Music From The Deep

Lost To The Sea

Rain lashed viciously against Sedrick's face as he struggled to cross the deck of the Tidewalker. His feet slipped, but he managed to keep them under him. Barely.

Wind roared in his face, drowning out the orders of his captain. But he could imagine what he was saying. Get things tied down. Mind your feet. Watch out for debris. Well, he was doing what he could. That didn't mean it was going well.

Teeth clenched, he went about his duties. Curse the rains! This was supposed to be the calm season!

Amidst the raging storm, the notes of a melody rose above the turmoil, making Sedrick snap his head up to look. It was haunting, but so achingly beautiful as to stop a man's heart. He didn't know what it was, but he wanted to find it and join the singer. He would give anything to join it.

Without quite realizing what he was doing, he found that he had wandered to the side of the ship, gripping the railing. Water dripped off his face as he stared into the ocean, the exquisite music filling his head. He found himself stepping up carefully onto the railing, hanging there for just a moment, before he plunged into the raging waves.

Dark, frigid water closed over his head, drowning out the sound of the storm, but not the ethereal song from before. It echoed in Sedrick's head, making him want to swim deeper into the sea.

And he didn't resist.

He strove deeper into the ocean, losing what little light streamed from the surface. Where was the music, the singing, coming from? He strained his eyes, looking for the singer. The ocean was black and cold, and nothing stirred...

There! There was movement ahead. It was a creature with dark scaled skin and a head of thick black hair, points of bright blue coiling around a lean, muscled body. The creature was serenely swimming away from where Sedrick hung motionless in the water. It hadn't seemed to notice him. Then the creature looked back over its shoulder, and Sedrick's limbs froze.

It was a young woman, so entrancingly breathtaking as to make a man forget his name. Her eyes swept about the ocean, before landing on him. She jerked away, her song cut off, twisting her body away from him as though afraid.

Sedrick wanted to tell her not to be afraid, but his voice made no sound under the water. It was only then that he realized the burning sensation in his lungs, breaking him out of his trance. He clutched at his throat and started to claw through the water to get back to the surface.

Despite his struggling, there was no way the man could make it back to the surface. He was going to die.

As his struggles ceased, he let the seawater into his lungs, unable to stop it and unable to stop himself from breathing. His chest burned and he choked and tears streamed from his eyes, salt mingling with salt and despair filling his being.

And yet, he thought distantly as he sank, he always figured he'd die at sea...

He seemed to be conscious of his sinking for far longer than he would have thought. He was in so much pain that he wished for nothingness, but it wouldn't come. He just kept sinking through the water, the ocean starting to press in on him painfully.

Just as he was sure he was going to pass out at last, hands gripped him by the shirt, starting to drag him to the surface. He forced his eyelids open enough to look up at the person dragging him out of the water. But it was not a person. It was the... the...

Siren, he thought, an image of a beautiful, dangerous creature surfacing in his mind. That's what she is... she doesn't seem so bad.

Some light had begun to filter through the darkness again, but Sedrick and the siren were too far away still. He wouldn't make it. The siren seemed to have noticed this, too, and was no longer dragging him upward. Instead, she had turned to face him as his vision blackened, starting to sing.

Music swelled around him, taking a little bit of his pain away as the world finally went black.