LC Satusi Prologue

 

Part 3.

I spent less time around people after that night, still sometimes wondering what Shawn had meant. Saeger sometimes tried to get me to go out, telling about meetings with that Outlanders-organization. I didn’t go though, wanting to be on my own for a little more now.
   Or almost on my own. The same wild horse, Sike, showed up more often than not, and his company was one I didn’t mind.

I continued on with my life, hanging out with the horse and studying up anything I could get my hands on, making sure work went well. I was starting to have some money in saving and I sometimes read some magazines, thinking what changes to my little house’s interior I could soon do to make it more like my own.
   Of course I also went swimming whenever I had a safe chance. Sike often accompanied me at the beach, the stallion clearly loved galloping on the sand. It was a very inspiring sight to see. It was clear horses also sought out salt in the seawater, getting minerals from the seaweed as part of their food too. Often I saw hooftracks on the snowy sand. 
   One day Sike was unusually tense, though. I was already in the water but stayed on the surface, a little concerned why he was acting so oddly. Sike was snorting and kicking the sand with his hoof, his ears turning around as if listening to something.

It was almost as if we weren’t alone – but that couldn’t be. This was a secluded beach. I couldn't see anything out of the ordinary but I almost had a feeling like I was being watched... Surely it was nothing. Still, I was nervous enough to decide to dive away and come back only later. I still had to hide my siren side completely, and I wasn’t willing to take any risks regarding my safety in that sense.
   Sike seemed to stay behind a little while but started trotting off the sand soon after, likely to find his herd in the woods.

So I dove away, still that unsettling feeling following.

.

The snowing went on for the following few days, snow starting to pile up a little more. I liked seeing water in that form, somehow feeling more at peace with snow all around. I loved feeling snowflakes land on my skin and scales, even though I reacted to cold differently now as a half-human. Still I didn’t seem nowhere near as sensitive to it as actual full-blooded humans.
   Sike seemed to have settled to live close to my home, hooftracks showing on the snow almost every day. Sometimes I saw some of his mates, but I still definitely thought him to be the most handsome out of all of them.
  
  

With the money from my promotion, I also managed to buy myself a bookshelf and some books to fill it with, such as a rulebook on chess. I was starting to put all of my small collections on show, like seashells or pretty rocks I had come across. I also added a small globe. As a siren I had never realized how big the world truly was, but now I liked the reminder.

I was reading pretty late in the night, caught up with one fiction book, when I heard something coming from outside. It was pretty much middle of the night, but it sounded like a car. Strange; there was no reason for anyone to be by my home. 
   I frowned, getting up and sneaking to the door, opening it to see unfamiliar dark car parked in front of my home. The moment my door opened and I stepped out though, the car started again.

I stared after it as it hastily drove off, and felt a shiver that had nothing to do with the temperature. Maybe someone had simply stopped to read a map or something…?
   Similar strange things continued to happen on the following days, so much so I started to wonder if I was paranoid. Was it all only my imagination?
   I often felt oddly followed, and I thought I saw the same dark car outside of my work as well on few occasions, though through the darkened windows I never saw who the driver was, or if there were more than one in the car.
   I wanted it to only be in my mind – a lot of cars were similar-looking and dark - but what if it wasn’t? I was all on my own. In the ocean I had had my clan, but out here in human world, I was all alone…

Something was going on in the Sunset Valley and it was something I didn’t like at all – I was only trying to live here, why did it feel like someone was against it?

.

That night I was about to go to sleep, though I somehow felt wide awake, when someone knocked my door. Which was something that had not happened once so far.
   Cautiously I got up and went to open the door, unsure who’d want to visit me. At first I saw no one and nothing.

I stepped outside when I saw no sign of anything, when I heard someone call my name – someone familiar.
   “Sisu.”

I spun around, seeing – Shawn.
   I couldn’t have forgotten his voice, and now he was here. I wasn’t sure how to feel.
“Shawn?” I only said, staring at him. He nodded carefully.
   “I’m so sorry about the last time we talked, Sisu. Something has happened, and I’m worried it might involve you as well”, Shawn said seriously, stepping closer.

“Is it okay if we go inside and talk?” He asked, seeming somehow wary out here. I nodded – something was wrong, I could tell.
   “I’ll tell you everything, you have my word”, he promised, and somehow I was sure I could trust him on that.

Inside Shawn first went on and on about how he had been concerned and thought for a long time if it was safe to talk to me again and how he had missed me and and and, until I couldn’t help but snap at him to tell me what he was here to tell already. That at least got him going.
   Shawn started telling me how his work had lead him to investigate on a research organization of sorts called Axisca that was working in the City, after some people had gone missing. Apparently Axisca appeared to public as science and research-oriented, but was in reality a shadow corporation that was actually surveying anything that was paranormal. And how they also made experiments.
   Shawn said how they were after anyone who was non-human, no matter what kind, and even only if your lineage had had something other than human at some point in the past. He had infiltrated to Axisca but been caught in the act. He himself had vampirism in his genes, and Axisca had tried an injection on him that was meant to kill anyone like him. That’s why he had appeared that way at the beach.
   The strange serum hadn’t killed him, but turned off the activated vampirism after one moon cycle. Shawn said he had no idea how the science on that worked, but that while he had been at Axisca’s HQ, he had found out they were working on a case about me. He told me the moment he had escaped he had come straight to warn me.    
   Momentarily all I could do was stare at him.

“What do they-? I mean, all I have is a skin condition, that’s all”, I tried to say, running my hand through my hair. “I realize it looks unusual but there are countless odd conditions like that, it doesn’t make me any less normal.”
   “Sisu, you don’t need to tell me anything if you don’t want, but I had to warn you. And I want to help you, if you accept my help”, Shawn told me. “I want you to stay safe.”
   I hesitated. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him – I had learned how to read people, and he was seeming sincere. I was only worried what he might feel if I told him the truth – that I was half-siren.
   “Are you alright now?” I realized to ask him then. Shawn nodded lightly.
“I am. I don’t think they’ll be coming straight after me”, he said. “In my line of work, people would raise more alarm if I went missing. I can’t say I believe I’m out of the uncharted waters so soon, but for now I saw it safe to come to you.”
   Uncharted waters… The irony. I looked outside of my window, seeing light snowfall having started there. No one would surely be out there tonight.
   “It might be better if I simply show it to you”, I chose to say then, making up my mind.

.

The beach was, as I had thought, vacant and silent when we arrived there only moments later. Snow was free of any tracks. The lighthouse shined through the snowfall and I stopped by the waterline, looking at Shawn.

“What you’re about to see might be hard to watch”, I warned him, believing shifting into my siren form might be something more than he was expecting. “It is still me, though, no matter how it might seem. So... Think of that.”

I turned, starting to walk towards the shore, not hesitating anymore at all after I had made my mind. Shawn said nothing, only staring after me, clearly unsure about this.
   I had thought this through now – enough with the skin condition coverstory. And I wanted to tell the truth. I wanted to tell the truth to someone, and here on land I had no other but Shawn that I wanted to tell it to.

I undressed, leaving my clothes on the snow, seeing Shawn look away courteously, though I didn’t care about that at this point. I merely rolled my eyes a little and waded in the water. 

The moment I was deep enough I started my shifting, my skin and scales starting to react to the cold water – I didn’t mind the cold, no, water was always my home. It was lot colder in the deep.

I shifted until I was in my full siren form, settling in that form once again. My scales spread, my fins flickered as I turned in the water to watch Shawn’s reaction to all of this, to see if my judgement of him had been correct.

Shawn had to take a moment to look away, but he turned his gaze back to me again, his eyes wide. There was no trace of disgust or fear or anything like that though – no, he only looked taken aback, like he could barely believe his eyes.
   “You’re a – mermaid?” Shawn managed to speak. I smiled slightly, I couldn’t help myself.

   “A siren”, I said, my voice like a song as an answer.