The siren

Standing on the side of the road whilst the sun was directly shining on him, he put his finger aloft and felt the air brushing up against it. The entire action was very poised, fluid and gracious as if he had done it many times before. When he realised the direction of the air he was pleased, the current was going south which meant he could hunt whilst travelling in the direction of his goal.

Alexander remembered the feeling of eating a fully grown stag with his family and suddenly felt in the mood for it. He jerked his head towards Orion and despondently told him they were aiming for a stag. In response to this sudden comment, Orion simply nodded which made Alexander quite sad. It was a joke after all.

Alexander had to stay close to the road as the further he travelled into the forest the more dangerous it became. Creatures of the wild would usually try to stay far away from cities because they would quickly be hunted down if spotted. The world of Algorra was filled with ogres, witches, elves, dragons, demons, vampires and many more creatures.

One hundred meters into the forest was enough Alexander judged. Once they were in the forest walking Orion started talking again. The problem with Orion speaking was that animals had an incredible hearing, they could hear a twig being broken from 200 meters. Orion would most likely scare them away before Alexanders spear ever had the chance to do so.

"We won't be successful in our hunt if you keep talking"

"Ahhh, okay my bad"

Two seconds later he simply could not hold it and spit out all the thoughts he had been holding. Alexander was irritated but did not let it show, there was no point in getting upset especially since he had already told him to be silent.

"Just so you know, each time you speak the odds of you being inside of a ogres stomach increases, significantly" A clear lie, but nonetheless useful-

He might have embellished the details a little bit but this made Orion silent. Which would make hunting a lot more productive and easy.

They kept on moving north looking for any tracks or animals. Every track, however, was a dead-end and they could not catch sight of any animals. Luckily, they heard the satisfying sound of water moving.

They saw a river a bit ahead and moved towards it. A river was perfect, not only would they get water from it, they would also have a source of food. When Alexander was only a couple of meters away from the river he started hearing the most beautiful voice he had heard in his life.

"Come here beautiful," it said

Each and every word sounded angel-like. He looked towards the direction of the noise and spotted the most beautiful mermaid laying on a stone. The mermaid kept on uttering the same phrase come here, come here. At this point, Orion had almost started running.

Alexander was right beside Orion moving towards the mermaid at the same speed. Every step he took towards it, the attraction to the mermaid would increase simultaneously but at that moment he had a memory pop up into his head.

He was sitting around a campfire with his father. His father would usually tell him tales of the journeys he would travel. As a child and even now Alexander loved hearing these tales, there a particular tale that he thought of.

"We were at the ocean sailing towards a hidden treasure. The waves were calm that particular day. The captain of the ship had told me something very strange on that particular day.

"Do not listen to the voices you will soon hear, for if you do it will be your end" he said in a very dull and solemn voice. Everyone on the ship questioned him, "what voices?" they said. The captain explained to us, mermaids the most beautiful we would ever see would come, bearing a most beautiful voice that would allure us into the water. We all scoffed at the notion, some legends and myths were true, but mermaids were one of a horny fisher we had thought.

Then they came, tens if not hundreds of them came. They all said the same thing, "come to me" "swim with us" or any other way for them to lure us into the water. They all looked like mermaids. ooh you probably don't know what a mermaid is do you son? The top of the mermaid is the most beautiful woman and the bottom of the mermaid is that of a fish and son. They were completely nude.

They sang a most beautiful song, but the second the captain heard it he started screaming out in a panic. But alas, it was too late, about ten of our crewmates had jumped into the water. The second they did the mermaid's song had stopped, they all disappeared from our view. Then each of the crewmates would suddenly get dragged from below into the depths of the water. You know son, there is something quite horrifying about hearing a man's screams turn into a gurgle. Soon, every man in the water was pleading for help but it was too late. They had all been dragged to drown soon after, never to be seen again. As the ship sailed past the spot where the events took place, the mermaids had appeared again, this time there was no song, nor a beautiful face. Instead, they had black eyes and their skin dull, grey and ragged. They wore a disgusting smile, with teeth coloured of crimson showing."

As the memory stopped they were both wading through the water trying to reach the mermaid. Alexander noticed a small smile creep up on the mermaid's face and his mind started connecting the dots. Suddenly he grabbed his friend and pulled him away. Orion got extremely agitated at this fact, so much so that he started fighting. Orion fought vigorously, almost as if his life depended on it, which it ironically did.

Alexander eventually got Orion into a chokehold, the mermaid who was almost smiling two seconds ago had a completely different face now, it was filled with contempt. The mermaid started singing louder and put more energy into it. The attraction for Alexander to jump into the river had grown a considerable bit, and Orion was practically going mad at this point.

Eventually, Alexander choked Orion out, it did help that Alexander had a considerably much better physique then Orion. He pulled him towards the opposite direction of the river. The mermaid was now screaming a terrifying scream whilst staring straight at Alexander.

Just as his father had described, her face completely changed. Her eyes had turned black, she might have been the most hideous thing Alexander had seen in his life, and her open mouth showed her jagged teeth.

Which was once an innocuous mermaid was now a siren radiating a large amount of ill intent.

Alexander kept on dragging Orion. but then in the corner of his eye he noticed something moving.

The siren was no longer on the rock, it was on the grass moving towards Alexander.

It moved similarly to how a caterpillar would move but it used its arms to change direction.

There was something extremely offputting about having a hideous creature crawl its way straight towards you. Alexander felt shivers down his spine. The siren was staring at Alexander with its black eyes, it started to smile as it smelled the fear radiating from Alexander, showing its terrifying pointy teeth. He dropped Orion and got his spear and stood in a battle stance.

"How hard could it be?" he thought to himself.