands and legs.  I grabbed the needle and thread and began to stitch the gigantic cut.  While I was stitching I tried to talk to the man to keep his mind off the pain and the needle.  “So how did you get a cut this big?”

I felt him tense up a little bit.  He was holding his breath.  I tried not to look up in suspicion.  And continued to stitch at a normal pace.  “I mean, we don’t usually see patients with a cut this big unless they are fishermen dealing with stray sharks.”

He started to relax, but he didn’t answer the question.  I tried to finish it up as quickly as possible, knowing how late it was becoming.  When I finished, I wrapped a fresh new bandage around it, to keep it from falling apart.  He left without a word. The only acknowledgement I received from him was a little nod of gratitude.  I filled out the patient record and went back home.

That night, I couldn’t sleep.  Seeing a dead siren on the beach has really got me worried about the future of this island.  And the sight of the fresh wounds on the hunchback really got me thinking and listing a set of suspects, one in particular at the top. When I finally managed to fall asleep, I would wake up from a nightmare in a cold sweat.  A voice kept calling my name over and over.  The voice sounded like a female, but it also sounded like a male’s voice.  The way the voice called my name, made me feel like someone was desperately trying to reach out to me.  I couldn’t sleep for the rest of the night.

The next day, the Chief gathered us in the center of the village,  he announced that the trial will go on as scheduled and there is nothing to worry about. All the boys and girls who were eager for the trials let out a sigh of relief and forgot about the siren.  But I didn’t forget, so later on I went to the beach and went up to the siren.  There was no one around and the smell of rotting scales and flesh was starting to reek.  I took another good look at its aura.  The light was a lot fainter this time.  I couldn’t believe it, that it has been enduring all this pain the entire time.

I circled the body a couple of times but did not find any hint of injuries or any hint of Elixa trying to heal the poor creature.  The scales were seaglass green, but when I took a closer look, I saw some of the scales were black. I touched it and it was sticky and slimy.  I looked at the gills and they were filled with the same black slimy stuff.  I didn’t like how this was looking, it looked like someone intentionally did this in order to kill it slowly.  I heard footsteps and I ran behind the nearest bush and climbed one of the banana trees.  I watched the Chief and his men holding knives and cutting into the rotting flesh of the siren.  When they slit open the stomach, a whole pool of black slime poured onto the sand and turned the sand black.I wanted to look away, but my curiosity got the best of me and made me want to look longer.

The men gathered buckets of black sand and went back to the village.  I climbed down the tree and walked on to the black sand.  The sand felt slippery and disgusting.  It felt like something was crawling under my feet.  I touched its head, curious to know what it's really like to touch a siren.  The scales on its head were thick and tough.  Then an image popped in front of me and there was only pitch black around me.  When I felt my hand no longer touching the siren, I was breathing really hard and the world suddenly jumped right back in front of me.  I felt like I was going to puke and I looked at the cut on its underbelly.  Just like its flesh, the insides looked rotten and the smell of decay made me want to barf.  I wanted to look more but the smell was unbearable.  I headed back to the village, trying to forget what I just saw from the siren and forget the feeling of the pitch black.