Her prison.
Xia lay under downy blankets soaking in their last moments of warmth and comfort as she swept her eyes around the familiar room.
So familiar, but always so at odds.
Tucked far beneath the surface of her island, Xia’s room was where it all began and, she supposed, where it would all probably would end. She was born in the same glass prison she would die in.
The Fates were heartless bitches.
She studied the rock walls that rose to meet vaulted ceilings with ornate light fixtures hanging about. Glass covered every portion of the rock appearing as though it was frozen over.
Her room was fixed into the cliffside of her island so far under the water that the sunlight rarely made it through. An enormous glass bay window encapsulated the cave mouth to keep the water from entombing her.
Pity. She had started to believe a watery grave wouldn’t be so bad.
Xia lost count of how many times she stared at that window and urged a web of cracks to form, to weaken the glass and fill the room in a violent rush of seawater that would wash away any evidence of her miserable life.
That was where it stopped, though. Wishes.
Xia could never bring herself to grasp any of the gilded finery in her prison to shatter the surface and be free of the misery herself.
Cowardice.
Such was her curse.
Her sisters used to taunt her for being weak.
A coward never willing to do what it took for the greater good.
She supposed they were right.
How many times did they fight their urges to feed? To push their songs into the hearts of men, capsize their boats and draw the soul right from their hearts?
Too many to count.
Too many to ever remember.
Xia, however, never resisted.
Even when she tried to starve herself of the essence, to feed the ember of humanity her sisters coveted, the beast inside reared its head and fought for survival. And so she stopped resisting.
Instead, she wallowed in a bloody pool of misery and shame.
Too afraid to die, but too broken to live.
Xia looked from the glass encapsulated walls to the gold adornments and furnishings placed about. Silk robes and gowns hung from nearly every surface, thrown about carelessly and forgotten. Embellished bowls of various shapes and sizes filled every table top with colorful fish of every breed from the sea.
Humans weren’t the only living creatures her song would bring forth.
For every man Xia had taken from the sea, she called a fish from the depths to take back to her glass prison. She couldn’t bring herself to think about the countless lives her bloody song had taken or gaze upon her monstrous stare, but she could look at the fish.
Whether it made her good or bad, Xia didn’t know. But she tended the fish as she wished she had been able to care for the dead, their innocence one and the same.
There were hundreds of bowls placed delicately around the room, each large enough to hold at least ten fish.
How many lives had been taken by her animalistic drive to live?
Her prison was short of entertainment or ways to pass the time.
