The Last Boy of Anda

Long ago, in the sleepy seaside town of Anda, Pangasinan, a strange hush would settle over the shore every time the tide rose with the full moon. Fishermen docked their boats earlier than usual. Young girls were called in before sundown. And mothers whispered to their sons:

“Beware of the scent of the sea.

Beware of the girl who walks alone.”

In Anda, they feared the Sirena.

She was said to have skin like milk and her hair-like waves—long, dark, and wet even in sunlight. Her eyes glinted like the scales of flying fish. Her feet were never seen. But most telling of all, said the old folks, was her smell: a faint, pungent scent of brine and kelp, like something dredged up from the deep.

They said she walked the town during fiestas, mingling with crowds, laughing softly at the tail of the procession, trailing behind the old santos like a lost daughter of the sea. She smiled at the young men, but her eyes never smiled with her mouth.

Every few years, a boy would go missing after a town celebration. “He walked her home,” people would murmur. “And she walked him under.”

The Festival of San Miguel Arcangel

It was during the feast of San Miguel Arcangel when it happened again.

A young boy named Julian, a well-mannered orphan who lived with his aunt, caught sight of her at the very edge of the candlelit procession. She wore a white dress that shimmered like wet silk. Her hair curled down her back in waves, and her feet were bare, though there were no footprints behind her.

She glanced at him once, then again—and smiled.

After Mass, while townsfolk danced and feasted, Julian saw her again by the old stone bridge near the mangroves.

“Can you walk me home?” she asked, her voice like a song muffled by water. “I live just down the road.”

Julian, shy but enchanted, nodded.

They walked past the fields and into the marsh. The girl said nothing more. Julian noticed the strange wet scent that clung to her, and the way frogs and dragonflies fell silent as they passed.

They reached a rocky pool hidden behind tall grass, and the girl said, “This is where I live.”

Before Julian could question her, she grabbed his hand and pulled him beneath the water.

The Crystal Mansion

He awoke in a palace of light and shells, a great mansion under the sea. Walls shimmered like mother-of-pearl. Fishes swam through coral corridors. The girl was beside him again, now in her true form: her lower body a long, glistening tail, and her hair spread like seaweed in the currents.

She smiled.

“I have brought you here because you’re special,” she said. “But first, tell me: what do you eat?”

Julian, unsure, remembered what his aunt had taught him.

“Rice,” he answered. “And salt.”

The sirena’s smile faltered for the briefest second, then returned.

“Good,” she whispered. “Because fish is my flesh. Meat is my blood. Vines and ferns… are my hair.”

For weeks, Julian lived in the crystal mansion. The sirena brought him fruits, shells, and glowing sea pearls. She spoke in strange clicks and hums when she was happy, like dolphins playing in the deep. But she forbade him from ever eating fish—or anything from the sea. “Or you will become like me,” she warned.

He grew lonely.

Then, one day while she was away, he wandered through the palace and found a small crevice behind a tapestry of sea moss. Behind it: a dark tunnel.

A hidden door.

He waited for the next time she swam beyond the reef. Then he ran—through the twisting tunnel, scraping his arms on coral, heart pounding. As he neared the end, he heard her song echoing behind him.

He burst through a cave mouth and onto the shore, gasping and soaked.

He was back in the shores of Anda. But everything felt… older.

The Return

When Julian stumbled into town, no one recognized him.

His aunt was long gone. The houses had changed. The fields had grown over. A priest told him gently that he had been missing for 15 years, though to Julian, it felt like only weeks.

They called him the last boy who survived the Sirena.

He never spoke of her. But he never ate fish again, nor any food from the sea.

He walked with a limp—his leg marked forever by the sirena’s touch. Sometimes, late at night, those living near the cove claimed to hear a strange, mournful song from beneath the waves.

“Julian,” it called. “Come back. You’re mine.”

They say he died with a seashell clutched in one hand and seaweed in the other. And when his body was laid in the town chapel, the scent of brine filled the air.

Even now, during fiestas, some swear they’ve seen her.

At the end of the procession.

Barefoot. Smiling. Waiting.

Base Reference:

Stoic-Aswang (Updated February 2025). “Monsters and Supernatural Beings from Filipino Folklore and Myths.”  https://stoicaswang.wordpress.com/2015/12/23/supernatural-beings-and-creatures-of-philippine-folklore-and-mythology/