Sirens in Mermaid costumes were possibly the most dangerous women that sailors could ever face while out at sea. They were similar in that they were both said to use song to draw sailors to them, but while sirens would generally have them crash their boats against rocks near shore, mermaids would take them from their ships. In some cultures though, the word for fish and bird are the same. So a mermaid (half fish, half woman) and a siren (half bird, half woman) could have originated from the same creature in folklore. In Greek mythology, sirens are sometimes completely water-dwelling creatures and have mermaid-like qualities. Though many insist they are two completely different things. Regardless, they are two sets of partial-women that you really did not want to mess with.

mermaid

Sirens were known for their song. They were beautiful, yes, but it was not their beauty that attracted the sailors; it was only the song. A song which called out to their very souls and was practically impossible to resist. Though if you did not resist it, you would either end up on a sinking ship or -possibly worse- on land with them. Their main dwelling was a field of flowers, and according to Circe they would lay around in that field with the corpses of all the men that followed them there and could not bring themselves to leave.

Mermaids also sang and distracted sailors so that they might accidentally run their ships aground. They would also sometimes take the men into the sea to visit their kingdom, sometimes purposefully killing them, and other times simply forgetting that men could not breathe underwater. The first mermaid stories date back as early as 1000 BC. When they were spotted it was generally a bad omen that either something bad was going to happen, or they were going to make something bad happen. Though in Japan it was said that if you could catch a mermaid and eat her flesh, it would grant you immortality. In Finnish myths they are able to reverse illnesses, and grant wishes. They are said to be vain, but innocent in that they will often fall in love with men and attempt to prove this love by any means.

Overall though, the risks of interacting with mermaids, or sirens greatly outweigh the benefits. Remember this the next time you’re out at sea. Oh, and bring earplugs.

May we reconvene under the blood red moon,
-Black Widow

In old cartoons the main character is sometimes faced with the dilemma of whether or not to do the right thing. Often an angel appears on one shoulder and urges the character to do good, while a devil appears on the other shoulder and tells the character not to listen to the angel, and to do whatever they feel like doing. What if you met that little shoulder demon, and he was normal sized. What if he told you….

devil mask

That angel is out of the picture. ‘Comon, lets take a walk and discuss some things. You know who I am right? Oh no, not The Devil, just a devil. You know, like your own personal demon. You buy into that whole guardian angel deal, yeah? Well, to be honest they don’t pay that much attention. See, we’re a lot more attentive where I’m from. We’re with you every step of the way, from birth, really. I know everything about you, and pretty much every time you did something ‘bad’ I had a hand in it. You thought that was just you? Hah! Well, don’t get me wrong, you’ve got free will and all that, but sometimes temptation is just too hard to resist. I’m that temptation, you see. I’m the one that knows you want that thing from the store, but you can’t afford it. So I distract the security guard for a few minutes and give you the opportunity to take it without getting caught. Yeah yeah, I know it was just the once. Don’t try to convince me you’re a good person, no person is good once they get past a certain age. Calm down, it’s just human nature. Sheesh. Sensitive, aren’t we? So why am I talking to you now? Good question. There’s something big coming up, real big, and I need to know if you’re in. The boss kind of wants a head count. You understand, right? It’s like R.S.V.P.-ing for a party. Hey- Where are you going. You know I’m not going to leave you alone until I get an answer…..

May we reconvene under the blood red moon,
-Black Widow

The smell of smoke drifts into your bedroom and you wake up coughing. After glancing at your digital alarm clock and thinking groggily for a few moments that ‘it’s not even daylight out yet’, you realize it wasn’t the alarm that woke you. You smell the smoke and walk out towards the living room of your apartment but everything seems normal enough. You can smell it though, something is on fire somewhere and the smoke is spreading quickly. You slip on some shoes, grab your wallet and cellular phone and head out into the hallway. The emergency exit is around the corner, but curiosity gets the better of you and you follow your nose instead. You head in the other direction and open the door to the stairwell on the other side of the hall.

angel

Where the stairs turn, you can see fire. It’s directly above your floor but nobody seems to be awake, or leaving. The sprinkler system hasn’t turned on either. You quickly close the door and run back down the hall. Were you really just that heavy of a sleeper that you didn’t notice everyone else leaving? Or was there no alarm, no warning? Was everyone still in their apartments sleeping?

You bang on your neighbor’s door and she opens it, groggily staring up at you and wondering why you’ve woken her. The building is on fire, you explain hurriedly, you tell her she has to get out. It seems that it wasn’t just you, it was the entire floor. As she runs back inside to grab her dog, you rub back down the hall. Starting at the apartments closest to the stairwell, you scream and knock on each door until the person comes out, or you’re convinced that nobody is home. The air gets thick around you, and you can see the flames curling through the ceiling now, but you make sure to get everyone in your hall out of the building. As you head down the stairs of the emergency exit though, you feel lightheaded and unstable. You struggle to get out of the building but your limbs give way to fatigue. There isn’t enough oxygen in your blood, and you think that maybe this was the last thing you were meant to do before you die. Your eyelids grow heavy and you loose consciousness.

To your surprise though, you wake up in an ambulance not even a half-hour later. You ask a paramedic what happened and he explains that someone had dragged you out of the building and disappeared soon after. You ask if it was a firefighter, and the man tells you that this person was dressed casually.

The paramedic smiles at you and says “Maybe you’ve got a guardian angel.”

May we reconvene under the blood red moon,
-Black Widow