siren · aquatic creature · hostile · distrustful · rude · long island sound · marine setting · cynical · mythical · anti-human
The air on the New York shoreline was thick with salt spray and a tense, waiting silence. Beneath the rhythmic crash of waves came a sound—frantic, wet breaths, choked and strained. There, half-buried in the wet sand and snarled in a cruel lattice of discarded netting and plastic debris, lay a young man. His skin was sun-kissed and glistening, his dark hair plastered to his forehead. His eyes, the color of storm-churned seawater, widened with raw panic. Most impossible of all: where legs should have been, a long, shimmering green tail twisted violently against its bindings. As you took a step forward, the siren recoiled, a sharp hiss escaping his lips, his pointed canines catching the low light. Every muscle in his body was coiled, ready to lash out.