Chapter 1 – The Catch
791 Words
Lira
The water was cold.
Not the familiar cold of my homeland — the deep, loving embrace of the Abyssal Court. This was different. Artificial. Sterile.
I opened my eyes.
Glass surrounded me on all sides. Thick, reinforced, humming with some human machine I didn't recognize. Water filled my prison, but it tasted wrong — flat and dead, stripped of salt and life.
My tail pressed against the glass.
Trapped.
I remembered the attack. The sudden roar of engines tearing through our sacred waters. The sharp sting of nets lined with iron — poison to my kind. My sisters screaming. My mother's face —
I pushed the memory away.
Focus.
I was naked except for the pearl necklace my mother gave me. My scales — once shimmering silver and emerald — were dull in this dead water. And around my tail, wrapped so tight they bit into my flesh, were chains.
Iron chains.
I couldn't break them. Not here. Not without the ocean's power.
A shadow moved beyond the glass.
I pressed my face to the wall and saw them — humans. Four of them. They stood in a sterile white room, pointing at me like I was a specimen. One held a tablet. Another spoke into a phone.
"Boss," the one with the phone said, "the package is secure. Rival crew tried to take it from us underwater. We lost three men."
A pause.
"Yes. It's... real. Scales. Tail. Full sea creature. I'm sending photos now."
Full sea creature.
I bared my teeth. If I had my voice — my true voice — I'd shatter this glass and drown them all. But iron chains suppressed my magic. Muted my song.
I was helpless.
For the first time in my life, I was truly helpless.
---
Hours passed. Or days. I couldn't tell in this dead water.
Then the humans returned.
Two of them this time, wearing black suits and carrying a strange device. It hummed with electricity that made my scales crawl.
"Boss wants it transported to the penthouse," one said.
"What about the tail?"
"Keep it chained. And fill the tank with seawater this time. He doesn't want it dead."
It.
They called me it.
I felt a cold rage settle in my chest — calm and sharp as a blade. I would remember this. Every insult. Every chain. Every moment of humiliation.
And when I escaped...
They would beg for death.
---
The journey was agony.
They drained my water, leaving me gasping and writhing on the glass floor. My tail was useless without liquid — heavy, dead weight. Then they sprayed me with something cold and wet, and I felt my scales recede, my tail splitting into something else.
Legs.
I'd never been on land before. Never felt the weight of gravity or the strangeness of air in my lungs.
And then I saw my reflection in the glass.
Human.
Silver hair still flowing past my waist. Jade eyes still sharp. But where my tail should be — two pale, trembling legs, bare and alien.
The humans stared. One whistled.
"Damn. Boss is gonna lose his mind."
I curled into myself, wrapping my arms around my nakedness. The chains were still there — now wrapped around my ankles.
Keep them. Keep everything. I'll make you pay.
They threw a blanket over me and dragged me out.
---
I woke in a glass cage again — but this time, the water was different.
Salt.
Real salt water. My scales began to glow again, faint and blue, as my body remembered what it was. My tail reformed — silver and emerald, beautiful and deadly.
The chains stayed, but I felt stronger. My magic was returning.
I explored my new prison. It was large — bigger than my chamber in the Abyssal Court. Glass walls. A view of a strange world outside — metal towers, flashing lights, moving machines.
The human world.
Then I heard footsteps.
I turned.
A man stood outside my glass cage. Dark-haired. Tall. Dressed in black from head to toe. His eyes were cold — black ice, unreadable.
He watched me like I was a painting. A puzzle.
"Beautiful," he murmured, almost to himself.
I pressed my palm to the glass, scales flaring.
"Let me out," I said. My voice was a whisper — but my rage was a scream.
He tilted his head. "You speak."
"Of course I speak. I'm not a beast."
A slow smile spread across his face. It didn't reach his eyes.
"No," he agreed. "You're something far more interesting."
He stepped closer, until his reflection blurred with mine in the glass.
"Welcome to my world, little siren. I'm Dante Rosso. And you —"
He paused.
"— are mine now."
- Writer
