On the corner of Binondo, in an inconspicuous building, lies the Song of the Ocean. Rough, bare concrete hides its gilded interior; it's easy to miss. The streets outside are dirty and messy. Two stray dogs bark at each other. An old woman argues with a single father trying to barter. A child runs through a sea of faces, trying to get home quickly.

Elektra worked at this washed-up restaurant. Perhaps, underneath these rickety chairs and gaudy furniture is a grand history—a past long gone. Images of fancy parties and blue-blooded guests line its walls. What secrets have these four corners seen?

There was nothing stopping her from adding one more secret to that pile. She would do anything to save this dying restaurant.

After all, there is a market for people willing to pay unimaginable amounts of pesos to be able to devour a whole siren. The kind of shady people whose morality was always up for auction, and whose hedonism had a deadly thirst.

Despite this, there was one thing Elektra couldn't deny: the ethereal beauty of the siren. She has squid ink-black hair and ghastly pale skin that was stretched thin over her bones; so thin you could see her organs pressing against her stomach and the bioluminescence of her heart casting her ribs in shadow. She was an angel from the darkest depths of the ocean. Yes, even as she lay all pretty and tied up on the flooded commercial kitchen sink—flickering fluorescent lights casting halo-like glows over her head.

Such a far cry from the first time Elektra had met the siren against the backdrop of a polluted bay years ago. Briseis—as Elektra had named her—was precocious but had separation issues, always seeking the chef’s approval. The siren couldn’t understand a lick of human language, but Elektra could tell she was the first and only gentle connection Briseis had ever had.

Elektra had grown to love her, she really had. Too bad she loved herself more.

Somehow, someone discovered her little friendship and offered a deal of a lifetime, until another person offered something more lucrative, and then another, until it became a formal auction. Elektra wondered how much the final bid was going to be. A million pesos, a quarter of a billion, or a mouth-watering amount of zeros? She could almost taste it.

It was all she could think about, even with her hands around the siren's throat. Her mother’s debts were finally paid. A butcher’s knife was held tightly in her left hand. The chance to finally make a name for herself. Brown eyes stared down at haunting milky white scleras. Finally, finally, finally—leaving Binondo.

“I deserve this.” Elektra knew she deserved it all this time after having to claw her way out of the slums of Tondo and licking knives for a drop of peace. Hell, she would even say she deserved it even more after drowning her dignity betraying her siren’s trust. The chef had grown familiar with the almost rubbery texture of her skin or the bloody cracks on her lips. She had grown familiar with the way Briseis’ webbed fingers would tremble or how weepy her eyes would get when Elektra spoke in a soft voice as she ran her hands through her hair.

Briseis was really pretty like this, completely ignorant to the dinner table waiting for her. She was beautiful in a way that would make Lovecraft go mad—in a way that fishermen would capsize for.

But wouldn’t she be even prettier with her guts on the floor?

Elektra would love to play hymns using her tendons as strings, making her sing like sirens are supposed to. Gnaw on her bone marrow and savor the taste of impending success. Make a rosary out of her intestines, strung together by capillaries. Would a siren’s heart be firm and gamey or delicate and mild? Will she pair well with a prosecco or a chardonnay?

A tender kiss on the lips and whispers of sweet nothings miraculously worked to soothe the fear in Briseis’ gaze, even with a knife to her throat. Elektra knew she should’ve felt guilty at how completely the siren trusted her and willingly offered herself for consumption. She knew using Briseis’ love against her was just like what her father had done to her mother. 

It should make her feel sick, but this was the only type of love she’d ever known—blood-encrusted fingernails, cracked rib cages, and heart-shaped bruises.  

It was supposed to make her feel sick. 

But it doesn’t. 

- Beatrice Diane D. Bartolome
(Illustration by Elysse Nicole Duller/FEU Advocate)