Trey
You shuffle along the littered street. It's about four in the morning, so there's only a few people bustling about. You yawn and push your hair back with your still uncoordinated fingers. You haven't gotten a single moment of sleep. This has to stop.
You know where you'll find him. He's always up after three in the morning. You trudge over to the worn down weaving shop. Mordecai is the only person who would know about this kind of thing. You aren't sure what you want from him, you're just sure that you want something.
You stumble around to the back door. You can hear clacking noises and humming coming from inside the building. You smack the door weakly with your fist, a false sense of confidence taking over you. Once the humming stops and the door opens, though, it quickly dissipates.
Mordecai looks down at you, strings still wrapped around his fingers that drape to the floor and snake behind him, out of sight. Smoke escapes through the door way as soon as it is cracked open, around Mordecai's body, clouding some of his features from view. You stand up straighter.
"Yeah?" He asks, looking bored. His left hand has a blunt dangling from it's fingers. It is bright red on one end. You try not to let him see you staring at it.
"I need to talk to you." You blurt out. He raises an eyebrow. "If--If that's okay with you." He stands there looking at you for a while before turning around and walking back inside. You interpret him leaving the door open as an invitation for you to follow him.
The building looks a lot more spacious from the inside than it has for most of your life when you passed it every day on the street. Strings of varying color drape themselves and hang from the ceiling, some of them reattaching themselves on the other side of the room. Ash trays can be found on virtually every surface and the place reeks of smoke. The walls are covered in red paint and tapestries with complex designs. Candles of all shapes, colors, and aromas weakly drive away the darkness that hangs over the room. A large loom takes up a good portion of the building. Mordecai walks over to the decorated stool in front of it and returns to his work, his fingers dancing among the strings gracefully.
He nods to a stool a few feet away from him and you collapse onto it with gratitude. It is wooden but somehow still comfortable. You sit there for a while, listening to the dragging and clacking noises of the loom, picking out complicated rhythms and tapping your feet against the stool to keep time with them.
"What did you want to talk about, little man?" He asks, not looking up from his hands working with the strings.
"The Sirena." You say. Mordecai misses a beat in his weaving and stops his fingers for a moment, trying to recover.
"What about 'em?"
"What do the songs mean?"
"How the hell do you expect me to know that, kid?" He turns to face you, a single eyebrow raised in disbelief. You can see that he hasn't shaved for quite some time and there are dark, sagging bags under his eyes.
You weren't expecting that. "I just thought--because you hear them too--don't you?"
He makes an impatient noise and shakes his head, taking a few moments before he responds. When he does, he sounds tired and frustrated. "Man, that doesn't mean anything. You could listen to them for days and still be clueless. That's something you've got to figure out for yourself, little man." He turns back to the loom and the rhythmic clacking resumes.
"Do you at least know why we hear them?" You ask, feebly.
"They chose us, kid. And there's nothing we can do about it."
You're silent for a while, a bit shaken up by his answer. He doesn't say anything more, so you assume that he's waiting for you to respond.
"But why?" You ask. You feel like a child.
He turns to you again. "Why do the Immortui moan? Why have the birds stopped singing? Why is water wet? Because it just is. They just chose us, kid. That's all there is to it. I don't know what you want from me, kid, but I ain't got what you're looking for."
"There has to be some reason. How come I haven't even heard of the Sirena before now?" You ask.
"Do you honestly think people would go around telling everyone that voices sing to them inside their own heads? No! That's crazy! And so is this whole journey you're trying to go on. Quit looking for answers, kid, because you ain't going to find none."
He's quiet now and so are you. You feel the urge to leave, to leave him alone to finish his weaving. But you want answers and you have nowhere else to look for them. You feel like there's something he isn't telling you. You don't know why. You don't know a lot of things.
"I know that you know something." You say, trying to sound intimidating. You don't think you've succeeded so you add, "I'm heading out. But I'll be keeping an eye out for you." You stand and navigate your way across the cluttered floor, eventually reaching the exit. It wasn't as dramatic as you had hoped, but it will have to do. You leave and head for Casey's flat. You feel like letting all of your frustration out and you know that she's the only person who knows how to go about it.
You shove your fists in deep into your pockets and kick the debris littered on the streets all the way to Casey's.
You rap your knuckles on Casey's door and rock on the balls of your feet impatiently as you wait for her to answer. You feel as if you could explode at any moment. A few minutes later, you hear someone struggling with the door knob.
It opens, revealing an exhausted and disheveled Casey, her hair defying gravity and clothes practically hanging from her slight frame.
"Trey?" She croaks. Her eyes are only half open. You realize too late that you've woken her. You completely forgot how early it was.
"Sorry, Case. Can I just borrow your pistol for a few hours? You can go right back to sleep." You say, apologetically.
"Sure thing, Hot Shot. It's in the shed. G'night." She shuts the door in your face and you hear shuffling from the inside. She's already gone back to bed.
You turn from the door and race to the shed, your stringy hair blowing back from your face. You can already feel the relief flooding through you. You slam against the shed, fiddling with the latch until it finally gives, and pull out your favorite pistol.
You grab it and run. You run past Casey's flat. You run past your street. You run past the gates that have ensured your village's safety for the past few years. You run up the stairs and out of the plate and into the silent forest.
The sun hasn't yet risen, so you can't exactly see where your tromping feet land. You have adrenaline fueled confidence that you won't fall, though.
You run up to the balcony of the treehouse where all of this began. It was only yesterday, but it feels like a lifetime ago. That's strange. It really wasn't but a few hours ago. Perhaps the serum has tampered with your sense of time.
You stand on the snowy platform, breathing hard. You raise the gun with your right hand and support it with your left. You take aim on whatever first captures your attention. An abandoned bird's nest snags your gaze. You pull the trigger before you can even register what you've done.
Once it does, your arms fall limp to your sides and you collapse to your knees, letting the gun drop from your hand. You stare, unblinking, at the space in the branches that used to occupy the nest. There could have been eggs in there. You could have killed something.
But you realize that this isn't what breaks you. You honestly couldn't care less about the birds. It's the weight of the Sirena's promises crushing you. You aren't sure if you can even handle it. You so desperately need a way out. There has to be another option that you just aren't seeing. It doesn't just end like this. It can't.
That's when the song starts, completely unannounced:
"Would you like to join us, son?
Trade this fate for another one?
I swear to you, it's mighty fun!
Making you quiver, come undone
"It's really so easy
Just a snap of the fingers!
No more feeling queasy!
Only two feelings will linger!
"The pleasure of jest
The heat of anger
Will be the only things felt
No threat of danger!
"You'll be free of me, kid
No more prices to bid
Just trade your life for mine!
I swear it'll be fine!
"Just say the word and it'll be over, quick
It's so easy, It's really no trick
Just surrender your mind
And switch your consciousness with mine
"Would you like to join us, son?
Trade this fate for another one?
I swear to you, it's mighty fun!
Making you quiver, come undone."
You lay on your side and close your eyes, letting the snow cool your skin. You don't want to analyze this. But you know you have to.
For now, at least, you'll sleep.
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