The halls were asleep. The crewmen continued their hard work with beads of sweat on their tired brows. The ocean and the atmosphere sang their melodies and the sirens wept solemnly as the moon began to rise. They would not be seeing men tonight.

Fiona remained in Cabin Number One-Oh-Two, sadly awake, while all the passengers dreamt pleasant dreams in their untouched sleep. Her white skin resembled the loneliness of the moon; her red hair torturing the man lying next to her. He was lacking in sleep as well, staring into the void that was her naked back.

Her dress was draped over the brocade sofa, a soft gown of pale lavender silk. Lace underwear flung on the carpet in the heat of passion, but now it just lay cold, glaring at Fiona with an unforgiving gaze. A memory of a past that would soon not exist.

Fiona touched the pearls around her long neck. He had given them to her for this very trip out on sea. Fiona had always adored pearls.

He watched her in the shadows of the silence, wondering what was taking so long for their departure. He longed to reach out and stroke her curls and rub his lips against hers, but he couldn’t bear to do so. The solitude cut him like ice and he was painfully aware of the choice he had made. And yet, he was too tired to regret it.

Fiona slipped out of bed, still holding onto her pearls, and draped the dress over her naked body. Her nipples poked through under the waves of the fabric and she left nothing to the imagination. She was a virgin Aphrodite.

Fiona turned around and stared into the man’s eyes and sighed deeply, shaking the room. She whispered into the air, something inaudible, but he knew precisely what she said.

<i>I’ll love you endlessly.</i>

He tried to get up to stop her. He wanted to be warm against her skin as they drifted as one but his body would not listen.

And so she left.

Tripping over her bare feet, the waves outside screamed a melancholy choir.

Fiona walked slowly down the corridor, her eyes beginning to cloud with tears. She held onto the paneled walls to prevent a fall. Her vision and strength began to fade and so did the song inside her heard that kept her heart beating strong.

Suddenly, it all turned black and Fiona let out a strained gasp for air. Pulling at her pearls, she fells to the floor and curled up into a ball, knees drawn to her heaving breast. Her breath was shallow and the strand around her neck had broken, pearls rolling down the hall as the ship played out its course.

<i>I’ll love you endlessly.</i>

Eyelashes matted with death, curls sprawled along the cold marble, Fiona screamed a silent song of beauty, a song of a past that will no longer exist.

And then she left, never reaching the end of the walkway where the one light mounted on the wall glowed, the ultimate reality.

Back in Cabin One-Oh-Two, a young man lay motionless and devoid of any sign of life on an untidy satin bed. His eyes kept still, staring at the entry door. The scent of absinthe flowed from the sheets; a pale bottle of pills scattered on the bedside table. The moonlight was directed right at it.

The news of the double suicide spread fast as a neighbor traveler had woken up from his private stupor when he heard Fiona collapse to the floor. The ship returned to its starting point and passengers fled as if their ghosts would run after them. The waters remained calm, the sirens silent, the songs muted as their spirits fled. The only sound was her whisper translucent in the wind, infecting the minds of the young and disposed, causing an upward trend of apathetic death.

<i>I’ll love you endlessly, hopelessly, as long as the waves still crash, as long as the doves still take flight.</i>

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