Princess and the Siren

Eighty years ago, Egypt tried to create the perfect humans.

They didn’t call it a mistake, at least not at first. No one knew the consequences, not even the king himself.

Beneath the pyramids, where no sign of life were present, and no prayers were meant to be heard, something ancient was uncovered. It did not come from the sky, nor from the earth itself, but from a place meant to remain hidden.

Lake Amunet.

Its waters were still, glowing with an unearthly presence. It seemed older than the kingdom that surrounded it. When they reached into the depths within it, they didn’t find any treasure.

They found essence.

At first, it was only a glow. A shimmer that would liven up the eyes of those that surround it. But when it was given to the dead, and when it was forced upon the dead... Something answered the call.

The king forced the essence into one of the mummies to be used as experiment, and once it was completely in its system, the mummy woke up.

Its bandages split open within an instant, its own skin stretching outward at impossible angles. It grew wings which grew right out of its back bones. Its eyes opened with a glow no mortal had ever seen before.

The pupils within its eyes started to take on a different shape, and the way it moved weren’t as though it were dead, but still alive in some way.

Its fingers would be webbed together by the glowing energy that surrounded it. Within the webs were the essence, moving its way through them like how a lava lamp distributes its heat.

The king called it perfection, evolution. He soon stockpiled a bunch of it from the statue that guarded the lake. Its eyes would be lit up until the essence that once surrounded it grew dimmer and dimmer until there was none left.

The eyes turned to darkness.

Then more statues appeared, all over the globe in the course of a single week. Each of them harbored a kingdom that would be built from the magic the statues possessed. Almost like something woke up when the essence was touched.

It was never supposed to be touched, but it was used anyway, and the people did not know any better than to believe the king’s word.

He distributed it worldwide as many demanded supply from what the king called ‘rejuvenating life force’. Many were skeptical and did not take what was offered, but for those that did, it transformed them too.

It showed that the dead weren’t the only ones affected. Humans were too.

The essence twisted people, killed some and left others unharmed. It removes their humanity, the memories and the identity they once possessed.

One boy, alive one day and gone the next, rose out of bed with eyes full of promise, and his own memories slipping away just as easily.

That’s how hybrids were created.

Each of them would not find any peace on earth as the humans revolted out of disgust and anguish against them. They believed they were ‘freaks of nature’ and ‘shouldn’t exist’. But the king thought otherwise, he thought they were masterpieces, which threw Egypt into turmoil real quick.

The masses would revolt against him, and as he turned to his first experiment which he held hostage within the dungeon, he was... gone. Without a trace.

“Impossible!” Thought the king, but before he knew it, his entire empire played chess while he played checkers.

The world folded, and it was never the same again, some never called it Earth anymore from how drastically it had changed from the outbreak of a ‘virus’ that spread quickly throughout the regions because of him.

The essence was never meant to exist within the souls of others, it was meant to be kept in one spot for eternity. Without it being within the Lake of Amunet, the balance wasn’t restored ever again.

And it couldn’t be, it was now in the grasp of the entire world, which caused wars across several nations.

Several kingdoms would form within different regions, some would contain those who sought refuge from the humans that threatened death and ridicule upon them all, while others didn’t care and wished to exist within the same vein as them.

Then, not even a month later, the Egyptian king was assassinated.

No walls could protect him; no army could save him; his empire fell silent in a heartbeat.

Many believed it was by a hybrid, because the hybrids were ‘devils in disguise’ and ‘could not be trusted’. But the enemy were the citizens who governed over Egypt. The hierarchy rejected him, pushing him into a situation where he had no choice but to watch himself die.

Right on a spike, in front of Egypt for all to see.

The king wasn’t as he seemed, a deceitful, no-good crook who only lived to serve himself.

But those had hoped his descendants would raise Egypt in good spirits once again.

When the Kingdom of Selarius began to build with an area full of hybrids of their own, the siren nation, Egyptians did not want to cause a war within it. Many did not understand how it was built from the ground up, to look so... ancient but modern simultaneously.

The new king would be the one to examine upon it. King Kairo.

He would host ceremonies describing what he would do as king: undoing what his father did to harm the world. This would begin by taking the essence from the hybrids and storing it once and for all.

But he had nobody to help him, he was helpless in his quest to save Egypt and then save the entire world.

Until... he met his wife, Nefrura. In her, he found not just a partner, but someone who shared his vision, and his fears. With her help, they got to learn the ancient art of magic, something that seemed to coexist with the hybrid's own essence. It had its faults as it wasn’t as modern to maintain it, but it would easily wreck a kingdom if it were unprepared.

And many were unprepared, no kingdom of the new world expected a war, especially the kingdom of Selarius.

The king took his time, having a child with the woman after months of being together. They had to plan ahead of time in case of his own assassination. They had a daughter.

Neferis.

She would grow up in a world full of chaos and mistakes from her grandfather, unaware that history set her on a collision course with those who did no wrong.

They’d teach her the ways of the Egyptian empire, and to be the mascot of Selarius as they slowly took it down one by one.

They cut their heads off, all of them. Leading blood in its path.

The princess was left in the dark, unable to stop what would happen to the kingdom. She was taught sirens were a danger to Egypt, and so she was forced to go on her own killing spree within Selarius.

Until she met the princess of the sirens.

Everything she knew, everything she had been trained to do, stopped the moment their eyes met.