Mercilessness
She looked at him with no mercy as he whimpered and silently prayed for a quick death. Anything would be better than to have an unforgivingly slow death. She grinned wickedly baring her sharpened, pointed teeth. He would die by her webbed claws. The air was still with killing intent, an eerie presence around every corner of his prison. He killed her sister. He had taken one of her sisters and displayed her as if she was a living prize. A spectacle, a sightly creature from the deepest depths of the ocean surrounding their tiny island. When he was done with his entertainment of her being he wasted no time executing her and displaying her body for his land creatures. Yes, this man deserved nothing but agony that would slowly eat away at his spirit. Crushed, pained, cursed for all eternity. She was hungry for his blood.
“Now, now,” a gentle chide broke through the fog of his cell. “We mustn't degrade ourselves to him kind.”
Barely held back anger flooded the siren’s voice, “yes, my queen.” Her biting attitude was not unnoticed by her ruler.
“It is not blood we seek. The torture of his own soul shall be payment enough,” there was a light playfulness in her royal decree. The queen let slip a hint of mirth in her tone.
A siren’s cry almost rang out, but was barely held back by a bite of the tongue and swallowing of pride. What could be more torturous than a death by her hand? “What is it you wish to do, my queen?”
“Use your song to entrance his being to be filled with gut wrenching guilt for all his sins to all of the women he played with.” There was a finality in her command that left no room for question. Her orders were law.
“Shall we return him to the land of the walking after? Will he seek the justice we wish upon him?” The brave young siren let a question slip from her tongue. Who was she to question her majesty?
The royal siren didn’t pause to ponder the thought. She had foreseen this inquiry to her choice. “His guilt shall drive him to his kind’s leader and leave him begging for the most acceptable punishment. He shall confess all of his crimes against those who had trusted him, betrayed by his wickedness, and fallen mercilessly to his favorite form of tortures. He shall spend his days repenting for the creator’s forgiveness in the afterlife. He will no longer know sunlight or kindness.”
Her subject did not question this decision. She truly wanted more, to see his pain with her own eyes. The siren in her called for bloodshed and misery, him wishing and begging for an end to her madness. This will suffice, she inwardly agreed.
The queen broke the tense silence, “he shall torture himself to his deathbed. He will no longer hurt a woman. This vile being will begin to understand the pain he brought our sisters, our land sisters, and our mothers of decades ago. This will be a start of a revolution, my dear.” She nodded at her decision of his sentence. If the queen were to begin an end to the violence of her creatures, she must be willing to accept the bile that filled her throat at her inner self’s thirst for the devil’s blood.
The young siren received a nod to set forth the punishment of this man before them. She weaved an intricate web of silvery notes and keys, telling him that he must seek outward justice for the women he had beaten and abused. She threaded the command of her queen in her melody- he would not beg for mercy but he shall confess his sins for his world to know. She pushed forth the notion that he would never remember what had occurred in this place and instead claim that his conscious led him to his demise.
There was no forgiving what this man had done to her sisters of a different lifetime. She cackled after she guided his boat back to shore. This man shall meet his fate in three days time. Her mirror would allow her to watch him accept and push for an ultimate sentence for his crimes. Yes, this was the start of a revolution. For her sister’s fall from bloodshed. For his people’s guilt and inner shame.
The queen grinned wildly at his appointed sentence. Humans were much more torturous than her siren sisters.
Tiny Tanaka is a poetry and prose writer, recovering addict, Hafu-sprinkled with Korean heritage, lesbian, who happens to have borderline personality disorder. They fight for intersectional feminism, LGBT+ rights, and to end the stigma of mental illnesses. They may be found on their IG: tinytanaka.poetry