kael?
The sky was too blue for a cursed day.
That was the first thing Kael noticed as he stood at the cliff's edge, staring down at the ocean far below. The breeze was warm, the clouds slow and lazy — as if the island wasn't about to be swallowed again.
But he knew better.
The sea never screamed when it came to kill.It whispered.Softly. Patiently. Like a parent humming a lullaby before taking something precious.
Kael's bare feet gripped the jagged stone beneath him. Wind tangled his hair, dirtied with salt and ash. He didn't blink. His eyes were locked on the horizon — where sky met sea, and sea held secrets.
"Five years ago... it rose up like it was breathing. Like it was waking up," he whispered.
No one else remembered it like that.Or maybe they just refused to.
The village had always told stories:"Every fifth year, the water remembers.""Don't go near the shore on the Wake.""Don't say the names of the dead."
But no one told Kael why the sea remembered.No one told him what it wanted.And worst of all — no one told him who he was supposed to be.
"If I don't find the truth… then I'm just another boy waiting to drown."
A gust of wind howled through the cliffs. Kael didn't flinch. His mind wandered back to that day — five years ago, the last time the tide had swallowed the land.
He had only been five.Too small to fight.Too young to understand.But old enough to remember her screams.
And old enough to remember who didn't come back.
"Papa…" The word didn't pass his lips, but it echoed in his chest like a scar.
Below the cliff, the village prepared for silence.
Doors were bolted shut.Windows covered in black cloth.Lanterns extinguished.
The villagers believed the light attracted "them."No one said what "they" were.
Kael had asked once.The elder slapped him.Said questions were "a demon's game."
He didn't ask again.
But someone else had answers. Or so he hoped.
Far from the cliff, inside a wooden house carved with old runes, a girl knelt on the floor with her hands clasped tightly — not in prayer, but in memory.
Mikaho.
She sat perfectly still, her long black hair braided the way her mother once did, her eyes half-shut but never asleep. There was no peace in her stillness — only control.
"Kael's probably at the cliff again," she thought, her lips pressing into a quiet frown."He always goes there before the curse returns... like he's trying to meet it halfway."
She remembered the cliff.She remembered the sound of her father's body hitting the water.And how Kael — a boy she barely knew then — grabbed her hand, pulled her through fire, and didn't let go.
He saved her before he knew her name.
A soft ringing filled the air.
Bells.Dozens of small silver bells tied to every rooftop, every tree, every grave.It was the old way — the only way left.
The villagers believed demons hated music.But Kael thought it was the bells that called them.
"They don't hate sound," he once told Mikaho. "They come because it reminds them of the world they lost."
She didn't understand it back then.Maybe she still didn't.But she had stopped arguing with Kael years ago. He saw things differently.
He felt things differently.
Back on the cliff, Kael took one step forward. Pebbles tumbled beneath his heel, falling endlessly.
"This is where Papa stood before he vanished," he thought. "He wasn't running. He was facing something."
Kael didn't believe in accidents.Not here.Not on an island where water moved like it was thinking.
"He saw something. Maybe I will too."
And then… it happened.
The wind stopped.The bells stopped.The ocean stilled — not calm, but alert. Waiting.
From the far side of the horizon, a line of darkness began to spread — not a cloud, not a wave — something thicker. He could feel it, like ink spilling into his blood.
Kael's breath caught.
"It's starting again."
He turned and ran — not away from the cliff, but toward the village. Toward her.
Because deep inside him, a voice whispered:
"The sea isn't the only thing that remembers.She does too.And this time… it will come for both of you.*"
[End of Chapter 1]