The water had unexpectedly shifted. Usually it swirled friendly around her, letting her use it to her own advantage, but it had gone completely still. It was almost like she was levitating in the air, but she could still feel the cold water seeping through the gills on her neck. She stopped swimming immediately, she felt her mind drifting in and out. Her stomach was cramping with hunger; she hadn’t eaten in weeks or maybe even months. Days had passed and her mind hadn’t let her control her own body. The octopuses had hid since the last time she ripped one open. She cringed as a quick vision of squishing a school of fish flashed in her mind. She hated killing things that she couldn’t eat, she wasn’t always just a murderous creature and her guilt always seemed to remind her. There was no longer any need for her to kick her tail to keep her in one place, but she did it anyway. It propelled her to the surface.
Her head broke though the water and she took a deep breath of actual air in. The familiar feeling of air filling her lungs completely broke her out of her hunger trance. Simple human things still had that effect over her, but they also snapped her with old human memories. Memories she wished she could forget. The gills on her neck poured out the water she was previously using for oxygen, making a gentle trickle sound as it joined back with the ocean. She happened to be near the shore, but still far enough away she could be mistaken for a rock. Her eyes switched from their usual black to her old hazel eyes. She tried to remember the last thing she consciously chose to do, but her memory betrayed her. The only thing worse than the madness from starvation was the fleeting human moments that she knew she wouldn’t remember. But this one was already different.
Her ears pricked up as she heard the low lull of a woman’s voice. The water was crawling its way up onto the shore, much further than it usually would. Yes, it was a full moon, but this was still abnormal. It was furiously trying to reach something – or somebody. The ocean crawled up onto the sand, trying to reach what seemed to be the last house on the cliff’s edge. Her eyes squinted as she tried to adjust to the darkness of land, thankful the moon was so bright tonight. It must be around three in the morning. She was surprised she had even remembered such a thing as human time; she had long given up on trying to keep track of her old world. It only made her angry, as she rotted underneath feeding on what seemed to be every other animal’s leftovers, people were still up there laughing. She had been right; no men had come off the shore to fish since her last meal. Men’s hearts just come too infrequently now.
Her eyes drifted to the neighbouring houses and the amount of carriages drawn by horses that were sitting stagnant. The low murmur of a woman’s voice was still ringing in the air, but she wondered why she could only hear one voice. There seemed to be a ball happening, by the look of the light flowing out from the windows that flickered from what she assumed were people walking past. As she studied what was happening, the doors burst open and a group of people flooded out. She ducked half of her head back under the water, leaving just her eyes above the water, her gills flexing once again. The women were gripping onto their men’s arms, all almost tripping while each still holding a glass presumably filled with wine. She watched as their mouths opened and closed; they were definitely talking to each other. But she couldn’t hear them, even though they were closer to her. She looked back over to the neighbouring house that the ocean was still trying to reach. It was all dark except for an upstairs room, which had the windows pushed open. Somehow she knew that was where the voice was coming from.
She watched for a long time, surprised that her hunger trance hadn’t taken over yet. Eventually everyone left the ball next door. Clothed in their very best dresses and suits they all hopped up into their carriages all smiley from their night out, being whisked away back to wherever they came from. She started to hum along with the voice, having listened to it for long enough now to know its tune. The ocean settled down, resigning itself to defeat as the moon fell away below the horizon. It once again swirled around her comfortably. To her luck, a man stumbled out of the house, visibly inebriated, presumably looking for his carriage. But there were no carriages left; he should have gone home with someone else. He looked out towards her direction and she raised her head once again out of the water. She sang louder, trying to reach into his mind with her song.
It’s a perfect time for a swim, she repeated in her head, focusing all her energy on sending it out towards the man.
It caught him and he started stumbling down to the beach, right towards her. His eyes had rolled back into his head. She had him. She ceased her singing then and realised that the other woman’s voice had also stopped. She swam quickly closer towards the shore. She dragged herself out of the water, up onto the sand, with her arms out in front of her; ready to latch onto him. The sun had just started to rise, she needed to act quickly so no one else would see her. She urged the man to go faster and he tripped and started to roll down towards her, his suit jacket coming loose and tangled up in the sand as he fell. She caught him in her arms making sure to keep him in her trance, she couldn’t mess it up again. Her own eyes flicked back to black and her teeth sharpened involuntarily. She shook her head in an effort to stay in control. She needed to bring him back into the ocean to feast. It was too risky above water; she was too exposed. She made him stay limp, but she could feel his heart beating through her hand that she had automatically placed on his chest.
Instinctively, she glanced back up to the houses. There, where she thought the humming was coming from, stood a woman at the open window. The woman was leaning out of the window, her blonde hair waving behind her in the wind, looking right down at her. Her body took over in fear. Her nails dug into the man’s arm and she dragged him behind her into the ocean. The second her tail was fully submerged she kicked as hard as she could and followed the seabed down to where it started to get dark. There, her hunger took over and she ripped him open. Without even taking a moment she forced her teeth into his heart, not bothering to detach it from his body, her head inside his chest. Her long pointy nails were used as skewers as she stabbed through his eyes, popping through them like balloons that she ate off her fingers.
***
His unrecognisable, mutilated body trailed behind her as she made her way back to her cave. With her hunger satisfied, she finally had full control over her actions but all she could think about was the woman at the window. The image of her hair flowing behind her, seemingly carefree, was burned into her mind. Was she the one that had been singing? Was that who the ocean was trying to reach? Had she actually seen her? Was it just the hunger hallucinations? Now, as she swam through the familiar stone entrance to her cave, she let the body go and it floated gently down to the seabed, joining the rest of the scattered bones. Why had she only heard the woman humming? It was as if she had been put into her own siren song hypnotic state.
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