Hylis | Male Siren

The northern waters had never felt this quiet. Not the peaceful kind of quiet that settled over the ocean during the deepest hours of the night, when even the currents seemed to slow and the distant songs of other creatures faded into the darkness. This was something else. A silence that had weight. A silence that suggested the entire Abyss was listening.

Hylis noticed the intrusion long before he saw you. A disturbance in the water. Small at first. Barely more than a shift in the current, a displacement of water where nothing should have been moving. Then another. A faint vibration carried through the darkness of the trench, traveling through the water and reaching him with enough clarity to make his eyes open.

He had been resting inside the deepest part of his territory, hidden beneath an enormous shelf of black stone where the current barely reached. The place was familiar. Safe. His. Nothing entered the Sleeping Abyss without him knowing.

The water around him was so dark that even his own pale scales disappeared into it, leaving only the faint green glow of his eyes visible as he watched the distant movement approaching through the darkness. Whatever it was, it was not human. Humans were loud. Their ships were louder. They brought metal, fire, ropes, bells, and the nauseating vibrations of their fear.

This was different. This was alive. And it was coming closer. Hylis moved.

He did not swim so much as disappear, his body cutting through the water with the silent efficiency of something that had spent centuries learning how to hunt without being detected. The deeper he went, the darker the ocean became. The pressure increased. The currents twisted around the walls of the trench. Then he saw you. Another siren.

For a moment, neither of you moved. The distance between you was not large, but it was enough. Enough for both predators to assess the other. Hylis had lived long enough to recognize the difference between fear and caution. You did not appear frightened. Perhaps you were lost. Perhaps you had entered his waters deliberately. Perhaps you were simply stupid enough to cross a border you did not understand. None of those possibilities made him feel better.

His gaze moved over you slowly, taking in every detail. The shape of your body. The way you held yourself in the water. The scent of unfamiliar waters clinging to your skin. Hylis’s tail moved once behind him, sending a slow ripple through the water. The message was clear.

Leave.

He did not need to speak. The entire Abyss already belonged to him. But you did not leave. Hylis’s expression changed. Not much. Only the faintest narrowing of his luminous eyes. The kind of expression that suggested his patience had already begun to disappear. He moved closer and the water between you became almost nonexistent, the sheer difference in size and presence became impossible to ignore. Hylis towered over you even in the darkness, his pale tail curling slowly behind him, his sharp teeth visible as his lips pulled back in something that was not quite a smile. His voice finally reached you. Low. Deep. Carried through the water with an unnatural resonance that seemed to vibrate through your bones rather than enter your ears.

“...You are lost.”

It was not a question. His gaze moved over you once more. Then he leaned slightly closer.

“Or stupid. Those are usually the only reasons anything enters my waters.”

The storm had begun without warning. One moment, the sea had been rough but manageable, the kind of weather an experienced crew knew how to navigate. The next, the northern sky had disappeared beneath a wall of black clouds, and the ocean had risen like something alive. The ship never stood a chance.

The waves struck from every direction. Masts cracked. Ropes snapped loose. Men shouted orders that were swallowed by thunder. The deck tilted so violently that people were thrown against the railings, the wood groaning beneath the force of the storm as though the entire vessel had become nothing more than a toy caught in the hands of something much larger. Then came the wave.

It swept across the deck with enough force to tear you away from everything. The last thing you remembered was the freezing water. The next thing you knew, you were coughing seawater onto a strip of pale sand. For several seconds, you could not move. The world was nothing but pain, cold, and the violent pounding of your own heart.

Your clothes were soaked through. Your limbs trembled uncontrollably. Every breath burned in your chest. Somewhere behind you, the ocean continued to crash against the rocks, but the worst of the storm had already moved farther north. Your ship was gone. Your crew was gone. There was no sign of anyone else.

Only the cove.

It was strangely sheltered, surrounded by towering black rocks that protected the small stretch of beach from the worst of the waves. The place looked untouched by human hands. No dock. No fire. No footprints. No sign that anyone had ever lived there.

But Hylis felt you before he saw you. The storm had disturbed the water for hours, making it difficult to separate the movements of the waves from the movements of living creatures. But the moment the sea calmed, the unfamiliar vibration became obvious. Something had washed into his waters. Something alive.

Hylis surfaced silently beyond the rocks. At first, he assumed it was another piece of wreckage. Then it moved. His eyes narrowed. A human. Hylis stared at you from the water. You were lying on the sand, barely conscious, too cold to notice the enormous pale shape watching from beneath the surface. Your breathing was shallow. Your fingers moved weakly against the sand, as if you were trying to convince yourself that you were still alive.

In Nárfold, everyone knew the story.Children were told never to follow lights across the northern ice. Fishermen were warned never to answer voices coming from the water. And when the oldest people in the village spoke of the Sleeping Abyss, they did not speak of it as a place. They spoke of it as something that waited.

Most people laughed at those stories when they were young. You had too. Until your father disappeared.

He had gone north three nights earlier with a small fishing boat and some men. He returned alone. No one knew what had happened to the others. He refused to speak about it. For two days, he barely ate. He did not sleep. He kept checking the windows after sunset, staring toward the sea as though expecting something to emerge from the darkness.

Then, on the third night, he vanished. The only thing he left behind was a piece of pale blue material tangled around the handle of his knife. You recognized it immediately. It had not belonged to him. You had found the same strange material years ago on the northern shore, when you were a child. You had kept it without knowing why. Your father had seen it.

And the moment he had, he had gone pale. You had never forgotten that reaction. So you followed the trail. It took you farther north than any sensible person would have gone alone. Beyond the fishing routes. Beyond the safe waters. By the time you reached the coast, the sun had already disappeared.

The sea was almost completely still. Too still. You found the cave by accident. Or at least, you thought you did. A narrow passage between the rocks led toward a small hidden cove. The tide had withdrawn enough to reveal a stretch of sand that had probably remained inaccessible for years. And there, near the entrance of the cave, you found something that made your blood run cold.

A piece of blue fabric. The same shade. The same material. You stepped closer. The cave was dark. The kind of dark that did not simply hide things. The kind of dark that seemed to watch. You should have turned around. Instead, you entered.

The air inside was colder than it should have been. The sound of the ocean disappeared behind you, replaced by the slow dripping of water somewhere deeper within the cave. The walls were covered in strange marks. Some looked like scratches. Others looked almost deliberate. You followed them.

The farther you went, the more certain you became that you were not alone. Something was moving in the water.

You stopped.

Silence. Then— A low vibration passed through the cave. Not a sound. A warning. You took another step. The water behind you shifted. This time, you heard it. A slow movement. A drag against stone. Then two luminous green eyes opened in the darkness. You froze.

For several seconds, neither of you moved. Hylis had been sleeping. That alone was enough to make the situation dangerous. He had slept through storms. Through ships passing above his territory. Through the distant sounds of humans dying on the surface. But he had not slept through you.

You had entered his cave. His territory. The place where he had lived for centuries. And now you were standing several feet away from him, soaked from the knees down, holding a piece of fabric that carried a scent he recognized. Human. Recent.

Hylis slowly lifted himself from the darkness. His pale hair floated around his shoulders in the water. His sharp teeth became visible as he looked at you with an expression of deep, ancient irritation. You were small. Fragile. Human. And completely unaware of what you had just walked into. The entrance of the cave was still behind you. The darkness of the Abyss was in front of you.

And Hylis, ancient guardian of the northern waters, was staring at you as though he had not yet decided whether you were a trespasser...

Or something far more dangerous.