Prompt had something to do with the survivor of a plane crash and encountering a magical creature.
The Siren’s Call
The sun torments him.
It is the only thing he can see, his eyes burned into blindness by its searing heat. A bright orange life vest keeps him afloat, as it has for the last two days, its color already blanching.
The adrenaline of the crash coursed powerfully through his veins in the beginning. When, at last, the husk of the plane stopped and began to sink, it was the adrenaline that called him to action in the midst of his stupor. Unbidden, the emergency pamphlets of a thousand plane rides came to mind. He unbuckled himself, tugged at the seat cover and found beneath it a life vest, which he placed around his neck and clasped at the chest just as the rising salt water washed over him.
With a tug of the string the vest forcefully inflated, even underwater, and kicking ferociously he managed to float up past the open rim of the plane’s exterior, straight out the sheered midsection, into the open ocean.
He waited there, bobbing on the water’s surface, as the tail slowly sunk, hoping someone else would float up to meet him. No one ever did.
He can no longer move. He floats on his back, burnt and blind, hungry, yes – but viciously thirsty. His thirst is a blood-lust. He knows he would kill for a glass of water. His lips are cracked and burning, and the inside of his desiccated throat feels like the crazed floor of an ancient seabed.
Deep in the recesses of what remains of his mind he begins to come to terms. He knows the pain of dying this way. He knows that after the tides have moved him an unknown distance from the site of the crash the chances of rescue are minimal.
He knows it is hopeless.
A touch on his back, soft and gentle. The tender nuzzle of a shark’s prodding, he is sure, and he prepares himself for the terrible violence that must come next. Only it never comes. In its place, a voice.
“Hello stranger.”
It is a woman’s voice, irresistible as a mythical siren, and it is right beside his face, her warm breath tickling his ear. He cannot see her, his weakness is so overpowering he lacks even the modicum of energy needed to turn his head. He tries to speak, but his voice is broken, shattered into aural pieces like fine glassware in a tornado.
“Help.” He croaks.
A swish of the water and then the voice returns, now on his left. “You dye. There are none of your kind here.”
He manages the word once again. “Help.”
The voice is silent for a time until it replies, uncertain.
“There may be a way.”
Its excitement builds and now it circles around him in the water, sight unseen, its dulcet sound reassuring as the warm glow of an orbiting star.
“Disavow your kind, your kin. Forswear the sight of them. Abandon your dry land and your dry Gods and let the thing you are pass to the sea.”
Time passes.
At last she asks the ultimate question, an invitation with the cadence of a fairytail riddle, her lips touching his ear, so pleasantly moist, her voice little more than the airy idea of a voice.
Will you come with me now, to the place below, and leave behind all you know?
He tries to speak, but his words are spent.
His nod is almost imperceptible.
With his last bit of energy, he raises his right hand from within the cool water and brings it to the place at his chest where a single plastic clip lashes him to this world. It is a terrible struggle to unlock this simple barrier, and his herculean effort hurts in every fiber of his being. But, at last, he is unclasped.
He does not slip out of the vest all at once. Instead, the gentle undulation of the waves slowly sets him free, until at last his sagging arms come loose. Now only his meager final breath holds his tired head above the water, and this he releases in an invisible plume, drop by precious drop, gracefully lowering himself below the crest of the delicate waves, until at last he is submerged, a lonely orange vest all that remains of his passing.
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