Under Murky Waters

LIFE AFTER DEATH.

The thought of that phrase alone was eerily painful. Zale felt it resonate deep within his bones, humming to the frequency of his being. To own enchanting beauty was a burden unlike any other.

Though she was crafted by the gods, sculpted by angels, bred by deities, Cordelia reeked of sin and misery. She was a child of the night, a creature cursed to live beneath the waves and find joy in taking the lives of sailors that frequented their seas.

However, Zale might be a little insane from the loneliness but he thought Cordelia was also much more compassionate. She spared his life and he still did not know the reason why.

“Why am I alive?” Zale decided to bluntly ask, his question straight to the point and without much hesitation.

Cordelia innocently tilted her head to a side, her legs folded beneath her as she sat on her calves. Her lips were pursed, eyebrows furrowed in confusion as moonlight reflected the droplets of water that resides on her skin.

“I am afraid I do not understand the question,” she slowly answered. “Do you not wish to be?”

“No!” He all but shouted, jerking upwards slightly. That only decreased the distance between them and Zale found the gap in between their faces alarmingly small. He cleared his throat once, then two more times, before shuffling slightly back. “I mean, I am grateful that you chose not to kill me. But why am I the only one spared? What did I do to earn such a privilege that the other men did not? Even my best friend, someone I grew up with and know as well as the back of my palm was not spared.”

Once Zale clarified his question, Cordelia smiled. It was one that cried of mock and tease as she leaned forward, her soft salt-tainted lips brushing against the lobe of Zale’s ear.

“It is more of what they did and you did not, sailor,” she whispered to him. As quickly as she drew in, she returned to her original position. A smile curved her lips, dimples carved deeply in her cheeks as she did so.

“What did they do, then?” he asked.

“They killed us. One by one, slowly, painfully. When we were alive, they did something to wrong us that eventually led to our deaths. We were just taking revenge, avenging the lives we could have had.”

“But Kyle—”

“One of the sirens that appeared that night died at his hands. He had gotten drunk on that trip you were too sick to follow, her throat crushed by his fingers and palms before her body was tossed out to sea. She was the one that drowned him. I watched her die, too slow to save her.”

Zale’s lips zipped shut. He had not known that his best friend, a man he considered as a brother, was capable of such cruelty. For all of his life, he thought of Kyle as the most righteous man he knew, second only to Zale’s own father.

“I did not know.”

“How could you?” Cordelia laughed but this time, it was distant and sarcastic. “Death is a fleeting sort of pain to both the killer and the killed. Yes, sometimes the torture drags out for hours but when death is finally ready to take souls into his hands and ferry them away from the mortal realm, he works quickly and efficiently. The pain that most people assume is death is just simply torture. Those who kill might not even remember their victims because it can be so easy. A knife to the throat, a gun to a head, or a sword through a chest. It takes mere seconds.”

“How did you die, then? Was it fleeting as well?”

“Yes. But the torture that lasted minutes felt like years.” Memories brimmed in Cordelia’s eyes as she fell back, settling down on the sand while she traced incomprehensible drawings. “It was more than a year ago. I awoke as a siren days after my death at the bottom of the sea. I thought I cried but my tears mixed with the seawater so I can’t be sure.”

Zale’s heart clenched painfully, sorrow coursing through his bloodstream. He wanted to reach out and comfort the maiden that sat before him but a small fleeting thought returned to his mind.

No matter her origin story, she was ultimately still a villain in his. Or at the very least, an anti-hero.

They sat under the glimmering starlight, content with the silence that enveloped their bodies. The warmth of the fire Zale had made out of twigs and branches crackled and danced. Its amber flames twirled in the cold of the night, warming it marvelously.

Somewhere through the night, Zale felt Cordelia’s body inch in closer to him. At first he tensed up, his brain jerking awake immediately even as he was close to falling asleep. But once he noticed that she merely rested her head on his shoulder for support, her chest rising and falling in even breaths as slumber overtook her, Zale relaxed.

He eased back into the support of the makeshift wooden pillar he had constructed, his own eyes fluttering shut. There, settled upon the sand, the two people became victims of undisturbed sleep.