It happened during a storm.

  The water churned with a sickly green glow, and Eli stood on the rocks barefoot, soaked and shaking. He had snuck away from home again, after another screaming match with his father about the “smell” of the sea clinging to his clothes. He’d left his shoes behind. He didn’t care anymore.

  “Lapis!” he screamed into the waves, voice cracking. “You have to tell me! Now! I saw the coral—I saw what it showed me. I know you were there! I know what happened with the ship—”

  A towering form surged from the depths. Not suddenly, but with the mournful grace of something ancient and broken. Lapis’s long arms curled against the wind. His eyes glinted, not mad, not wild—but hollow.

  Eli stumbled forward, salt wind lashing his face. “You could have saved them. That’s why, isn’t it? You tried and you failed and you hate yourself for it.”

  Lapis opened his mouth, but the words came out warped. “They… screamed. So many. I pulled one—he broke in my hands. His ribs collapsed like driftwood. The others—” He clutched his head, claws scraping against the shell of his skull. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know how soft you are. How fragile. I didn’t mean to.”

  Eli’s breathing quickened. “Then why me? Why do you let me come back? Why didn’t you stop me?”

  If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  “You were not afraid,” Lapis murmured. “And I was so… tired of being a monster.”

  The rain fell harder now. Thunder cracked. And Eli—trembling, heart hammering—stepped forward onto the slippery edge of the rock. “Tell me what you saw.”

  Lapis hesitated. His eyes fluttered, like something inside him warred against the request. “If I show you… you won’t be you anymore.”

  “I don’t care!” Eli cried. “Just tell me the truth!”

  Lapis lurched forward—too fast, too close—and his head struck Eli’s shoulder in what might have been desperation or an embrace. His jaws were open, and in the confusion, one of his hooked fangs scraped Eli’s neck.

  It was shallow. But it was enough.

  Eli gasped and staggered back. He touched the wound. It wasn’t bleeding much. But already, the edges of the world wobbled.

  Then came the vision—

  —the ship sinking in fire, wooden beams cracking like ribs—

  —Lapis swimming upward, arms outstretched, only to feel a body shatter under his grasp—

  —screams bubbling through the waves like red foam—

  —Lapis alone, sobbing into the sand as the silence returned—

  And then silence.

  Eli’s knees buckled. He fell, twitching. Not in pain—but in a haze of understanding so complete, it broke him.

  Lapis leaned over him, eyes wide with horror. “No,” he whispered. “No, no, I didn’t mean—”

  Eli looked up at him, eyes glazed but smiling. “It’s okay,” he said softly. “I get it now.”

  Then he laughed. A high, watery laugh that echoed wrong across the waves.

  Lapis watched him, trembling. Something inside him—something broken—clicked back into place.

  For the first time in years, the madness in Lapis’s eyes began to clear.

  But Eli’s had only just begun.