Kara watched the inferno devour her older sister's body in silence. Her eyes held a trace of sadness and longing, wanting to take her own life at that moment. However, it was Asha's wish that she could only do so after she gave her sister a proper burial. Thus she waited. 

People clamoured around the stake, shouting derogatory words. In their books, vile monsters beyond human understanding roamed the world. They wielded powers capable of doing unimaginable things. They slaughtered humans for their pleasure. Others were cunning, tricking their fellows into becoming their meals. These creatures came in various forms and sizes, many of them could even change their appearances. However, the monsters to be feared the most were not those with grotesque physiques but the ones that possessed peerless beauty.

Asha was one of such monsters. She was a siren that lured several men to their deaths to feed off their essences or what humans would normally call their souls. 

Kara recalled their father's words.

"Souls are the key to reincarnation. No living creature ever truly dies, but when their souls are obliterated will they truly cease to exist."

For that reason alone, her sister's existence was regarded as a curse.

She bit her lip as she remembered the dread on Asha's face upon realizing that her survival meant the absolute death of others. In Kara's eyes, no one had a kinder heart than her sister. She was not like the other monsters who behaved accordingly to what was written in human books. The ships her sister sunk were owned by pirates, criminals that plundered and murdered for treasure. Siren blood had healing and rejuvenating properties, it was not rare for Kara to find her in town squares, giving out her blood for free as if she was desperately paying for the lives she had taken. Even then, her sister studied medicine, hoping that her discoveries would help humans progress to a point when they no longer had to fear monsters.

Despite everything her sister had done to help humankind, she still could not escape her harsh fate. There was no way to change her race or her diet. In the end, she was tracked with the help of other creatures. Shipwrecks unrelated to her sister and many false accusations befell on her. She was to be burned at stake as her penalty.

Her reminiscence was cut short. The city mayor has finally brought out what she was waiting for. Before burning her sister at stake, they let her bleed out. Sirens had more blood in their bodies than humans, so they obtained three gallons of blood before she was completely wrung dry. The creatures who aided them, the sea witches, have leaked all the information about a siren's constitution to the humans, including the ability of their scales to extend a person's life. 

Humans are just as vile as monsters.

Kara thought as she had to put up with watching her sister's captors cut her sister in half.

The vocal cords of a siren could be concocted into a love potion. So they tore it out.

The eyes of a siren, when eaten could heighten one's senses. They were plucked out.

The teeth of a siren could give one the ability to breathe underwater. Each tooth was carefully pulled out.

The heart of a siren could revive a dead person...but not herself.

The way they tore her open was too brutal even for a bloodsucker like Kara.

The city mayor proudly displayed Asha's tail in the middle of the square, the same spot where Asha once stood as she gave ou her blood. Despite losing the top half, the tail never lost its vibrant lustre. Underwater, it was even more mesmerizing. Her sister's tail was special even among sirens. It resembled a Betta fishtail and it never had a permanent colour. One minute, it was orange, blue and black. Kara blinks and it's pink, white and silver. This time it's black, purple and grey. 

"You've not only given them a part of you but all of you," Kara murmured as she watched the chubby and greasy bald man put his hands all over her tail. Behind him were Asha's other body parts, displayed like merchandise. 

The small flame inside her grew in intensity. The lid used to keep her feelings inside a jar was about to burst open. 

"I'll get them all back, sister. Just as I promised."

The sun was about to set. It was about time. Kara stood up and closed her parasol. The slits in her eyes narrowed as her red irises glowed. She had always lived in the brink of insanity. Right now, she had found something she thirsted more than blood.

The jar broke.

Asha joyfully watched her sister finally let loose. A small smirk hung on her lips as the bloodshed unravelled before her. This was the first time she had seen her sister so free and jolly, albeit a little crazed. Who was she kidding? She's fucking insane! Her death wasn't all for nought after all. Also, the promise was just a pretence. She could care less about a proper burial. She knew she would die a horrible death. It was her fate. However, she was also aware of her sister's deep attachment to her. That crazy rascal would follow her everywhere even the afterlife.

"You don't mind that do you, sis-con?" A baritone, slightly gruff voice resounded in her mind. 

"Nope," Asha replied with a giggle.

Vampires, like her sister, were strange blood addicts. The lack of blood would put a stop to all their bodily functions, making them mentally unstable. However, the excess of it would make them go crazy from ecstasy. To avoid unnecessary trouble, Kara would often drink blood from animals. It didn't taste as good as human blood. But as long as it sated her hunger and prevented any unnecessary trouble from happening, then she was determined to do it for eternity.

This mindset stemmed from an incident a few hundred years ago when Kara caught a whiff of human blood for the first time. It was from the wound of a child of whom she accidentally sucked dry. Upon seeing their child's corpse, little Kara was almost mauled to death if it weren't for her big sister's interference. If it weren't for Asha, that family would have been six feet underground in seconds.

Kara always heeded their father's orders. Their father had always warned them not to harm any life unless when it was necessary and she violated it. The poor child got depressed for months, thinking she had just disappointed her father. If not for Asha forcefully pulling her out of her den, she would have sulked for even longer.

"You allowed yourself to be killed so your sister could finally experience the bliss of full satiation?" The voice questioned. "Still using unconventional methods, I see."

"Perhaps."

"And her anguish?"

"She'll be happy once she sees me," Asha assured the voice.

Kara below was now bathing in blood. Everyone in the square and those in its vicinity was not spared. She relished the feeling, smell and taste of the red fluid. Indeed, human blood was the best! She cupped her hands in front of her, and slowly all the blood around her gathered swirled into a ball that fits perfectly in her palms. There was so much blood, that when condensed, the colour was deep black. She popped the ball into her mouth and chewed happily.

Asha had never seen her sister's eyes so bright. They always seemed to be in a perpetual dazed state, as if she was daydreaming. This must be the first time her desires were fully sated.

"Poor child," The voice commented rather vaguely, not making it known who it was directed to. Asha was too lazy to find out.

"There's another reason."

"Hm?"

"I needed to talk to you, so I allowed myself to be killed."

Asha received a knowing hum. The owner of the voice already knew her intention.

"Couldn't you have waited for a few hundred years more?"

"I got impatient."

"..."

That immediate answer caught the voice off-guard. 

"I wanted to know what you meant by 'transcendence' before you went off and disappeared. Also, the thing about mom being punished because she married your sorry ass," Asha didn't bother with sugarcoating her words and went straight to the point. "You told us to enjoy our time in this world and was all mysterious and all that about it, so I figured that after our deaths, we'd have to go through a bunch of bigger bullshit to make up for the fact that you and mom decided to smooch and have babies."

"..." Was he found out? 

"I travelled around the world and rummaged through all the libraries and found no hints. So I went and checked the forbidden ruins that you strongly warned us not to enter and found out about the Voice of the World. It was supposedly an omniscient being that served as this world's overseer. The only way to communicate with it was through a bunch of rituals. It was bothersome, but I still did it, but nothing happened. After reading further, I found out that the Voice of the World also judged the dead. Lo and behold, here I am."  

"Little one, there's a limit to how much you can allow yourself to be carried away by your curiosity." The voice scolded, but Asha was not done yet. 

She rambled on about the difficulties of killing creatures almost immune to death like themselves. She had stolen a bunch of stuff from the sea witches to piss them off. Even going as far to stick her tongue out at them to provoke them. Those hags hated the reek of righteousness so she had to choose the scummiest harbour city with the highest crime rate to make a deal with them. With both sides being equally shady, making sure they got along was a huge pain in the ass. She was also the one responsible for leaking the information about the siren's healing properties. What she was about to do would inconvenience the other sirens so before beginning this whole project, she had to find a safe haven for sirens. A place where they can live safely and at the same time drown sailors to their heart's content. It took five years to find the perfect place and two years to make it suitable for siren residency.

Of course, she had tried drying herself out under the sun, but the process took painfully longer than other sirens and she was often interrupted by rain. She attempted to kill herself in the desert but quit after a camel peed on her.

The next stage of the plan finally commenced. She willingly dove into her captors' trap and allowed them to parade her body around town under the heat. She allowed herself to be hung on a pole, where she bled to the verge of death and then she was cut in half. Those scumbags intentionally used a dull blade that made the process slower and more painful. Even then, she was still not dead! Her vocal cords, eyes, and teeth were all ripped out, by then she was so numb from the pain, but she still didn't die. Why was it so hard to kill her!? It wasn't until they tore her open like a book and gouged her heart out did she feel her life slowly slip away.

"...I was wondering about why going to the forbidden ruins was such a big deal for you. Voice of the World my ass! You're the freaking being who made this world. You have until dawn to explain yourself, dad."

She had gone through so much torture to get here, Kara's emotions had been fluctuating far left and right since her death, and will soon follow after her through painful means. Asha hoped that the god of this world, their father, would finally reveal to them what was truly going on.

Questions flooded her mind. Why were she and Kara blood-related when they were of different races? Why were they different from the other monsters? Why did he disappear so suddenly? What exactly happened to their mother? And many more.

The voice sighed. A bright light flashed, blinding Asha for a moment. A familiar tall and handsome figure stepped out of the light, smiling softly at Asha. His eyes, like her tail, changed colours and brightened at the sight of his daughter. He lifted his and patted her head gently. A tender feeling she never realized she missed spread throughout her body. 

He said with the gentlest tone, "All right, I'll tell you every you need to know."

Several hours passed. Kara finally finished burying her sister. As a plus, she also dug her own grave and laid in it as she bathed in the sun rays that slowly burned away her skin. Asha told her that it may take longer than usual. However, she was not worried, she knew her death was going to be smoother than her sister's. Vampire, unlike sirens, were susceptible to the light of the sun and not the heat. She successfully committed suicide after five hours of sunbathing. It was an excruciating experience, but Kara did not complain. This was minuscule compared to what her sister had gone through.

Her eyes opened and was startled at the sight of her sister and a very familiar man squatting down on the invisible floor. She did not know where they were, but judging from the cosmic bodies in their surroundings, they were clearly no longer in their world. She squinted at the man who was smiling at her. Her eyes widened as it finally dawned upon her.

"Dad?" She turned her head to Asha who looked like she was constipated. "Asha, what's going on."

Asha inhaled one huge breath before speaking.

"Mom's imprisoned because the higher deities didn't want her to be with dad. Anyways, she gave birth to us before she was captured. To hide us, dad made this world with mom's help. Somehow they managed to find us, so dad had to disappear and negotiate with the higher-ups so they don't zap us out of existence. The negotiation was kinda successful and the council is willing to take us in, only if we successfully carry out tasks in different worlds."

"What?"

"Oh, here's another cool thing. Do you know that they named this world, 'Ashakara'? They named it after us! Also, though mom's imprisoned far away, she and dad can communicate telepathically. So they're pretty much in a long-distance relationship."

"What?"

"Oh yeah, if we fail one of our missions, we die. We won't even have a chance to reincarnate, so let's do our best, okay?"

"Okay?"

Watching their exchange, their father could only sigh and shake his head.

PureTrash

So that's it for the prologue. I wanted to reveal just enough of their past in order to give you guys a proper idea of their personalities. I didn't want to make their origin story too complex, but I also didn't want it too simple either. Hopefully, I did a decent job.