The Temptress, Osceira

This story came to me in a daydream.

Osceira was a spirit when man was just a seed. She walked the earth before time, thought, religion and worship. Her nature was neither good nor evil, kind nor vengeful; of these qualities she had yet no insight. Osceira was neither living nor dead, for she had never experienced a life or a death to accompany it. She was not of this world, nor of any other. She continued thus until man came into being, ever solitary in her discarnate existence.

At first she perceived life with an infantile fascination, curious as it blossomed, grew and faded again into the nothingness from whence it came. She watched intently from the shadows of the earth, as life strengthened and prospered with each new generation. Osceira began to covet the beauty of the flesh. She became envious of that which she had been deprived and that she could find no means to possess. Before long, Osceira began to scorn the living, as did many other spirits. She wished to do harm and harm she did; before being cast down unto the depths of the lonely ocean by forces of good. Deprived of the salvation of heaven and cast out of hell’s inferno, she was bound to wander the seas, where man would be safe from her torment- for man had not yet discovered the means to travel across the seas from land to land.

Her one solace was that she had been given a life of sorts, a body of her own; but with no prospect of companionship for she was the only being of her kind. Incarnate, her features resembled those of the most beautiful woman in existence. Her eyes were the colour of emeralds, shining exquisitely to light up the darkest depths to which she was confined. Her skin was alabaster, tinged with the palest aquamarine and almost translucent to the naked eye. Her hair was a mass of jellyfish tentacles but of the finest consistency like human hair, with a length almost equal to her height. Her appearance was extraordinary though bewitching to any that might behold her.

Osceira, though beautiful, was equally deadly. As man developed knowledge of the means to travel across the sea, so too did she develop the means to entrap them in her snare. Many a weary sailor fell victim to her infinite charms. She could cause storms to manifest and ships to fall to ruin, all the while awaiting her victims patiently, singing a melody that could enchant even the most sound of mind into a ludicrous rhapsody. Many fell prey to this vengeful being in the early years, when the world believed in spirits and their powers.

It was not satisfactory to Osceira to merely kill her victims outright. She would lure them to her side with the most angelic soprano, only once having them at her mercy would she begin her torture. With her kiss, she gave man the ability to breathe underwater for a sufficient time as to inflict her will upon them. After dragging them down into the utmost depths from which they might never resurface, she would bid them to confess their love for her. The men, fearing for their lives would readily conform. Osceira, being reluctant to succumb to naivety, would rip out their still beating hearts and thus determine whether their affirmations were true or false. Only then would she tear the skin from their faces with her razor-sharp talons, and extract their souls with a surgeon like precision.

The mingling of blood and seawater attracted the carnivorous predators that would later devour the inanimate corpse into nothingness. As a fisherman likes to preserve his catch, so too did she preserve her trophies. For each heart that was torn from a victim, she exhibited in the shell of an oyster; so that she might look upon the proof of the fidelity of each lover thereafter. Their souls she would discard, condemning them to a solitary existence, like hers, in the depth of the ocean. 

Author's Note

This is my first post. I have no experience with writing and have never shown any of my work to anyone. Constructive criticism would be much appreciated. It is really only the skeleton of a story at present and I know that it needs a lot of work.

Reviews

[KanaDream]

This is an amazing story! The details are so strong that it feels like I'm actually in the story watching all the events occur! It's sad how a being so pure was condemned to such a fate... but such is the world that surrounds us..

Don't stop writing! You have a talent! Keep Dreaming ^^