Nemerys

______ Amidst the great deep, through a labyrinth of color, Nemerys took her keep. It appeared that Atlantis, was more than just a legend. Within the winding pillars and robust architecture, a siren lay, the lone survivor of her kind.

The Atlantic people were separated into two subtypes: land and sea-dwellers. Together they lived in harmony with one another; beings of the earth, who were blessed with the gift of intense emotion and beings of water who possessed the power over the runes.

For centuries, peace was spread all over the region. It was only due to influence from an outside voyager did a threat ensue. This stranger promised wealth in exchange for the beautiful iridescent scales of the sea-dwellers. Their strength in emotion became their weakness. With the aid of advanced technology introduced by the visitor, the land-dwellers turned on their sea brethren, slaughtering them one by one until no siren remained.

Years passed and eventually, the land-dwellers moved on to live in the faraway lands where wealth awaited them. With the lack of the siren's maintenance underwater, slowly the once wondrous land of Atlantis sank deeper and deeper into the waters until it was long forgotten.

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The ocean was crushing. Blue, among blue, among black, past the lights of the fish with glowing spines and needle mouths gaping in wait for their blind prey. Past the concept of life, past existence itself, came the song.

A melancholic masterpiece breathed into the bubbling liquid sky, a creature shrouded in darkness left alone to dance half of the waltz, waiting to feel the melody returned against a heart that hoped against even death itself.

From the clutches of the invisible, she burst forward.

Black. Blue. Blue, until her body shook from the pressure of her speed. The water grew light, until her eyes hit the sunlight, and her body burst from the surface, shattering like broken glass into droplets that scattered back into obscurity once more. For a vivid moment, she flew, joining the birds in the sky with their caws and their familial formations, until she was breaking the surface, and sinking, skin rippling against the underwater beams of light, body shimmering like forgotten gold, and her song started once more, determined and woeful, spiralling back into her darkness.

How she could not stand the see the ships. The wooden, creaking human creations. She would cling to the risen rocks and sing saccharine songs made of honeyed words and faux promises of love and treasure. And despite the years in passing, humans would steer towards her, in search of a way to satisfy their selfish greed.

Nemerys had already gone, by the time the ship had been heard. The dim thunder was all but a drum, a note lost to the vast and endless waters. Her wrath knew no conscience, it knew no love for these seafaring creatures, but she could not bring herself to laugh at the misery caused. She could not adjust to her sadism, her sudden swim slowing to a halt, turning to gaze around her.

Her actions would not bring back the ones she sought so desperately. The thought made her heart clench in her throat, winded and despondent. And so, she let her body start to sink, eyes half lidded and staring ahead, she felt her lips part and her throat hum, starting to sing.

She sang the only song that her kind had sung. One of peace, and happier, kinder times. She wondered if they would despise her actions, shun her cruelty. The knowledge that she would never be able to receive even judgement from them had turned her song into a shrill, crying symphony of words and melodies. She screamed an aria of cascading hopelessness, as her body drifted, sinking, and shifting. She watched the world grow blue, and blue, and black. All the while, she sang.

She sang to the deafening silence of the water, that she knew would never sing back to her.

^written by punchingsolas