Lorelei’s Promise

Sucre — a small town lost among the mountains of Santa Fe de Antioquia — had one inevitable truth: everything ended at the Cauca River.

No matter which way you walked, sooner or later you would reach its wide, deep waters.

It was a cheerful town, famous for its New Year’s festivals and lazy afternoons of sancocho by the pools.

But it also hid a secret — the story of a beautiful, lethal creature that had hunted from the riverbank since ancient times.

At first, no one believed in her. People said it was only a legend to frighten children.

Until Lorelei, a girl from the town, saw her.

One morning, while gathering firewood, she heard someone call out:

“Oh, beautiful girl, come closer!”

“Oh, sweet child, don’t ignore me — come!”

She looked around, and there — sitting on a great rock by the cliff — was a naked woman of impossible beauty.

Lorelei felt something deep inside her pulling her toward that figure.

By some miracle, she resisted the sweet temptation.

She ran back to town, breathless, while the voice still echoed in the wind.

As soon as she arrived, she began to tell everyone what she had seen, but no one believed her.

No one.

Her anger grew so strong that she swore every last person in Sucre would one day know the truth about that being.

After that promise, the figure became a familiar sight.

Some men claimed they had seen her by the riverbank, combing her hair with her fingers. She never seemed to dry completely — always glistening, damp, as though she had just emerged from the water.

Others, more skeptical, said she was only a mirage, a trick of the heat, or the fantasy of a mad little girl.

Then the river began to claim victims: first children, then young men — all of them vanished after “hearing her voice.”

Soon the townsmen turned against Lorelei, accusing her of lying, of madness… even of murder.

She denied everything, but when the mayor’s son, Ulises, publicly humiliated her, something inside her broke.

No one knew how or why, but she disappeared — and over time, everyone forgot.

Until one day, Ulises, bored of the same dull routine, decided to seek out the strange creature that, he thought, the girl had invented just to get attention.

He wandered beyond the town, following the murmur of the river and the whispers told at every corner.

When he saw her, he was mesmerized by her beauty.

Even under the spell, he realized that the voice calling his name sounded familiar.

“Ulises, don’t you remember me?” she whispered from the rock.

“I’m so lonely… why did you let me go?”

“Come, my beautiful Ulises…”

He struggled against the desire, but the voice grew sweeter, closer, more urgent, more yearning.

Until finally, unable to look away from that radiant, dripping skin and perfect nakedness, he could resist no more.

He stepped forward — and jumped.

The birds scattered at the sound.

The singing ceased.

Vultures began to circle high above, announcing the end.

And there, beneath them, floating together in the river, were Lorelei and Ulises.

Since that day, no one in Sucre doubts that legends are real.

And no one — absolutely no one — would imagine that the last mermaid in the world chose to end her life right here, among the mountains of Colombia.