A muffled boom sounded somewhere above the bare white room.

Zephren felt his balance shift as the walls and floor shuddered and he fell to the cold tile floor with an awkward slap, looking up to the ceiling. A louder, more audible blast caused flakes of white paint to rain down past the blinding fluorescent lights, dust trickling from the cracks.

“Shit.” In all the years he had been here, he’d never heard that sound, felt the deep resonance in his chest. Something was happening above him…something bad.

He needed to get out.

With a deep breath, trying to stay calm, Zephren stared up at the blank white wall, and the massive metal door that had been his enemy for the past countless years. It had no indication that it was a door, there were no handles or grooves. It was merely a smooth metal rectangle sitting from floor to ceiling, flush between the sterile white of the wall. The only reason that he knew it was a door, was because he remembered the day that he’d been forced through it…and locked away from the world he’d known.

Zephren yelled loudly as he shoved himself up off the floor and threw all his strength into slamming his fist into the metal. There was a heavy, ringing clang as his knuckles collided with the surface. He felt his throat tighten as tears stung his eyes. “Let... Me... Out!” He crashed his fist into the center of the dent, again and again, screaming until his throat felt raw. He knew it was useless, but like a desperate addiction, he couldn’t stop.

His hand shuddered as he touched the dent in the cold metal surface. Though it was only a few inches deep, black blood both fresh and dry were still smudged over it. The door was covered in scuffs and scratches, denser around the small, thin drawer at the bottom, where nearly inedible sludge was passed to him—if he was lucky—three times a day.

Looking at his trembling hand, he registered his pale skin and the dark veins that wrapped around his long skeletal fingers. His knuckles were bruised and bleeding, the throbbing tenderness warning him to stop and give in to the defeat against the room…against his prison.

He flinched as he stared up at the shining metal, the loud bangs rattling his surroundings. The dent severely distorted his reflection, but he could make out enough of himself to shudder away at the sight. He looked so fragile... His face was sunken in, his complexion beyond ghostly, and his thinning hair reached his jaw in wisps of pure white. Everything was white. His eyes were the only human part of his appearance; a dull and muddy hazel. He blinked, glancing up again to see how his thick, ashen eyelashes made everything about his face look spectral.

Glancing down at his bare feet that stung with the cold of the floor, Zephren wondered what he’d do if he did escape. How far would he make it? Remarking on the hem of his dirty trousers and stained shirt…ragged, old, and far too small, he knew the truth.

“You’ll never get past that door,” he whispered under his breath to himself. Though he didn’t want to believe it, he knew how long he’d been there… How he’d grown up in that room, stripped of all human rights… But, then again, he wasn’t even human.

This was his curse. The curse he’d been born with, lived with, and had come to accept.

The curse of being a siren.

The room shook harder with the sound of thunder, and Zephren clung to the wall for support as he held his breath. Zephren stared up with wide eyes as the cracks in the ceiling lengthened and it threatened to give in and collapse, the lights flickering before they dimmed and went out.

The room was pitch black.

Fear filled him: a fear so absolute he felt it in his bones. He had never been surrounded by such complete darkness. With a tense realization, Zephren exhaled sharply; he couldn’t even see his own hand as he held it in front of his face. The only thing that existed was the throbbing pain that radiated over his knuckles and up his arm.

He waited, wondering what was going on upstairs when a loud hiss of air gave way inside the darkness. It was like a breath, moving his hair away from his face, and for a moment that was exactly what Zephren thought it was; a sigh of relief from some stranger in the dark.

As he slowly stretched his hand towards the metal door, his fingertips met nothing.

Heart racing, Zephren pushed himself away from the wall and walked forward blindly, ready for his palm to meet the cool warped metal.

There was nothing there, nothing stopping him.

The door…had opened.

Half dazed, half in disbelief, Zephren walked forward sluggishly, as if the shadows had a thickness to them. Trying to get a sense of his surroundings, he felt with his bare feet past the open door, into the unknown. There were stone steps that were covered in moss, making them slippery, his hands extending to feel that the walls were also stone, crumbling as he brushed his fingertips against them.

Zephren’s legs felt like they were about to give out. Inside, his heart hammered against his ribcage. Run. Just fucking run. Somehow, like a nightmare, all he could do was stumble through the dark.

Up the long, winding staircase, it seemed like eternity before he reached the top of the stairs. His palm met a warm panel of what felt like wood. Please, don’t be another locked door. Please… He had been so angry for all these years, every moment thinking about how he would escape. Now that it was happening, he felt empty and unsure.

With a deep breath, he pushed gently against the panel and felt his entire body lift as light flooded the darkness around him. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to sudden brightness, blinking as he began to make out shapes around the room; a different room than he had spent the past years trapped within.

As his blinking became more rapid, able to keep his eyes open for longer, black sofas appeared in his view, gathered around an unlit fireplace. Carved from a single slab of ebony wood sat a desk covered in maps and stacks of papers, beside an enormous brass globe. It was placed in front of a wall made entirely of glass, overlooking the city…

This was the world of Sanctus, a world he barely remembered.

Walking over to the window, Zephren spun the globe as he passed by. He listened to it whir, his bare feet nuzzled into the embroidered rug that spanned a great deal of the marble floor.

The air was thick and shimmering as the warm red glow caught the dust. Zephren’s eyes were wide. Shit… The room was bathed in a shifting deep red, the smell of smoke catching in his nose. He felt a still calmness takeover his panic as he watched flames devour the city out the window. If he craned his neck, he could see tall glass buildings glinting like red jewels in the distance; everything seemed to gleam.

Frozen, Zephren squinted into the distance; black specks loomed larger, weaving in and out of smoky columns. They looked like black fish in the sky, smooth and long, in the shape of a narrow eye with spiked fins along the top and at the back. They were massive airships, circling the buildings as small black orbs dropped onto the ground beneath them.

He felt the room lurch as explosions caused the ground to ripple. Vibrations resonated in his chest; at first, he thought it was the impact of the bomb, but he heard the laugh escape his lips, clutching his stomach as he hunched over. It hurt to laugh; his face was sore, his starving stomach tight…

Finally, he had made it. He had made it past the door, only to find the path to freedom burning away before him. It was a gruesome joke, but he laughed at it all the same.

Out in what Zephren could only assume was a hallway, he heard a sound he feared more than that of bombs… Footsteps. He spun, silencing instantly as he hurried over to the desk, looking for anything to defend himself. A letter opener glinted in the firelight and he grabbed it without hesitation, standing up straight as he waited; he was ready to fight. I’m never being a prisoner again, I’m never going back down there…

The oak doors swung inward with a heavy whine.

A girl stood there, a porcelain doll in a dress of dark red taffeta. Her skin was the color of thick cream, her gown billowing out to the floor in a beautiful ruffled skirt. Her dark hair was pulled back into a tangle of curls away from her deep brown eyes that scanned the room, widening as her gaze landed on him. “Zephren…” She mouthed his name, barely a whisper.

Zephren felt his body shake, seeing her stand there in front of him as if he were in a dream. He barely recognized her, she was so much older, and yet her features were the same, unmistakeable. “Desta?” he asked, taking a step forward as he readied the letter opener in his hand. “Where’s Father?”