Andrea Borden, Photographer. Storyteller.

When I found her, she was smiling. The cavern walls were slippery, even the light filtering through the chamber shaft was cold, but she was smiling. I reached out my hand to her and her frigid slender fingers wrapped around mine. I heard her sharp intake of breath in the still air as she found her footing, but she made no complaint. “Hold on to me”, I instructed softly, taking a step closer to her. Despite being so close that our bodies nearly touched, I felt no warmth radiate from her. I’d dreamed of finding the woman who’d appeared to me in my dreams, the woman who had slowly dismantled my steadfast resolve to resist. I’d left everything behind to find her. The mountain I’d summited to reach her had weathered me to the point I knew I was no longer the same man, but my desire was stronger than ever. My heart should have been beating wildly. Maybe it was. The chase was over. Her hair was red, nearly the color of flames even in the moonlight. The dress she wore rippled against my legs despite the lack of breeze and gooseflesh raised on my skin. My siren parted her lips but made no sound. Her mouth opened to a deep darkness. A loneliness such that I’ve never known crept upon me and her eyes were on me, alight with the same fire I knew from my dreams. My breath caught in my throat. In that fleeting moment I thought of the letter I’d left at home, folded carefully under my son’s pillow, promising that I would return with a worthy bride. My beautiful bride of fire stood before me, winnowing the air from my chest. Her song was silent but it still brought death as the air escaped my lungs. My legs buckled first. Her grip on my hand had turned to an iron vice and my skin quickly went gray as I felt my life drain. The fire in her eyes blazed on, seeming to dance as the moonlight fled to leave only darkness. In the end those fires were all I saw. My siren smiled again as my world slipped from me but I finally heard her voice. “Thank you”. The fires leapt in her eyes. Her lips brushed my forehead. Her voice was a rasp, getting stronger with every breath while mine was ripped from me. “Thank you”. Her thank yous echoed into the chamber as the last breath left me.