The sun was a late afternoon smear across the sky when Eli led his three friends—Jude, Sasha, and Myles—back down to the inlet. He was grinning nervously, tugging them along by their sleeves, his voice bubbling with excitement.

  “You have to see this” Eli said.

  Jude rolled his eyes. “This better not be another dead jellyfish.”

  “No. You’ll see.” Eli insisted

  They clambered down the mossy rocks and peered over the edge of the ruined pier. Far beneath the water’s surface, Lapis Lazuli lay still, curled into the seafloor like a half-forgotten statue. His curling limbs and coral armor gave off a faint shimmer in the brine.

  “Whoa,” Sasha whispered. “He looks fake.”

  “He’s not. He’s alive,” Eli said. “He… he’s just lonely.”

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  A silence hung for a moment. Then Jude snorted.

  “Lonely? You dragged us out here for some drowned freak who doesn’t even move?”

  “He moves!” Eli defended. “He talks sometimes. I think he’s sad.”

  The others exchanged a look. Myles picked up a stone and lobbed it into the water with a plop.

  “Let’s wake him up, then,” he grinned, already winding up to throw another.

  “Don’t,” Eli said sharply.

  Sasha laughed. “Come on, Eli. You’re seriously taking his side?”

  Eli stepped in front of them. “He didn’t do anything to us. You don’t have to be mean.”

  Jude’s grin dropped. “Wait, are you serious?”

  Eli stood his ground. “Yeah.”

  There was a pause—too long. And then something shifted.

  “You’re choosing that thing over us?” Myles asked, incredulous. “Over your own friends?”

  “I didn’t choose anything,” Eli said. “You’re just being cruel.”

  But his voice was trembling. He already knew the look in Jude’s eyes. It was the look Jude got just before things got rough.

  “You’re such a little traitor,” Jude muttered.

  Before Eli could move, Jude shoved him. Sasha tripped him. Myles laughed. Eli’s knees scraped rock. Someone’s elbow caught him in the cheek. A sharp pain bloomed behind his eye.

  He was bleeding when they tossed him back toward the water.

  “Play with your freak,” Jude spat, and they turned, stomping away up the rocks. “Maybe he’ll hug you with all those arms.”

  The only sound left was the slow lap of tidewater and Eli’s shallow, shaky breaths.

  He floated in the shallows for a moment, stinging salt mingling with the blood on his lip, before lifting his head to where Lapis lay unmoving, untouched.

  “You didn’t even care,” Eli said, voice trembling with hurt. “I tried to protect you. I got beat for you. And you just… lay there.”

  There was no answer.

  Only bubbles drifting upward, slow and silent as Lapis’s steady breathing.