Loreley Rock Siren

I fall down deep into the dark water.

I descent twice: first as a scared young girl trying to save my dead love; and then again as a cursed siren to hunt.

Last night, I dreamt that I chopped Jim up into a hundred little pieces and ate them, one by one. Is it just my mad visions? But the Loreley curse really exists, I know it. Why the evil ghost chose me?

I will write about it in my song, as a rock musician, I have to.

Rock siren

Rain pelted the deck of a lone vessel, the hull of the ship crashing against the treacherous waves it was riding upon. The year was 1387, the wooden forged ship moaning in distress at the course of rough waves abusing it’s every side.

The thunder boomed loudly overhead, the pitch-black illuminated only by the brief cracks of lightning.

What sounded louder than the deafening thunder, louder than the sounds of the waves crashing into the side of the ship. Louder than all of the chaos that surrounded were the broken-hearted sobs of a young girl.

She was just 17, the cries tumbling out of her lips were the sort that no child of her age should know. Knees bent and elevated off of the slippery wooden planks of the deck, the only thing keeping her suspended were the two large, burly men at her sides, grasping her upper arms firmly in their fists.

The bruising sensation of their fingers wrapped around her biceps would have been cause for concern, but the young girl, Loreley, had bigger issues at this point in time. With the howling winds and the pelting rain, her dress clung to her body like a second skin. With the soaked fabric clinging to her skin, her belly, swollen with child, was on display.

The reason for her cries? You might ask?

The man that paced along the tilting deck before her fatigued body. Dressed in regal clothing fitting of a man of his stature, an Earl, he sighed quietly, adjusting the hat atop his head which didn’t do much to shield his face from the downpour of rain.

“Is it him?”

The Earl spoke up, hands folded calmly behind his back as he slowly paced back and forth over the deck. His brows furrowing in irritation when Loreley refused to reply. The Earl, Angler, had a short span of patience and an even shorter temper.

The heels of his expensive, leather boots clacking against the slick wooden panels of the desk as he marched towards her. Fingers decorated with rings balled into fists at his sides, swinging back and forth slowly with every intimidating step that the male took. The muscles in his jaw twitched as he ground his teeth together, glaring down at the vulnerable young woman in front of him with a fierce look in his eye.

The droplets cascading off of the rim of the hat poured onto her already soaked face, adding more insult to injury.

His hands, that of a man who never had to work a day in his life, reached out, burying themselves in her drenched, messy locks of hair.

Loreley tried to choke down her grunt of pain as Angler pulled her head up roughly, she didn’t want to give this man the satisfaction of knowing that he had hurt her.

“Let me ask you again”, he growled through his clenched jaws.

With his tight grip on the pregnant teen’s hair, he gave a rough jerk of his hand, lifting her head forcefully so she would finally raise her gaze to the area in front of her.

More than her own suffering, more than her own turmoil, the sight before her was gut-wrenching. Hands tight behind his back, shirt ripped open and freezing drenched skin riddled with bruises. Tied from the top of the mast, was a noose around his neck.

His knees trembled with the effort it took to keep himself upright, should his fatigued legs give out, the noose would tighten around his throat and he would surely perish.

From the look of his torn clothes, it was clear to see he was of noble descent, his face rubbed raw from the rough fraying rope tied securely around his face, mouth forced to bite down upon it. His hair was a mess, matted to his forehead with the force of the rain. His eyelids were heavy, exhausted from what the brutes had put him through.

“Let me repeat myself, yes?”

Angler spoke up, dragging her attention away from the man tied up before her.

“Is he the father of your child or not?!” The Earl interrogated with exasperation in his voice.

The noble man, hanging onto his last legs of life panted shakily through his nose when Loreley met his gaze, she saw the way he mustered the last of his energy to slowly shake his head from side to side.

Despite how hard it had become to see with the rain pouring down and pelting against the floorboards, despite the fact that her hair slapping at her eyes was painful and nearly blinding, she could see this action clear as day. His message was clear, she had to keep quiet, for her own sake.

Hiccuping shakily, she glanced back down to the floorboards beneath her, she wouldn’t answer.

Angler only grew angrier, even threatening the life of the potential father to her baby wasn’t enough to get an honest answer out of her.

“You’re more trouble than you’re worth” the Earl growled through clenched jaws.

Amidst his anger, eyes wide with his deranged rage, he reached down and grasped fistfuls of the thin nightgown covering her shivering body. With a grunt, he pulled at the fabric, it didn’t take much for the fabric to tear open with a loud rip.

Loreley cried out, what little protection from the outdoors she had was now laying in tethers around her shoulders. She suppressed a gag as he laid a disgusting hand upon her swollen stomach, palms brushing over the goosebump coated skin.

“I would guess you’re 6 months along” he mumbled, his eyes following the path that his hand trailed over her skin.

She shuddered in horror as he admired the way his hand brushed over her skin.

“This child of yours, it has Royal blood, I’m sure of it. I’ll kill it, I swear I will” he growled, tearing his hand away from her stomach in disgust.

Angler’s chest heaved with his anger, droplets of rain falling from his cupid’s bow, melting into the raindrops on the floor of the deck. He leered his head off to the side, glaring at the opening of the cabin.

“Bring her in!” Angler roared.

With their superior’s command, two burly men stepped out the doors, in their hands the arms of an elderly woman. They clutched her much the same way as they did Loreley, holding her up by her biceps, knees lifted off the ground.

The young woman gasped sharply, no longer taking notice that her bare body was exposed to the elements, the object of her fear and transgression directed to the old woman.

Though weak from the cold and the rough handling, the older woman slowly lifted her head. The force of the rain had her drenched within seconds, wrinkled eyes narrowing to see through the storm and lock eyes wih=th her daughter.

“My child--” she croaked, voice cracking with not only age but heartbreak.

“My darling pearl-- please, please tell me it’s not true”

Loreley choked back a stop as she listened to her mother’s desperate pleads, biting her lip and squeezing her eyes closed as she turned her head away. The young girl could no longer bear staring at her mother, knowing that the woman who had cared for her was broken-hearted over the life choices that Loreley had made.

Angler grit his teeth, brows furrowed and eyes narrowed at the sight of the young girl turning her head away. His irrational anger bubbled up in his pumping veins, baring his teeth to the wind he glared down at her.

Ring coated fingers reaching down to once again bury themselves in her matted hair, wrenching her head up, ignoring the pained cry that escaped her lips.

“Why do you refuse to do as I say, you ignorant wench!”

It was as though the male had lost his grip on reality, drowning in his own rage. Jaw clenched in anger, whitened teeth bore to the wind, he lifted his leg, and with no concern for human life, he wrenched a powerful kick to the pregnant girl’s swollen stomach.

Loreley’s eyes widened, she could feel the way her expanded stomach caved as the Earl’s metal-tipped shoe dug into her skin. The wind was knocked out of her lungs, the force of the kick pushing bile up her throat, vomit pouring from her trembling lips, splattering against the deck beneath her.

Gasping a desperate breath into her beaten lungs, Loreley cried out in pain, her stomach pulsing with pain and the possible loss of her unborn child.

“P-please no--” she gasped out, thickened saliva dripping off her blue lips as she remained bowed over, cradling her injured stomach against her knees.

“I-It’s him” she choked out shakily, her voice choking up in her throat.

“I love him!” Loreley cried out, lifting her head and glaring the man before her in the eyes, “let him go”.

Angler, satisfied that the young woman had finally given in and replied to him honestly. Sighing in content, his tense shoulders relaxing with a slump. The male hummed in content and reached down to brush the back of his knuckles against her freezing cheek.

“Good girl” he purred.

The young girl’s stomach turned in disgust to feel his fingers against her vulnerable skin, she glared up at him, spitting a mouth full of saliva at the polished top of his shoes.

His pleased smile shifted to a wicked snarl and he huffed.

“You want us to let him go? Very well then.”

Angler rose his hand, at the signal, the boy was turned around the mast, dangling feet placed atop a plank overlooking the swirling waters. The noose around his neck slipped down around his body, tying firmly around his ankles.

The men who had moved his body paused once they had finished their tasks, turning to their master to wait for their next command.

Angler, still with his hand in the air, glanced down at the young girl, his smile twisted in horrid amusement at the horrified expression on her face to see the scene playing out in front of her. He kept her waiting, waiting until a sense of hope bubbled up in her beaten chest.

He waited until he saw some sort of fire blazing in her eyes with the hope and knowledge that perhaps this man wouldn’t go so far.

That was when he gave the signal.

Clenching his outstretched fingers in a sudden fist, the men handling Loreley’s lover tensed and jumped into action. The larger of the two men kicked at the railing, watching with a grin as wicked as his master’s, as the board holding the noble man’s body up tumbled into the hungry waters below.

The man on the plank wavered as the plank beneath his feet slipped out from underneath him. Heart dropping into her stomach, Loreley could only watch as the board collapsed, crushed into a thousand pieces by the brutal waves and the father of her child toppled over the edge.

His body jerked to stop mid-fall, saved by the noose wrapped firmly around his ankles. With the force of the fall and the swing of the rope, his body collided with the body of the ship. A pained cry echoing over the thunder as he collided with the solid wood.

Loreley’s arms jerked in the grip of the burly men towering over her, she cried out in horror as her beloved fell towards the river, the only sign of life was the tugging of the rope as he hung from the sail post.

All Angler offered was his snobbish chortle as he took in the misery he was causing, grin widening as he hears the sound of metal clinking against metal. The men were tying heavy metal chains around her lover’s ankles, large metal ball balancing on the edge of the railing attached to the chains.

There was no denying that the Earl was taking pleasure in this, feeding off of the heartbreak and pain he forced onto those around him.

A sinister grin coiling at his cheeks, knowing the power that he wielded, it took a simple snap of his fingers for the men to react to his every wish.

Loreley didn’t know what was more heartbreaking, the echoing sound of the click as the pad of his finger slapped against his palm; the sound of the blades as they sliced through the ropes; the sound of the chains as the weight of the man’s falling body toppled the heavy metal ball over the edge; or the sound of the splash that came moments after.

All Loreley could hear was an awful deafening ringing in her young ears, she hadn’t even acknowledged the scream that tore out her throat, had it not been for the sandpaper feeling of pain that coated the inside of her delicate throat.

Her eyes wide with horror, despite the rainfall that splashed against her waterline painfully, she didn’t register any of the pain, she couldn’t care less under the crushing weight of grief against her weakened heart.

Angler didn’t spare her a moment to grieve, he couldn’t care less about the pain that she was enduring, nor about the screams ripping from her empty lungs.

He rolled his eyes, pinning her antics down to overdramatic theatrics. With a nod of his head, the men gripping onto her arms dragged her back. Showing no signs of care to the fact they might potentially injure the young woman or her unborn child.

Loreley, too weak to stand on her own feet, too lost in the grief of the love of her life, simply fell onto her behind. Sobbing helplessly as she was dragged against the slippery floorboards back into the belly of the ship.

Although her heart was broken and her spirit was crushed, she seemed to be coming back to her senses as she was dragged into the ship. Not knowing the fate she might befall, the young woman cried out, she knew whatever fate they held for her was not a good one.

She kicked, thrashed and tried to wrench herself out of their grip, but they were strong, and with the freezing cold, the beatings and the heartbreak she was weak, too weak to release herself from their grip no matter how hard she tried.

Their grip bruising on her upper arms, they were ruthless, dragging her down the steps, ignoring her cries as her tail bone banged painfully against the edge of each step during their long descent. Her eyes screwed up in agony as her bruised body was forced down the jagged edges of the staircase. Over the sound of her heart pounding in her chest, she could hear the distant whispers of voices she had never heard before.

She was being dragged down towards the basement of the ship, well underneath the waves crashing outside. The closer she got, the louder the whispers became. Swallowing down her cries of pain to focus on the whispers, she tried her best to distinguish the words, to focus on what was being said, to possibly decipher what her fate might be.

Thrown onto the floor, the bruising grip on her biceps finally relinquished, roughly tossed onto the hardwood floors below. With a pained whimper, the young woman slowly lifted herself on her shaky arms, reaching up to rub the forming bruises on her upper arms.

Between the groups of people, a hole was made for her, the figures, dressed in deep burgundy cloaks stepping away from her, simply watching as she scrambled to pull her torn dress together to hide her body from their view.

As Loreley got to glance around the room, the set up around her was one that sent alarm bells ringing in her head. There was a table in the center of the room, a large trough, running along the four corners of the table rested on the floor, supposedly there to collect anything that spilled from the table.

Black wax candles illuminated the small room, poised all around the long oak table. Fear settled in her heart, she prayed desperately that this wasn’t what she thought it was. That the storybook picture of occult happenings wasn’t painted out right before her eyes.