A number of huts were scattered all over the island. Women walked around. But focusing on them revealed their truth. They were sirens. All of them wore long skirts that hid their legs completely, including the feet. Did they even have legs?

“Look,” Kiara said, pointing at the shore.

Someone had newly arrived from the sea. A young lady. All she wore were pasties over her nipples. Half of her body was underwater, and I caught the occasional gleam of scales. With her was a young man, unconscious. Needless to say, he was a victim.

The siren left the young man on the sandy shore and swam away to a small boulder arising over the surface of the blue liquid at a short distance. There was a dress on top of the rock. She put it on and swam back to the shore.

She moved on land just like a real woman, dragging the young man to the shade of a tree. The man could only be a player. Nay, an elf, for his ears were pointed. Were we near the settlement of the players then? Not impossible. Even Sam had mentioned a sea of blue liquid.

Kiara was observing the siren with a morbid fascination. The siren opened her mouth unnaturally wide, a feat no real woman could achieve. A weird combination of tentacles and crab claws snuck out from inside her. The feeding began. She munched the elf’s face. It was so unsightly, that Kiara and I had to look away.

“I can’t believe we are helping one of those creatures,” Kiara said.

“Because she promised we would get anything we want,” I pointed out. Besides, I didn’t mind players being killed, after slaughtering so many myself. The only thing repulsive about the sirens was their freakish feeding style; otherwise I had no qualms about them.

“Where is the Well of Resurrection?” Kiara said, scanning the huts.

“We will have to ask the sirens, I think,” I said.

“She looks busy,” Kiara said, throwing a disgusted look at the siren who had already devoured half the man in just a matter of minutes.

“We can ask the others,” I said.

We moved towards the huts. They were really small. Each one had four walls of mud and stone, topped by a roof of palm leaves. I surmised only one siren dwelt in one hut.

I wondered vaguely how they reproduced? Perhaps they mated with the men they lured. That led to another thought–What would a mommy siren tell her baby when it asked her about daddy?

I ate him.

“Can you please help us?” Kiara asked the first siren that we came across. The siren frowned hard, confused if she should pounce on us as we looked exactly like her food.

“What do you want?” the siren asked. Her lips were red like a scarlet ribbon and she had long eyelashes that complimented her large eyes. Her busts wanted to spill out and were barely contained by her clothes. I feared I would lose my ability to discriminate between right and wrong if I stared too long at her. “And are you neutral ones?” the siren added, recognising our inclination.

“We are,” Kiara replied.

“We sirens do not have anything to do with your kind.”

“Please,” Kiara said, “we came all the way looking for the Well of Resurrection. We have got the ashes of a siren and she told us to take her ashes to the well.”

The siren pursed her plump lips and frowned.

“Neutral ones helping a siren, that’s unheard of,” she said. “I am sure you are not doing it merely out of good will?”

“She did say that she would grant us anything we wanted,” I said.

The siren eyeballed me with some disdain.

“I am not sure if you will be allowed to use the well then. If you really want to help the siren whose ash you bring you must do it with a pure heart. Go inquire with the Lady of the Well.”

“The Lady of the Well?” I said.

The siren pointed at a small structure in the distance.

“Just go over there,” she said. And without another word she left us, marching away with an air of annoyance like talking to inferior beings like us had ruined her day.

“Okay, that’s poor treatment of visitors,” Kiara commented with indignation.

“At least she gave us directions,” I said with a shrug.

The structure turned out to be the brick wall surrounding a well. Was this the Well of Resurrection that we had come seeking? A gut instinct hinted that it was.

There was a house, a bigger one, not just a hut close to the well. This house had been earlier concealed from view by trees. Little girls were playing outside it. Some sirens were cradling babies. The girls and even the babies had their legs covered.

All of them were sirens.

Like the adults, the girls were very quiet. Each one was busy in some game of her own, seldom interacting with the others. The babies however occasionally wailed their throats out.

“Look!” Kiara said.

A person had come to the well. A female, evident from her bumps. She was short, the height of the girls. She wore black robes and a veil shrouded her face. Her eyes were the only body parts visible.

She was looking intently at us, without blinking.

“Is this the Well of Resurrection?” I queried.

The lady didn’t respond for a long time. Kiara and I exchanged glances. Was she deaf?

When she spoke, her voice was ancient and weezy. I resented the sound of it. There was a chilling edge to her tone. You wouldn’t want to hear her speak at night if you cherished your sleep.

“Why have you come here?” she asked.

I took out the ash bundle from my pocket, feeling the eyes of the lady on my hands as I did so.

“For this,” I said, giving her a peek of the powdery contents inside without spilling it. “This ash belongs to a siren.”

“Did she offer you anything in return?” she said. “Or are you doing this out of good will?”

“For both…?” I said, arching an eyebrow slightly.

“You are neutral ones,” the lady said, “and we sirens are anti-neutrals. We do not harm or kill you generally. However, if you try to underestimate my intelligence and insult me with tricky answers, then I will show you just how much I can hurt you before I end your life.”

“Whoa!” Kiara said before she could stop herself.

“Yes, she offered something in return,” I quickly said to mend my earlier words. I had no wish to offend the lady, not in the middle of a siren village. Yes, she could hurt and she was not boasting. It was crystal clear from her demeanor.

“In that case, being the Lady of the Well, I cannot allow you to deposit the ash into the well.”

“What?” I said. “But she was one of you!” I held up the ash trying to invoke some feelings in the lady for the late siren.

The lady eyed the ash bundle sternly.

“If you really want to help her, then you must renounce whatever wish she offered to grant you,” the lady said. “Only then will I allow you to deposit the ash.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Kiara complained. “One siren promises us that if we help her she’ll grant us whatever we ask. Then there is you, another siren, ordering us to give up whatever we were offered. This makes no sense at all! Can your kind do nothing but trick others? Is that all you can do, huh?”