Chapter 1: The Wake
The sea didn’t take everything at once.
It began with the dogs. One by one, gone. No bodies, just leashes on porches and bowls left full. Then came the birds. Gulls that used to swarm the piers vanished overnight. Only the insects remained, buzzing louder, more frantic.
When Mara vanished, the town finally noticed.
Anya was fourteen then. Old enough to understand what absence meant. Young enough to think it could be reversed. Her sister had gone swimming, like she always did, just before dawn. Her footprints led into the surf.
They never led out.
The coast guard searched. Divers went down. Nothing. The official report said presumed drowned.
But the ocean never gave her back.
That night, Anya stood at the shoreline, salt wind in her lungs, waiting for the tide to speak. It didn’t.
But something else did.
A voice, inside her head: We remember.
Ten years later, Anya returned to Writheport. The town was smaller than memory, more brittle. Weathered signs, shuttered shops, and everyone looked older — not in age, but in bone.
The ocean was still there. But it watched now.
She came back for answers. For Mara. For what the tide had taken.
What she found instead was a body.
A woman washed ashore, tangled in seaweed and barnacles, face down in the sand. Around her neck: a silver seahorse. Mara’s necklace.
But it wasn’t Mara.
Not exactly.
The woman’s eyes were open, and in them swam something ancient.
And when Anya touched her hand, the voice came again:
She is risen.
