Jana's eyes fluttered open to a pale, lilac glow filtering through the clinic window. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, lungs still tasting the salt of the night. Every heartbeat felt loud, almost alien, as if her body remembered something she could not name.
The seashell from yesterday still sat on the bedside table. She reached for it, fingers trembling, brushing the smooth surface. "Siren does not save unworthy humans."
Her mind wrestled with the words. Unworthy… had she truly been unworthy of life? Or had something more… magical intervened?
The door creaked. A shadow slid through the doorway. Not human.
Jana froze.
And then she saw her: the siren, sitting on the edge of the bed, her tail..now perfectly formed into legs hidden beneath a long, flowing cloak of deep violet. Her hair spilled over her shoulders like molten chocolate, shimmering faintly in the soft morning light. Her violet eyes met Jana's, calm yet impossibly sharp, holding centuries in their gaze.
"You woke," the siren said softly. Her voice had no malice now, only something intimate, patient… and dangerous.
Jana tried to speak, but her throat was still raw from the drowning. Her words came out in a hoarse whisper.
"Y-You… saved me."
The siren tilted her head, almost curious.
"I did. But do not confuse it with kindness. I save only what deserves it… and you… you fought when you could have surrendered. That alone is enough."
Jana's chest tightened. Fought… when I could have surrendered…
Some part of her—the part she had buried under betrayal, failure, and loneliness—stirred. The part that had not yet given up.
The siren leaned slightly closer. The faint scent of salt and something wild filled Jana's senses. Her violet tail shifted under the cloak, a subtle ripple that made Jana's stomach tighten in a way she didn't understand.
"You feel… small," the siren murmured, voice almost a caress. "But small can still matter. Even when the world calls you worthless."
Jana swallowed hard, blinking back the faint tears she had tried to keep hidden. Something about this being—so impossibly beautiful, so otherworldly—made her feel simultaneously terrified and… alive.
"Wh-What are you?" Jana whispered.
The siren's lips curved faintly, the motion slow, deliberate.
"I am called… Siren. That is all you need to know."
Jana tried to stand, but weakness pinned her to the bed. Siren's hand—warm, firm—rested on her shoulder, steadying her. A thrill shot through her body at the contact, a spark that was not purely fear.
"Do not mistake proximity for permission," Siren said, though her fingers lingered just a heartbeat too long. "Humans… they misunderstand everything about the sea, about me… about themselves."
Jana's lips parted, not knowing whether to speak or stay silent. Words seemed inadequate. Instead, she let the quiet settle over her, her chest still shaky, her mind spinning between disbelief and the strange, rising warmth of something forbidden.
The siren's violet eyes softened for a fraction of a second.
"You survived the night," she whispered, almost as if stating a truth, not a warning. "That means… you are worth noticing."
Jana's heart skipped.
Worth noticing.
The words echoed louder than the waves ever had. She felt herself leaning, ever so slightly, toward the being who had pulled her from death and pressed life into her chest.
Outside, the ocean roared softly, a reminder that the world was wide, and rules were cruel—but here, in this small, violet-lit room, something impossible had already begun.
And somewhere deep in the water, in the salt and foam, a siren had already decided: not all humans were the same. Not all were to be feared.
Jana did not yet know it, but her life had shifted irreversibly.
She had just begun to live.