longer.blue

“You will answer my question!” She snarled, raising him out of the water, the piece of wreckage he’d been clutching onto slipping from his grip as he raised his hands in alarm. “A book! It was in a book, one I was foolish enough to translate! It said to come here!” Despite the increased pressure on his neck, it seemed the siren's tactic had indeed loosened his lips. The mermaid released her grasp on him and Oliver flopped back into the water gracelessly. He sputtered embarrassingly before managing to bring his head above water, and sought out his impromptu tormentor’s face once more, to see if he might perhaps find pity in the woman. Upon his closer and more careful look however, he noted naught but confusion on her face. Her solid black eyes, large and narrow, no longer focused on him like prey and instead looked past to nothing. Her lips loosed from the snarl that had openly displayed her rows of teeth into an irritated grimace, framed by faint stains of blood around her mouth. Oliver quickly noted that he had not seen the bodies of the crew or any of their parts floating about since he’d woken up. The siren met his gaze again, moving away from whatever thoughts had occupied her, and Oliver’s gut shrivelled up under the pressure.