Mermaid

"I'm sorry..." she whispered as she held the skull close to her heart. "I'm so, so sorry..."

She hadn't even known his name, the man who fell into her sea.

He was a sailor.

Just another mortal man who foolishly chose to take to the waves risking her father's unforgiving wrath.

A mighty bolt of lightning had struck the vessel and a blast from within her hull had rendered her asunder.

She held back the tears that threatened to mingle with a waters around her as she stared directly into the skull's eye sockets.

Maybe it had been the force of the blast...

...or the burns that covered most of his body...

or maybe, maybe she just hadn't been fast enough, strong enough to save him in time.

"Never again..." she whispered as she solemnly placed the skull upon the ruin of an old Roman pillar. "...never again will I let a mortal die in my waters..."