Sinking Woman || Yandere!Siren X F!Reader

A Drowned Maiden's Hair

The next morning was the polar opposite of the previous one. The cottage was dead quiet, so silent that you could hear your grandma's old refrigerator humming downstairs.

Jenny must still be asleep, you thought to yourself before frowning. She was the first thing you thought of when you got up and the last thing you thought of before bed. You needed to train yourself out of thinking like that. She wasn't your entire world, the sun and the moon and all the stars... Not anymore.

Still, you liked to think you were a good friend, so you padded out of bed and down the hall to her guest room. But it was empty, the bed in a state of disarray. That was no surprise. She never made her bed. Back home, she had a maid to do that for her.

So you descended the stairs and looked for her all throughout the first floor. Nope! Not there either. You peeked out the back porch windows, fully expecting to see her sunbathing in her itty bitty bikini, but the beach behind the cottage was empty. How peculiar... Her car was still in the driveway, so she must be on foot.

Maybe she took a walk down to Gavin's Store? You wondered, scratching your head. Should you follow her or wait for her to come back? You elected to follow her. She typically bought enough stuff that she could use an extra pair of arms to carry it for her.

The walk gave you time to think about Seren's offer.

It was everything you wanted as a kid. How many nights did you lie away wishing you'd be swept up by the surf, never to return? You'd dreamt of a life on the open ocean, either as a pirate or a mermaid.

But that was just it. You were a child. Now you were an adult. A young one, but still an adult. You had a responsibility to yourself, to your friends and family. You couldn't just abandon them!

You'd become a missing person, another flier on the bulletin board outside Gavin's Store. Jenny would feel guilty, having left you alone long enough to disappear. As time passed, your mom would presume you drowned and go mad with grief. She already lost both her parents to the sea. To lose her daughter as well would break her heart.

Before you walked through the doors of the shop, your eye caught on the missing person's signs again. The fisherman stared back at you almost accusingly. Huh, that's right. If Seren was real, that meant you really met the missing man before his disappearance.

What happened to him after you grappled with him, choked him out? He fell to the deck but you were almost certain he didn't fall overboard. You sure hoped he didn't, or that would make you a murderer. Or at least a manslaughterer, which really didn't roll off the tongue.

You searched every nook and cranny of the store for Jenny but found her nowhere. You left with some candy, a bag of chips, and a slushie instead of your friend.

You returned to the cottage and put away your goodies before just sort of leaning against the kitchen counter, rhythmically tapping your fingers and wondering what to do next.

Where else would she be? Your only remaining guess was that she was flirting with the dads down at the marina. Boats typically equaled money, and Jenny loved money.

So you strolled down the shoreline to the marina. There were less boats docked than there had been the other night. It was a beautiful day; people were probably out on the water. You walked past the yachts and sailboats until you got to the fishing boats.

You were giggling at the boat names as you passed -Dirty Oar, Ships 'n' Giggles, Sea Senora- when a fisherman came running up to you. "Do you have a phone on you?" He asked suddenly, without so much as a, "Hello! How do you do?"

"Excuse me?"

"Do you have a phone?" He asked again, reaching out to rest both hands on your shoulders. His voice was low and husky, just above a whisper, like he was sharing something personal.

You looked him over from head to toe. He looked pretty put-together, in his Aran sweater. Handsomeness equated to sanity, right? He gave you a little shake to stir you from your stupor.

"Oh, yes!" You said at last, blushing. You were not giving this man your number, though. He was old enough to be your dad.

"Call the police."

"What?"

"Call. The. Police."

It took you a moment to process his request. Finally, you acknowledge your understanding by looking him in the eye and giving a small, surprised nod.

He waited for you to fish your cell phone out of your shorts pocket before dropping his hands and walking back the way he came. You dialled the police before following him. You had to know what you were calling in, after all.

There was a crowd of people standing around the deck of one of the fishing boats. You looked at the shock and horror on each of their faces before following the direction of their gazes, which were pointed at their feet.

Caught in a fishing net, among small, flopping fish, was a woman's torso.

You panicked at first, thinking the fishermen had netted another mermaid. Then realization struck you, and your stomach dropped. There were no legs attached to the body, but there wasn't a tail attached either. It was a detached human torso.

Of all the things that could have stood out to you, the tattoo of a red rose on the lower back of the corpse caught your attention. Jenny had a tattoo just like it. But that's impossible. It can't be her. Jenny doesn't swim, wouldn't so much as set foot in the water, you thought in denial.

Then one of the fishermen turned the body over, confirming your worst fears. It was Jenny. Her face was swollen from the sea water, but you could recognize her anywhere. The shape of her was tattooed on the inside of your eyelids.

The voice of the emergency call center was saying something, but you couldn't hear anything over the roaring in your ears. Your fingers went numb and you dropped your phone. It bounced off the dock and into the murky waters below.

Her skin, normally so bright and glowy, had a dull grey tinge to it. Her hair, which was always perfectly coiffed, hung limply from her head like black seaweed. All that remained of her amber eyes were two empty sockets. Her mouth went slack and a small crab crawled out.

There were huge chunks of flesh missing from her arms and what was left of her abdomen.

"Ay, the fish have gotten to her," one man sighed.

"What fish in these waters have that big of a bite radius?!" His companion exclaimed.

A third man glared at them both before removing his raincoat and draping it over the body. She didn't have a stitch of fabric on her, no shirt nor bikini top, her breasts bare. Her breast bare. One was missing, appeared to have been bitten clean off.

What fish indeed. You didn't know much about the marine life in the surrounding waters. But you did know of a certain mermaid with teeth like a shark.

Why would Jenny be in the water, unless she was lured in? Lured in by an eerily beautiful song, one you heard from your bedroom the other night and thought nothing of.

Oh, you little fool. You'd been rubbing elbows with death, dancing with the devil, swimming with a siren.