The Adriatic Sea, Off the Coast of Southern Italy
Date & Time: 08/14—11:47 PM
The storm hit harder than predicted. Thunder cracked across the sky, splitting clouds wide open as angry waves slammed into the hull of The Red Widow. Even though the ship was massive, it groaned under the weight of the wind—ropes snapping, lanterns swinging, crew shouting over the roar of the sea.
Lothaire Roman, 28 years old, tall as a mast and built by years under the sun, braced himself against the railing. His father’s son—Head Pirate of the Roman Fleet—he had survived storms, wars, and missions darker than the ocean floor. But tonight, the sea felt different. Wilder. Watching.
“HAARGHH!!”
A scream cut through the chaos as Tomas slipped, the wind ripping him clean off the deck. Roman didn’t think—didn’t hesitate.
He jumped.
Cold swallowed him whole. The world spun black-blue. Another crewman dove after him, rope tied to his waist. He kicked downwards, searching through the violent water.
Then—
SWUSHH.
The water shifted, fast as lightning. Something moved beneath him. A shape. A creature. Hair drifting like moonlit silk, body cutting through the waves with impossible ease. She pushed Tomas upward—hands gentle, movements certain—helping him toward Lothaire’s reach.
And then she vanished.
Not a threat. Not a lure. Just… gone.
They hauled themselves back aboard, drenched and shaking. The men muttered prayers, curses, disbelief. But Roman stood silent, staring into the dark waves as rain hammered his skin.
He had seen her. A siren. And she had saved them.
The storm faded before dawn, but the memory did not.
Two Weeks Later — Brindisi Port
Date & Time: 08/28—3:05 PM
Treasure mission complete, Roman expected to feel that familiar rush of accomplishment. Instead, he felt restless. Distracted. Every splash of water against the dock plucked at the same thought:
Find her again.
He spent nights replaying the moment underwater—the shimmer of her scales, the soft push of her hand against Tomas’s leg, the brief brush of her passing like a whisper in the dark.
It wasn’t fascination. It wasn’t curiosity. It was something deeper, stubborn, impossible to shake.
He returned home after fourteen days, but his mind stayed in the ocean. His father noticed immediately.
“You’re planning something,” the old pirate growled at dinner.
“I want another mission,” Roman said. “South waters. Closer to the reefs.”
His father paused, suspicious. “You just returned—and you want to leave again?”
Roman kept his face steady. “Treasure routes look promising this season.”
A lie. The real treasure wasn’t gold.
His father grunted, eventually nodding. “Fine. Take a smaller crew.”
Permission granted.
Roman didn’t sleep that night.
Brindisi Public Library
Date & Time: 08/30—10:12 AM
He searched for answers the only way he could—away from judgmental pirate eyes. In a quiet corner of the town library, he flipped through dusty books filled with sea myths.
book after book… illustrations of sirens with sharp teeth and darker hearts.
SIRENE — pericolose, ingannatrici, crudeli.
Dangerous, deceitful, cruel.
“Le sirene non salvano. Seducono. Ingannano. Uccidono.” Sirens do not save. They seduce. They deceive. They kill.
None of it matched what he saw.
She didn’t lure. Didn’t sing. Didn’t drag them down.
She saved a human life.
He shut the book, frustrated. The stories were wrong, or incomplete, or blinded by fear. He remembered the softness of her touch underwater—nothing monstrous lived in that gesture.
Roman stepped out into the blinding August sun with a single, undeniable truth burning in his chest:
He had to find her again.
Not for science. Not for glory. Not because she was a myth.
But because for the first time in years, something felt alive inside him.
And the sea was calling him back to her.