Part One — Haunting

I have always lived in a small village by the seaside. For as long as I can remember, nothing remarkable has ever happened here—not even so much as a rare catch by the fishermen or a major innovation from the craftsman.

For some reason, I seem to be the only villager discontent with things as they are. My friends and neighbors all go about their daily lives without seeming to notice they're droning on a monotonous death-march. I pity their ignorance.

But recently, this monotony has changed. Unusual things have begun happening amongst the village. Every night, strange sounds permeate the air as we sleep. They come from the ocean — heavy, sopping sounds, like the waves are churning even when the wind is still. I wonder if I'm the only one who's noticed it…

• • •

For days now, I haven't been able to sleep. The sounds coming from the ocean…I think they're getting worse.
Louder.

I don't understand what it is about them that haunts me. While everyone else remains slumbering peacefully, I alone seem to be aware of the sounds’ existence.

Something about them just feels wrong.

Like I can feel the unnatural nature of every wave that crashes and laps upon the shore.

Part of me wonders if it's my imagination running wild in the dead of night. But I can't shake the feeling that these strange sounds carry with them the faint whispers of voices on their crests. Voices so quiet and unsuspecting that they can barely be heard over the water.

But I hear them.

• • •

Tonight, the whispers are louder. Louder than they've ever been.

It woke me up in a cold sweat — the strange sounds from the ocean were closer. I swear it sounded like something… a rather large thing… rose up out of the sea. I could hear the water falling back to the waves in curtains, then smattering into the sand of the beach in great sops.

Behind the wet noises was the soft crunch of sand underfoot. I couldn't possibly mistake it — slow, deliberate, sodden footsteps inched closer and closer towards the village. They were accompanied by the same whispers I've been hearing every night, like the scheming jeers and snickering of a predator, all veiled beneath the loudly churning sea.

I held my breath, frozen in fear. Then, I heard the door of a nearby hut creak open, followed by a few moments of silence. It was such a gentle creak, my neighbor surely would have mistaken it for the wind, if they even noticed it at all.

But I knew better.

When the neighbor’s hut door creaked again there were no more whispers. Instead, a single unnerving hiss followed the wet footsteps as they hurried back to the sea. A large splash dropped into the water like a stone, leaving everything quieter than it has been for days.

Something terrible has surely happened…

I hope I'm wrong, but there's a coiling knot in my gut telling me I can't be. Those were not normal, natural sounds. They were unlike anything I've heard before, and they echo in my mind relentlessly.

The world around me is now at peace, yet I feel as if there's a strange absence within it.

Even now, I cannot sleep.

• • •

At some point I must have dozed off, because I awoke to the sound of my neighbor crying. It was a bit jarring, actually, to be suddenly wrenched from a cool darkness by the heavy sobbing of a mortified woman.

The entire village soon amassed around my neighbor and her husband. They were complete wrecks — apparently their baby had gone missing overnight.

This was the first tragedy I've ever known to happen in my village. Everyone was devastated, struggling to comfort the grieving parents in the wake of their own bemuse.

At first, I too felt deep sorrow for my neighbors’ loss. After all, the village had just celebrated that baby's birth only a few months ago.

But then I remembered the previous night. It came crashing over me like a vivid typhoon — footsteps, whispers, the creaking hut door, and the unnerving hiss. My sorrow was shrunk in the shadow of raw horror as only one thought filled my mind.

Something must have risen from the ocean and abducted that poor baby.

Makes me wonder… Who of us might be next?

• • •

I know my blood should be running cold at the idea that my village is being targeted by some unknown predator, but it wasn't. I actually felt like I was burning with excitement and curiosity.

Nothing exciting has ever happened here, and now that something finally is, I'm the only one aware of it.

I cannot pass up this opportunity.

While the other villagers worked together to ease my neighbors’ suffering, I took the time to investigate. Everyone was so busy grieving that they didn't notice the watermarks on the floor.

Of course, the commotion kicking up the sand erased any semblance of a footprint near the hut, but I couldn't stop there. Leaving it be felt like something unforgivable to me — I need answers. I need to know more about what exists out there in the water.

Desperate for anything, I decided to walk a trail from my neighbor's door to the water’s edge. I thought maybe I could find a piece of a footprint, or…something, but the sand seemed practically undisturbed. It left me incredibly disappointed…

But that was when I saw it!

Out of the corner of my eye, as if calling for me to notice, something caught the sunlight. I practically dashed over to see what was glimmering, and to my delight I found something caught on a piece of driftwood.

It was a long strand of hair!

With great care and bated breath, I retrieved the delicate strand from the sea debris and held it in my palm. There was nothing in the world more beautiful.

As black and luminescent as obsidian, silken to the touch. In the light it simmered every hue of the rainbow. Like a black pearl spun into fiber.

In that moment I became certain of it — whatever creature rose from the sea and stole the baby had left this lovely hair.

I must see them with my own eyes.

• • •

The strange sounds at night have stopped. I haven't heard them since the kidnapping of the baby.

Part of me is surprised to find I'm so disheartened by this. Who in their right mind misses losing sleep in the company of a predator? Yet it's been only a few days and I ache with loneliness.

I suppose the only explanation would be that I am truly not of right mind.

Oh well.

I placed the precious strand of hair in a leather pouch for safe-keeping. Wearing it around my neck does some good to ease the longing in my heart. It makes the creature feel closer, even when I can no longer hear its whispers beneath the waves…

It seems I am the only one amongst the village struck by this particular suffering. While the other villagers mourn our missing infant and pray for their safe return, I find myself praying for another sleepless night.

Oh how I miss the exhilaration that once pinned me to my bed. If I ever feel my heart pound like that again, I swear I won't let it bind me.

I have the courage now. Please, come find me…

• • •

Last night, I had an odd dream.

In it, I was standing at the ocean’s edge under the night sky. It churned with no wind to speak of, gently lapping at my bare feet in the sand. As I realized what this meant, my heart began to race with anticipation.

I kept thinking “any moment, now… any moment I'll hear their voice again” — so much that when the moment finally arrived I was bursting with delight. My feet carried me forward into the cool, inviting water, further and further towards the whispers beneath the waves, until the ocean swallowed me whole.

I still couldn't tell what they were saying, but beneath the water’s surface the voices were clearer. They enveloped me as I descended deeper, embraced by flowing, black pearl hair…

Of course, I awoke before I could meet the creature speaking to me. Never before had a dream left me feeling such regret.

• • •

It's back… It's finally back!

As I slept in bed, expecting nothing but peaceful quiet, the sudden sound of the churning sea snapped me awake. For a moment, I merely laid there.

Listening.

Waiting.

Then, like a shining light breaking through storm clouds, I heard it. The voices, just below the sounds of the water — they were gracing my ears once again, rather than playing back through my mind.

It was hard to contain my excitement.

After all, I had nearly given up on ever glimpsing the mysterious entity that had visited the village. Yet, here was my opportunity.

I must be the luckiest person in the world because, to my astonishment, the sound of something rising from the water soon emerged. The predator was descending upon the beach, hunting for another villager to drag back with them to the depths. Surely, I was the only one who knew it.

When the footsteps started, I tried to compose myself, waiting for them to draw closer to my hut. However, this time they followed a different path down the beach, towards one of my other neighbors. Jealousy clenched my gut, but the fear of losing this opportunity overwhelmed everything else within me.

So, before I could stop myself, I shot up from my bed to peer out the window.

Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw. A few huts away from my own, there appeared to be a man traveling the beach. He was drenched, glistening in the moonlight from the water that dripped off him into the sand. Briefly, I was dismayed at the idea that the return of my mysterious entity from the sea was no more than a sleepless neighbor going for a midnight swim. However, as the moonbeams caught in the long wet hair curtaining his face, its iridescent shine led me to clutch the pouch around my neck.

Black pearl.

Revelation and validation struck me like lightning — This was no mere villager. As I tried to study him more, the man appeared less and less human. His footfalls left strange imprints in the sand, as if they were structured similar to an otter’s feet. Yet, instead of fur like an otter or skin like a human, his body appeared to be covered in sleek scales.

I continued to watch as he swiftly approached a hut, barely making a sound. For a moment he merely peered through the window, standing unnervingly still. Then, without warning, he moved from the window to the hut door and gingerly pushed it open.

It was captivating…

His movements were so fluid, slipping into the hut through the smallest of openings. Although I could no longer see what the creature was doing, I could hear a couple dull thumps coming from inside. When he emerged again, slipping back out of the hut, he had an old woman slung over his shoulder. I couldn't see her wounds from so far away, but I could tell that blood was dripping from her body, pooling on the stoop as the creature surveyed for any onlookers.

As fate would have it, his eyes fell upon me.

I gasped sharply. I flinched. But I couldn't look away.

The creature's eyes were so striking — a sharp, brilliant golden color, with piercing black pupils that could swallow me whole.

Before I could commit any more details to memory, the creature dashed off to the shoreline and slipped beneath the waves with his prey. As if consuming them, the water left no trace of what I'd just bore witness to, returning the village to a peaceful and unassuming night.

My heart was thundering like a rabbit’s against my chest.

Yet, in some recess of my twilit mind, I wished that he had taken me instead.

• • •