Hyungwon had no concept of the passage of time as he swam farther and farther into the black depths of the trench. Normally, sirens were able to sense moon phases in alignment with the tides, but he was so far from the tides of the Above that he no longer felt the moon pulling at him with soft insistence.

There was only up and down, and nothing waited for him above.

Down he sank, until there were no other creatures but himself, until the pressure began growing on his back and his eyes and his ears, until it felt like they would pop out of his head if he didn't head for the surface.

His hunger grew with the depth of his descent, and by the time he reached the bottom, he was starving and his head pounded from the constant pressure. He'd expected the bottom to be drenched in the most of absolute of darkness, but there was a small trail of bioluminescent matter that broke up the nothingness of the abyss and guided him until he came upon a cave.

Hello? he clicked. Underneath the pressure and hunger, he felt fear, but the other senses were much sharper and commanded more of his attention. He advanced forward, thankful for the dim illumination the bioluminescent matter provided. Please, he clicked, desperate now that he'd come this far. Despite endlessly teasing Changkyun and Hoseok about it, he now hoped those rumors were true because it was his only chance. Please.

Who are you? came a clicking from the hidden depths of the cave, and Hyungwon startled, having hoped but not truly expected a response. The clicking had a rusty tone to it, and although Hyungwon could understand what they were saying, they weren't the clear and eloquent clicks he was used to hearing. It was as though someone were testing out the language for the first time in a long time, but were they a siren like him? Or some other creature attempting to imitate their tongue?

A siren in need of help, Hyungwon answered after a moment. He didn't think his name was anything of importance, but his plight was.

And you came to get help from me, the other voice clicked out, musing over the thought.

I had no other path, Hyungwon clicked back, the weariness settling further into his body after the long journey. Everyone else is gone.

Ah, the other creature clicked, and there was an odd tone of amusement. You're from that choir.

Hyungwon flicked his tail, making himself larger out of a natural instinct to stand up to a perceived threat. You know what happened to them?

I suspect you also know or you wouldn't be here, came the reply.

I know they are gone, Hyungwon clicked, his anxiety making it hard for him to stay still, but he knew that if he moved too much or too quickly, he might scare off the other creature. But I do not know to where or why. I do not know if they have become sea foam or if they have been taken away beyond my reach.

Whispers trickle down to the bottom of the ocean and into my ear, the creature replied, and the more he communicated, the smoother his use of their language became. I have only heard of one who became sea foam.

Hyungwon's relief was immediate, although he knew that the information was only valuable if he could trust this strange creature. Do you know where the others were taken?

They're Above now, the creature replied, an air of reverence in its tone. No more whispers about them from the ocean.

Hyungwon shivered, less in response to the cold but more in the uncertain fear that accompanied mentions of the Above. He had never been to the Above; all he knew of it were stories from his parents long ago and the occasional recollection from Hyunwoo. Sirens had to travel near the Above for the hunt, but they didn't stay long and they never left the ocean. Their eyes weren't meant for the light up there; no, it was their fate to slip between the dark waters until they became sea foam.

But now his brethren were in the Above. What could he possibly do for them?

I need to help them, Hyungwon pleaded in low clicks. Please. I have heard that you can help.

Help? the creature clicked, the tone both curious and oddly mocking. I do not help; I trade.

Trade what? Hyungwon clicked back, already trying to figure out what exactly he had to barter for the creature's assistance. He could gather pretty and shiny things from the ocean floor, but he wasn't sure what exactly the creature was interested in.

Sacrifices, the creature clicked, a sensual whisper. You sacrifice something of yours for something of mine.

The darkness around Hyungwon only seemed to thicken. What do I have that you desire?

You have many beautiful scales, the creature reasoned, and Hyungwon shrank back a bit from the greed in the creature's tone.

Without my scales, I cannot swim, Hyungwon clicked uncertainly. It wasn't necessarily true that he couldn't swim without scales, but they protected him and deflected the cold. Without a layer of scales, he would surely succumb to the frigid temperatures, and his death would be imminent. He would only make it to the Above as sea foam.

You will have no need of swimming, the creature clicked back dismissively. If you forfeit your scales to me, I will make it so you can walk on the Above as naturally as you would swim in the water.

Walk? Hyungwon clicked, growing even smaller at the horrifying thought. There were some deep-sea creatures that had legs, but sirens were not meant for legs. Legs were tools of their enemies, the two-legged ones. Could that be what the creature wanted? You will make me two-legged?

You will need to be two-legged if you are to find your choir, the creature clicked back. You won't survive above the surface if you remain as you are.

Hyungwon ran his webbed fingers over his arm, frowning at the odd sensation. I will no longer be a siren? I will be...a two-legged one?

Precisely, the creature clicked. You will give up your siren body to me, and I will make you a two-legged body for you to survive in the Above.

How long will I be a two-legged one? Hyungwon clicked, distressed at the thought of having to be two-legged for any period of time. To give up his tail...to give up the ocean...to give up all he'd ever known...

For always, the creature clicked, and Hyungwon flinched back, the rough rock scraping against his back. Once you become two-legged, you can never return to a siren.

Agitated clicks came from Hyungwon, nothing semantic but still indicative of his reaction.

It is your choice, the creature replied. You can lose yourself, or you can lose them.

And what choice was that really?

--

Hyungwon grit down on his teeth and clenched his stomach as the creature – he couldn't quite make it out in the darkness – extracted yet another scale. He couldn't contain the high-pitched whine from his throat; the process was excruciating. The creature was removing every scale from Hyungwon's tail one at a time, ripping them off in careful, sharp movements so as not to damage them.

I am sorry for your pain, the creature clicked, although its tone didn't hold much in the way of remorse. But if I don't extract them now, they will turn to see foam when your tail is gone, and then I will have gained nothing from this exchange.

I understand, Hyungwon clicked back, his body rigid with pain nonetheless.

The cold was really starting to set in now, worse with each missing scale. Not only was the pain acute, but the process was humiliating. Hyungwon was a siren; their tails were things of beauty, their scales rare and rumored to possess magical qualities. To have his very identity stripped away from him...he felt naked, and despite the darkness, he was ashamed.

Done, the creature clicked, and Hyungwon could barely move; his entire body throbbed with pain and hunger and exhaustion and pain.

Now what? Hyungwon clicked out weakly, feeling cold all over, only there was no Changkyun to soothe him.

Now I must use the magic from some of your scales to perform the transmutation, the creature explained, and there was a bit of light coming from farther within the cave, but Hyungwon couldn't make anything out. His vision was even worse than normal because his scales, once the source of his dim bioluminescence, were gone. He was well and truly in the dark for the first time in his life, and it was terrifying.

Once the transmutation is done, I will have a friend carry you up to the surface, the creature said, and although it hadn't sounded remorseful before, Hyungwon could detect a hint of sadness in its tone. I'm sorry, my friend, it clicked, and the unexpected endearment pulled at Hyungwon. This will not be pleasant, the creature warned, Hyungwon could only click weakly.

I am sorry, the creature clicked, its tone still low and unhappy, and Hyungwon couldn't muster up the strength to click back any reassurances. He would have spent the time mourning his loss of self, but that had already come and passed. Could he even consider himself as a siren anymore without his scales?

He was just a big ugly fish, soon to be an ugly two-legged creature.

As he embraced the water all around himself, he wondered if it would be the last time.

--

His first breath was agonizing. Air speared into his lungs, entering through some strange aperture, and he could do nothing but cough for several minutes while his body tried to figure out this new breathing mechanism. It took a while for him to get the motion down – first, he had to breathe in, which was an odd task without being surrounded by water and a task which was further perplexing because he appeared to have two separate apertures through which air could enter. Then, his lungs had to expand to accompany the influx of air before pushing the air back out one of the two apertures. Was one supposed to be for air going in and the other for air going out? Or, if they were interchangeable, then why the redundancy? Why not just have one hole for air?

He concentrated so long on breathing that he didn't even process the rest of his body for some time. Eventually, he looked down, and that was when he came to two realizations. First, he could see, really see – this place, wherever he was, was entirely made out of light, it seemed. That strange and wondrous light illuminated not a tail – he shuddered at the remembrance of scales being plucked one by one, a sort of phantom pain that continued to haunt him – but two separate limbs.

Two-legged. I am a two-legged creature now.

He tried to click out something – a note of horror, a note of surprise, a note of aloneness – but his throat failed him and led him into another long bout of coughing. He made several more unsuccessful attempts to communicate before he gave up, his throat sore and aching along with the rest of his body.

Even his hands were strange and ugly – the webbing that had once helped him glide through the water was now almost entirely gone, leaving him behind with only ten seemingly useless digits. They could still grasp and hold, but they couldn't help him soar through the water.

He deflated slightly at the thought of the ocean, and he looked to his left – he appeared to have been laying on a beach – to see the endless waves, but he knew that the ocean didn't want him anymore. It had spit him up, sensing that he no longer belonged, and according to the creature, he'd never be able to return to her murky depths.

His eyes – he wasn't sure how they were even able to process all the light around him – grew warm, and he frowned as they started leaking. It seemed to him that something about this ugly new body of his must surely be wrong; had the creature made him defective?

But when he stopped thinking about the ocean and his past identity, the leaking slowly stopped, so he resolved to avoid the subject until he could repair the issues with his two-legged body's mechanics.

He tried to sit up, only he normally would have flicked his tail to adjust his positioning. He tried moving one of his legs (the word was so strange and foreign even to his own thoughts), and while it shifted in place, it did nothing to help him up.

After a minute, he tried using his arms, setting his hands down in the sand and pushing up, and he was able to sit up fairly easily and take a look around. To his left was the ocean, and everything in the immediate area around him was sand. To the right, far off in the distance, was a large formation of some sort. Not rocks; something more definitive and purposeful. Something the two-legged creatures had crafted, most likely. It made sense to him that they'd need some form of shelter; they couldn't very well live in caves like sirens.

The thought about two-legged creatures trying to survive underwater made him think of this new method of breathing, and he found himself rather surprised to learn that his new body had been breathing on its own the whole time he'd been thinking. He could control the motions if he wanted to, but it seemed as though it would continue on its own. As a siren, he'd never really bothered to think about such processes, but now that everything was new and foreign, he was remembering it all over again and realizing that sirens and two-legged creatures were perhaps not so different after all.

Of course, sirens didn't keep two-legged creatures as trophies for their own amusement.

The tangent soured whatever revelatory thoughts he'd been entertaining, and he looked back toward the two-leggeds' structure in the distance. That seemed to be the closest structure around; was it possible that his choir was trapped there?

There was another issue, however. If they were being held there – he had some unfounded but deep-set conviction that they were indeed being held in the two-legged stronghold – then it wouldn't be enough for him to simply go in and retrieve them. He would have to be cunning and manipulative, and – worst of all – he would likely have to interact with the two-legged creatures.

That was a rather difficult task considering his current position. He knew enough of the two-legged creatures' language; sirens used it on occasions to aid in the hunt, and even though he'd never participated in the hunt before, he'd still had to learn it. He took his earlier failure to make standard clicking sounds as proof that his ability to communicate as a siren was now lost to him, leaving only the two-legged tongue. He was stuck in a strange new world all by himself, and he'd lost not only his identity but also his language. Even though he may have considered himself to be a siren internally, he knew that for all intents and purposes, he was now a two-legged creature.

His eye caught on something to his left, and he looked over to see a large, dense shape floating on the water and drawing nearer. A vessel of some nature, he presumed. His assumptions were proved correct when he was eventually able to make out pale shapes moving around on the vessel, two-legged creatures who were returning from their own hunt out on the ocean.

Afraid of being caught, Hyungwon dragged himself with his elbows, not yet trusting his new legs, behind an outcropping of rock, and he covered himself with sand as best he could to make himself invisible to the two-legged creatures that were approaching.

Surely enough, the sounds around him grew louder as the vessel stopped along the beach, and individual sounds began filtering into Hyungwon's ears as the two-legged creatures returned to the land, leaving the sea behind for those whom it belonged to. Immediately, he hated it, their language – the way it scraped at him, the harsh sounds and sharp tones. Nothing like the melodic clicking he was used to. Even when sirens used the two-legged creatures' language, it did not sound this ugly.

Keeping near to the rock, he poked out just far enough to watch the two-legged ones and to observe their movements. Most of them were communicating loudly, but some of them were putting things in the bigger of their two breathing holes. Hyungwon identified one of the items as water being carried around in some sort of container (how ridiculous to carry around water when it was all right there), and while he couldn't put a name to the other object, he sensed that it was some form of sustenance because the two-legged creature was using its teeth to tear at the meat and consume it. Hyungwon noted that none of the two-legged creatures was using the top breathing hole – the smaller one (although when he prodded at it with his fingers, there appeared to be two small holes) that seemed to be attached to his nose – for consumption.

He decided to stay behind the outcropping and observe other habits of the two-legged creatures. If he would be forced to interact with them, he would need to understand them.

--

Although he already had a rough knowledge of their language, he was soon able to comprehend it well enough to intuit meaning. The sirens' language of clicks and tones was much more complex and rich with nuance than the two-legged creatures', and as he continued listening to the creatures who boarded and unboarded the ocean vessel, rough meanings shaped into sounds with more finite precision.

Two days he laid in the sand listening and aching, venturing out at dark to sneak onto the ship and take necessary supplies while he tested out his legs. The food was not good but it was hardy, and the water had a gritty taste to it, nothing like the water he'd been surrounded with all his life, but this mission had never been about luxuries and comforts. He needed to acclimate to this new body so it could fulfill one simple purpose: retrieve his choir. To accomplish that, he could ignore the food and the water and the pain wracking his clumsy new two-legged body.

He'd picked up from the two-legged creatures' dialogues that the large structure to the west – a castle, they called it – was an important shelter for wealthy two-legged creatures. It wasn't until nearly the end of the second day that he heard from one of the sailors that there were indeed sirens being kept there, sirens that had recently been captured. The two-leggeds didn't have the correct word for his kind, but the description they gave spoke true. Hyungwon knew that there were no other siren territories in the nearby area, which meant that the sirens being confined were, with nearly complete certainty, the members of his choir. He nearly shouted when he heard them mention his brethren, but he forced himself to keep quiet and lay low in the sand. He may not have been the strongest or the fastest or the most cunning in his choir, but he needed to be more cunning than these simple two-legged creatures if he was to achieve his aims.

--

published 04/05/21 (mm/dd/yy)

3294 words