//------------------------------// // Reunion? // Story: Curse of the Siren // by Nephilinae //------------------------------// "Sister..." We said together... It was creepy... I had never seen this girl before in my life... Yet... She was, family... It was that feeling you get when you see a family member you haven't seen in a long time... Only sisterly. I'm having problems describing it as, I think I've mentioned this before, I was an only child... Suddenly my "sister" lunged forwards and hugged me. And you know what? I hugged her back with no hesitation. I felt tears fill my eyes... Why? Who knew. We embraced for several minutes. But eventually we started to get uncomfortable so we broke the hug. Her eyes were filled with more tears than I even had... I wiped them away. Ha... Wiping away a total strangers tears like a long lost relative... I didn't care though. "Come on..." I wrapped my arm around my sister and guided her towards the car... That sounded better in my head... It totally wasn't creepy at the time... She buckled in as I opened the driver door. "I... I'm guessing you... All... Also have this?" she asked, pulling an identical pendent from under her shirt... She didn't have a emotion cloud around her... But I could somehow tell she was shook up about something... Something had to have happened. But I didn't want to pry so I pulled my own jewel out and held it out so she could see. "Yeah..." I nodded. "It appeared around my neck..." I counted the days since this all began as I started to drive away. "Four days ago?" Gosh, had it been that long already? "It just randomly appeared while I... I was..." I trailed off. Oh come on Circe! You were fucking crying about an iPod! Admit it! "I was upset with someone at my former school..." Reeeeeal smooth...The girl in the passenger seat looked at me with a kind of half smirk, but the shaken look persisted. "Former?" she asked. "It's a long story..." I murmured. "People only say that when they don't want to say anything..." she whispered. I pursed my lips. "Alright then... Why don't we do this fairly?" I asked. "What fairly?" "You want to know what happened to me... And I want to know why you seem a little shaken." I stated. "You picked up on that?" she asked. "Yep." "Drat." We both laughed at that, but hers was a little forced. "So what are you thinking?" She asked after a minute or two. "One of us will ask a question, the other answers, then the other asks a question." "... Seems fair." she mumbled. "But! No directly asking what our problem is!" she added. "Name?" I asked in response, implying that I agree to her addition. "Wow... Okay... Jumping right in... Just call me Calliope." Calliope whispered. I suppressed a chuckle. "Hey! I happen to like my name!" she exclaimed. "No worries... My name is just as weird." I stated. "Oh yeah? What is your name?" she asked. "Circe, and I'm counting that as your question." I smirked. "Wow, that is a weird name... And hey!" she exclaimed again. I giggled at her antics. "Okay... Was it a person, place, or thing that is making you upset?" she looked at me with a furrowed brow. "Not asking you what your deal is!" I said as I mimed holding my hands in the air. She sighed. "Person... And are you always... Wait... No! Stop being so shrewd!" Calliope exclaimed. "Can't." I chuckled. Calliope just shook her head. "Was it a person place or thing that made you up and leave?" Calliope asked after a few minutes. "What makes you think that I left?" I asked. She raised an eyebrow at me. "Fine, I guess it was a little of all three..." I stated after a moment under her stare. Calliope whistled. "What the Tartarus happened?" she whispered. I looked at her with a kind of smirk. "Don't answer that." she stated. "Just curious." "Have you noticed anything strange going on with the way you talk?" I asked. "Why would... Oh... I did it again didn't I?" "Yep." "Fine, yes I have noticed that I talk differently. Tartarus instead of Tar... Hell... Faust instead of God..." She started to list off. "Yeah..." I nodded. "Have you noticed anything that's changing? I've only had this stupid pendent for three days to your four..." Calliope stated. "Including what you said..." I sighed. "A friend of mine said I was all... Sexy tigress like? I forget the exact words but something about a sexy predator. Don't need to eat... Don't need to drink... Only need to have the gem feed off emotion or something... Everything else tastes like cardboard... I'm not scared of much anymore... And I'm practically immune to injury." I listed off. "Although I don't want to test out that last one any further." I added. Calliope whistled. "Holy shit girl. Just what did you get into?" Calliope asked. "The only thing that I figured out from that list is the eating emotion thing... That and the cardboard tasting thing." she added. I sighed. "Might as well tell you what BASICALLY happened... Just involves a creepy stalker, a plot to get me expelled, a stuck up bitch, arson, grand theft auto, SOME identity theft... I think what would count as hit and run... And now picking up a hitch hiker." I chuckled as I added that last bit. Calliope whistled again. "Dayum. By the sounds of it, my escape was boring..." she stated. "Ha..." was all I could say. "Let's see... Since fair is fair... I guess I got involved with... A bigoted jerk... A morally corrupt family? Annd... Running away?" Calliope lost her earlier mirth when she listed off her adventures highlights. "Ouch... I bet I can guess where this is going..." I stated grimly. "Yeah... I thought my boyfriend was cheating on me... But when I confronted him about it, I found him not with one girl... Not two girls... BUT THREE girls and a BOY..." I winced when Calliope said that... But she continued on. "As I was running home, this thing just appeared out of the blue... No biggie I thought at the time... It's just a necklace after all... But when I got home, my drunkard Dad somehow saw it and made a grab for it..." I could guess what happened next. "I slapped his hand away so hard he SPUN around several times before stopping..." Calliope started to sob. "I ran upstairs with him yelling about how I owed him and he needed money... I barricaded myself in my room as he screamed outside my door..." I felt my hands griping the wheel VERY hard. "Next thing I know is that he was sneaking in to try and get it... I kicked him in the sack and ran as he lunged towards me..." Calliope whimpered. "I've been running ever since... Um... Circe?" My knuckles were bone white. How dare someone try and take Calliope's pendent?! "Circe?" The only one with any sort of right to Calliope's pendent was CALLIOPE! "Circe... Try and stay out of the ditch..." NO ONE WOULD EVER TOUCH HER OR HER SOUL! NOT EVEN HER OWN... "Circe!" Calliope yelled. "Huh? Wut?" I asked. I looked at the road and saw that I was on the wrong side of the road with another car approaching. "SHIT!" I yelled as I swerved back into my own lane. I breathed in heavily as I deescalated from the situation. I pulled over almost immediately and hoped out of the car. "JEBUS LORENZO!" I yelled, hands beginning to pull my hair out. "Circe? Are you okay?" Calliope asked, having also gotten out of the vehicle. "Yes yes... I'm..." I began. "Sorry." What the... I was going to say fine... But I guess sorry could work. "What happened? One moment I was telling you my story and the next you're flipping out..." Calliope stated. "I'm... I... I guess I got too worked up..." I answered sheepishly. "I was listening to you... Then I just started angry... I was ranting to myself... And then I was in the other lane..." "Damn... I didn't know I was that bad of a story teller..." she said. "What? No! No no no. It wasn't that... It's just... The thought of someone else getting these..." I held up my pendent. "It just... Makes me pissed off..." Her face darkened. "I... I Never thought about that before..." she stuttered. "It does kinda piss one off doesn't it?" "Yeah..." I replied. We stood on the side of the road, both of us looking at the sky which was beginning to tint orange. "What now?" Calliope asked. I brooded over the question for several moments. "Good question..." I responded. We stood there for a few more minutes, watching the sun fall behind the horizon. "Hey, I got an idea." I said finally. "How 'bout we go fuck a certain someone's father's shit up?" I asked. Her head tilted sideways as she heard my query, but then her eyes widened in realization. "I think that's something I could get behind yes..." she nodded with a smile.