I could hear it from my porch, the waves gnawing at the shore like an old wound that refuses to heal. It’s been years since I last set foot on a boat. The last time I tried, the sea nearly swallowed me whole. Every storm, every screeching wind, every shattered mast… I should’ve known the ocean had made up its mind about me.

It wants me gone. Maybe it’s right.

I live alone now. The house creaks with the salt and wind, its wood soaked with the scent of brine and decay.

Tonight, I went down to the beach to see what the storm had brought in. Driftwood, broken nets, and the carcass of a Wingull, typical offerings from a sea that hates me.

But then I saw him.

A man, lying motionless where the tide meets the sand. His skin was pale, almost luminous under the moonlight, and his hair, silver-white, tangled like seafoam. I thought he was dead at first. But then, I saw the faint rise and fall of his chest. I knelt beside him, careful not to let the tide touch my boots. The sea had gone eerily quiet, as if holding its breath.

“Hey,” I murmured, shaking his shoulder gently "You alive?”

No answer. But I felt something strange, a pulse of warmth, like the air itself trembled around him. The scent of rain clung to his skin, though the sky was clear now.

I hesitated before dragging him up the sand, away from the water. The moment I did, a wave crashed against the shore, violent, sudden, as if trying to snatch him back. The spray stung my face, but I didn’t stop. I hauled him all the way to the dunes, breathing hard, before the sea calmed again.

When I looked back at him, his eyes had opened.