Fedya Zaravyrzhik. A name looked down upon by the siren race. A disgrace. Me.

Despite being a creature known for love and success, I'm pretty shitty at both of those.

You'd think that with me being near eight-hundred-years-old I'd find some way to overcome my weaknesses, but I haven't.

Every time I fall in love, the person who has my heart dies... Tragically. (I know. It sounds like a Shakespearean play, but that's just my reality.)

At first, I had chalked up the first couple of boyfriends as a really terrible case of 'bad luck', but I soon realized it was more than just that.

I'm cursed. I admit it.

In the past, I refused to believe that someone like me could ever be cursed... I mean, it makes no sense, right? I'm supposed to be hot. I'm a siren, for hell's sake!

But apparently, not even hot people are immune to curses.

But yet, despite my constant failures at the game that is love, I just kept at it.

I kept trying to find love even though I knew the whole universe was against me--but in recent years, I'm finding it increasingly harder to hold onto hope.

So... I've given up on that. I'll never be loved... and even though that hurts like hell, I have to accept that fact.

I'll never know the feeling of fingers playing with small bits of my hair.

I'll never know the feeling of late night talking about things we find stupid... or the things we even adore.

I'll never know the feeling of gentle lips grazing mine, structured in a source of affection that will last a lifetime.

I'll never know the feeling of my fingers brushing their way across the soft skin of someone's hand--tracing the outlines of his veins as our gazes are lost in one another's--trapped with no way out, but content with that fact.

I'll never even know the joys of saying "I do", binding myself to the person I love.

Despite all of these years of longing and yearning for a paradise like that, I know that's not how my story's supposed to go.

I mean, the 'monster' doesn't get a happy ending, right?

Just suck it up, Fedya, I think to myself as I help unload the sound equipment onto the stage before me. Don't think about love... It's terrible, you know... It's a sham.

"It's not," I mumble back in response to my inner thoughts.

Well, if love was real, you'd already have a ring on your finger, my mind reminds. ...a couple of kids too. But instead, you're moping around, constantly saying, "woe is me". It's like the universe hates you.

"It probably does," I reply to myself, knowing I'm probably getting several weird looks from the people nearby.

It's true though. The universe probably does hate me--and my species (but it's more of me in particular).

I mean, look at all the siren species has had to endure.

The first siren ever born was Zephyria Xenakis--thousands of years ago. She was the daughter of Hades and Persephone themselves.

Almost all of Olympus had hated Zephyria right from the get-go. She fled, made a deal with a bitch she shouldn't have, and then came the first siren purge.

Essences of Xuviphas were flying off the shelves as people prepared their bows and spears--and just like that, the whole siren race--besides Zephyria and her son Zaizriiel--were wiped from the face of the earth.

And over the course of the next hundreds of years, there was a constant, never-ending cycle of siren purges. My kind was rounded up and slaughtered before our bodies were thrown in mass graves or to the fires of Tartarus.

You know how people say elves always get the short end of the stick? Well, that's true--but their blights are nothing compared to ours.

I'll admit it--I do feel bad for what elves have to go through and I'll stand by them to support them, but couldn't they just have the decency to do the same for us? Couldn't they say, "hey, we support you" and not "you traitorous, vile creatures suck the life blood out of the earth. You're parasites"? Because honestly, I'm getting really tired of hearing those things.

Even though sirens have been treated like shit forever, I've actually had good moments--they most likely were before the curse was placed upon me.

Back when I was Domaczaja, love seemed to come easy to me.

I used to seduce--and kill (that was my nature after all. I didn't know any better at the time).

But now? I can't even get a guy to give me his phone number without him getting hit by a train.

It's like this curse somehow manifested itself after my transition from Domaczaja to Fedya--which is extremely odd; either someone cursed me and they hate people like me or the universe is just straight up transphobic.

I shudder at the thought as I move the cords to a place on the stage where the singers, bassists, and guitarists won't trip on them--they sure do like to run around like mad men up there.

I take a moment to stand back and look at my work--it's decently okay. Nothing too grand.

I exhale, letting my shoulders relax.

Alright. Enough relaxing, my mind immediately starts to hound me even though I had only been un-tensed for about five seconds.

"What now?" I groan to myself.

You have to get ready, it says. The show can't go on without you.

"Technically, it can," I say, heading off the stage to go fix the foundation on my face.

You see, I'm part of a band; since I'm not murdering people gruesomely after performing the same six notes like most sirens are, I decided to put my musical skills to use.

Now, instead of luring unsuspecting sailors to their doom, I let out my emotions aggressively on hi-hats and crash and ride cymbals--I'm a drummer. Though, in my free time, I enjoy a little bit of cello.

I glance back at the stage once again before heading down the hallway, trying to force the thoughts of an unachievable happily ever after out of my mind.