The walk back from the pier was a silent trek through the tall, salt-crusted grass that separated their shack from the encroaching sprawl of the modern world.
Elias's hands were shoved deep into his pockets, still tingling from the Leviathan's touch. He carried no bucket, no net, and certainly no fish. The "Great Mirror" had taken everything and given him a nightmare in return.
As he pushed through the creaking front door, the smell of cheap tobacco and fried grease met him.
His father was sitting at the scarred wooden table, sharpening a gutting knife. The man was a relic of a harder era—a jagged scar ran like a lightning bolt beside his left eye, and his wooden leg thudded rhythmically against the floorboards as he shifted his weight.
"Empty-handed?" his father barked, not looking up from the blade. "The tide was high, the moon was right. A boy your age should be hauling in enough to feed a street, not coming home like a beggar."
The man's voice trailed off into a rhythmic yap of disappointment, a lecture Elias had heard a thousand times before. Usually, Elias would offer a quiet apology or a dull explanation. Not tonight.
Elias walked past him without a word. He didn't even glance at the scar or the glint of the knife. He simply climbed the narrow stairs to his room and collapsed into bed, the phantom sensation of a giant, wet tongue still pressing against his ribs. It wasn't real, he told himself, staring at the ceiling until his eyes burned. Just the sun... just a trick of the light and the hunger.
At four in the morning, the house was cold. Elias walked into the kitchen, the floorboards groaning under his feet. His father was already there, pulling on his heavy yellow slicker, preparing for the "daily dose of protein" that kept them alive. The man didn't look like a father; he looked like a machine built for survival.
"Get your gear, Elias," his father grunted, reaching for his flask. "The wind is shifting. We'll hit the deep shelf today."
Elias looked at the man's weathered face, then out the window toward the distant, shimmering lights of the city—a place of glass, steel, and people who didn't have to pray to monsters for their dinner.
He thought of the Leviathan waiting in that deep shelf, its glowing eyes watching the surface. He should warn him. He should tell him that the sea wasn't empty anymore.
Instead, he kept the secret locked behind his teeth. If it was a hallucination, there was no point. If it was real... well, maybe the sea deserved his father.
"I'm not going," Elias said. His voice was flat, devoid of the usual tremor. His father froze, one arm halfway into a sleeve.
"What did you say?"
"I'm going to the city," Elias replied, picking up a small canvas bag he'd packed in the dark. "I'm done with the nets. I don't want to be a fisherman anymore."
The silence that followed was heavier than the ocean. His father's wooden leg let out a single, sharp crack as he turned to face his son.
...