The siren was sitting on the edge of the canoe and lost in her complaints she misbalanced her weight and she plopped into the liquid. The canoe nearly capsized and Kiara and I had to crouch not to fall off.

Looking a bit abashed, the siren climbed back to the boat. She began to sob.

“It’s okay,” I said to her. “We… we will do something about it… we will help you.”

As soon as I said this, a notification told me I had officially accepted the quest. Kiara had predicted that I would have to go to some faraway place. She couldn’t have been more accurate.

“Really?” the siren said, looking up with her red eyes. “Will you help me?”

“Yes,” I said.

After falling into the liquid the siren had been quite drenched only a few moments ago. Now, however, she was quite dry. The tiny drops that remained on her body were fast vaporizing.

“What is this substance?” Kiara asked the siren. “It’s not water, is it?”

“It is not,” the siren replied. “It’s Siren’s Water. It’s found in places where Sirens live. If you humans spend too much time in it then it can kill you.”

“Will we die if we just touch it?” I said, worried over a drop that had somehow landed on my sleeve.

“Not if you simply touch it,” the siren said. “If you go swimming then you definitely will. The liquid will kill any body part that is in contact with it for long. You are wise, you came to this place in a boat.”

Our efforts at constructing the boat had been worthwhile afterall.

The siren informed us she only had a few hours left to live. Her trip to the time bomb or the ‘thing’ as she called it had axed a good portion of her remaining life.

It was not at all pleasant to watch the siren as the hours passed. Her face lost all its glow. The folds on her skin returned. Her eyes sank in, and one by one she lost all her teeth. Her spine curved and her rib cage became quite prominent.

She lay down on the belly of the boat, unable to sit erect. I couldn’t help but compare her to a dying fish gasping for air.

“Take my ash to the Well of Resurrection,” she said in a faint raspy voice, “The moment you touch the ‘thing’ you will be there. Help me, help me please… I will fulfil any wish you have, this is the promise of a siren… take my ash to the Well of Resurrection…”

And she kept repeating over and over again. Kiara and I were quiet. We felt sad for the Siren. It was uncomfortable to sit on the boat for so long and our muscles ached. I stared at the no-longer-picturesque castle and ruminated on my days spent there.

I had led an extraordinary life in the game world, living in palaces and castles. I had been a leader and a king. I had waged battles and commanded thousands.

“She's gone,” Kiara muttered. The siren’s bony chest was still. Her listless eyes reflected the wide sky. Kiara extended a hand and closed her eyelids. She jerked her hand back, shrieking when the siren suddenly burst into flames. Trying to avoid the fire, Kiara nearly tumbled from the boat into the liquid, but I caught her.

But the fire was nothing to be afraid of as it produced no heat. The blaze subsided as quickly as it had begun, leaving a small pile of ash in place of the siren. The light breeze threatened to blow it away.

“How do we take this with us?” I said, as I sat closer to the ash to block the wind.

Kiara produced a rather big handkerchief from her pocket.

“This should do the job,” she said.

We placed the ash on the handkerchief and wrapped it tightly and tied a knot, making sure the powdery residue would not leak out.

I stretched my body and popped my back. We had been sitting still for way too long.

We paddled the boat all the way back to the whirlpool with the time bomb.

Kiara was keen on jumping into the whirlpool right away.

“What if we need the boat again?” I said. “What if we have to come back?”

There was no place to moor the boat. It would definitely drift away without a doubt. Not very helpful if we had to return.

Kiara stroked an imaginary vandyke. She performed a self five.

“We don’t have to leave it floating in the liquid,” she said. “We can pull it down into the whirlpool and keep it beside the bomb.”

The vapors originating from the remnants of time bomb were swiftly moving away from it to form the liquid body. The stone boat was of considerable weight and it was unlikely that the vapors alone could lift or shift the boat's position..

While Kiara’s idea was simple, executing it was complex.

I leapt from the boat to the dry patch at the center of the whirlpool. Kiara kept rowing to keep the boat stable, otherwise the current of the liquid would move it away. Then Kiara offered me one hand which I grabbed tightly. She stopped operating the oars and took hold of the bow of the canoe with her free hand.

“In the count of three,” I said, gritting my teeth for the concentrated effort I would have to put in the next few moments. “One… two… three!”

I pulled.

There was a lot of strain on the joints of my arm. Kiara was biting her lips too as the boat slowly moved into the whirlpool.

“Are you all right?” I asked her, my jaw clenched.

“Let’s get done with this quickly, don’t ask questions,” Kiara said, her face convulsing.

I let out a moan and put in double the strength. Soon, I could get a grab on the boat too without coming in contact with the wall of blue all around me.

This freed Kiara and she hopped into the dry patch. Together, exerting ourselves to our limits, we pulled the boat into the dry center of the reverse whirlpool.

We sat down and we caught our breath and rested. We were surrounded by the vapors. They were darting fast to merge into the main body of the liquid.

“Let’s get going,” I said to Kiara. We moved towards the shell of the time bomb.

“The last time the piece of wood just disappeared,” Kiara said.

“I reckon the moment we touch it, we will disappear too and find ourselves in some new place teeming with sirens,” I said. The image was a little scary, but the two of us were veterans of the game world and we were undaunted.

I pushed the ash bundle deeper into my pocket to make sure it wouldn’t drop out.

Together, we counted to three once again.

Shouting “Three!” we touched the time bomb. The world turned upside down and we fell skywards, but then found ourselves firmly rooted to the ground in a different place.

The whole of the ghost town had vanished, but a lot of the blue remained. We were on an island, not far from the shores. Siren’s water surrounded the piece of land on all sides. But after a certain point the bluish liquid merged with real water, which appeared black from the distance. Farther away I saw land with abundant trees.

The sun was shining hard on us. It was definitely a hot day.