Today, I bring to you the first of my writing prompts. I am so excited to get back to this fun little challenge. I pick one writing prompt for the month and write a new short story every week. There are no rules but I like to set the challenge to write 4 completely different stories. Sometimes I like to make the stories relate to each other in some way. Either way, it’s a challenge to get the creative mind flowing. Feel free to join in the fun!

This month the prompt is “The Warehouse” and I hope you at least enjoy the stories a little bit.

There were echoes coming from the old, abandoned warehouse. I heard them only because I had made a full stop at the stop sign on the corner. It’s a stop sign I never stop at because there is nothing ever coming. Today was different, today I saw a large red truck barreling down the road. I slammed on breaks, but when I was fully stopped the truck was no where in sight. Any other day I would have chalked it up to lack of sleep, but again today was different. Today I heard an echo from the warehouse.

I know it was dumb to even think about going into an abandoned warehouse. Even dumber when you hear things coming from it that you should not hear coming from anything abandoned. This warehouse had been the place of many parties. High school kids and college kids coming home for the holidays. I had been to a few myself. At night, an echo coming from the warehouse would have been ignored and we would all move on, pretending not to know that there are teenagers partying in a dirty warehouse.

As I said before, today was different. It was the middle of the day. I had left work early because I wasn’t feeling good. I thought I was getting a stomach bug or something and the minute my face turned slightly pale, the boss told me to dip out before I made everyone sick. My boss is cool, she may have sounded rude when she told me to go home, but she does care.

That was another reason I would have ignored the imaginary red truck that I had stopped for. It was a cool day, and my windows were down, and I had the radio off. I needed the fresh air to calm the headache.

I feel like I am taking too long to get to the part where I walk into an abandoned warehouse in the middle of the day because I heard echoes coming from inside. The dumb part.

I parked my car in the barely-there parking lot and walked to the building, stepping over weeds growing through the cracked asphalt. I wasn’t even cautious about walking into the warehouse. I just walked in like it was something I do every day. The echoes were still there, a constant stream of what seemed like a loud conversation.

It didn’t sound angry, just loud. I followed the voices, but the voices never sounded like they got closer, just clearer. Does that even make sense? I couldn’t hear what the conversation was about. It was still a jumble of words that sounded like they should have made sense but in a different language. I kept walking, waiting to walk into a room full of people the way it sounded. It also sounded like it was only one person. Or two. Maybe more than a dozen. Still, maybe just one.

I realized the echo was not talking, it was singing. I still could not decipher how many people were there. It could still be a group of people or just one person.

It was at that point I should have turned around. I should have gone back to my car and spent the rest of my day laying on my couch watching another show I had seen a million times. I should have called my mom and talked to her, maybe convinced her to bring me some chicken noodle soup.

Nope, I continued down the hall of the warehouse, looking in dark empty rooms. My creep factor should have been shouting at me, instead I just kept walking. Not once did I feel like running and only once did I look back when the echo sounded like it was coming from behind me. There was nothing behind me, nothing in front of me, just the echo pulling me in deeper and deeper. I had passed the rooms that were used for parties because no one dared go beyond this point. It was even painted on the walls that “Beware, danger beyond this point.” I should have stopped, but the voice. Someone had gone past that beware point.

I should have been questioning why someone would be singing in a creepy warehouse in the middle of the day. It never occurred to me that it could be a homeless person enjoying their day. My danger senses were taking the day off.

I should have stopped. I should have listened to the walls. I should have never walked in the building, but who am I to listen to that little voice in my head trying to help me make good life choices. Where would I be if I had listened to it? Not here, obviously. Not here where the darkness has consumed me, and I think I may be sitting at the bottom of a lake. Where did the lake come from?

It was in the warehouse. Right in the center, where the singing echo came from. I found it. It was only one person. Okay, ‘person’ is not the right word. Things are not as easy to remember now. I think they are called mermaids. No, sirens. She sang a beautiful song and pulled me to her. She pulled me into the middle of the warehouse, where no one had been in decades. No, that’s not right. There are others here with me. Others have been lulled into the beautiful blue waters that lie just below the floors of the warehouse. Not many people go missing in this town, but it has been enough to feed the siren. I should have never come in here, but she smelled me from the street. She knew I was coming. She sent the image of the red truck to me so that I would stop. Then she sent her voice to wrap me up and drag me in.

I’m not sure I really regret it. The beautiful siren does visit her victims from time to time, she is a sight to behold. Her hair and tail are the color of an oil slick, black and rainbows. Her eyes are the color of the night sky, dark and deep. Her skin is the color of the snow, and her lips were the blue of a frozen berry. When she visits us, she brings light, she brings life. She treasures and loves us.

When she goes is when the fear sets in again. The fear of being trapped. The siren does not just kill the human, she traps their soul. Her collection of souls, forever drowning. The water is always filling my lungs and I feel like if I could just break the surface, I would be okay, but the surface never comes. The only relief is when she kisses me, and I feel like I can breathe again. She is an angel, bringing me air. A demon for keeping me here. I would do anything for her. She gave me a choice, but who can refuse the song of the siren. A song of a lonely siren in the middle of an abandoned warehouse. She may be my keeper, but who is hers?