The sea is stingy with me. Always has been. The other men come home with nets heavy and arms sore. I come home with gull bones, seaweed, and the smell of rot clinging to my shirt.

Tonight is no different. The moon’s thin, the water black. I curse under my breath and pull in another empty line. That’s when I hear it.

A voice.

Not words, not really—just sound, carried clean across the waves. Too clear to be wind, too smooth to be gulls. My skin prickles, though the night’s warm.

I tell myself I imagined it, that loneliness makes fools out of men. But then I see something in the water. Not a fish. Not driftwood. Watching.

It doesn’t come closer, not yet. Just circling the boat, pale as a candle flame underwater. I can’t make out its face, and that’s somehow worse. My oars creak, but I don’t row.

Because here’s the truth: I want it to climb in.

It’s madness, I know. Every tale in every tavern warns against it. Those who follow the voice never return, and those who do aren’t right afterward. But when the water ripples and I see a hand—not fin, not claw, just a hand—brush the side of my boat, I lean closer.

It doesn’t drag me under. It doesn’t vanish. It just… smiles. Like it knows I’ll come back tomorrow, and the night after, until the nets don’t matter and the land means nothing.

The sea is stingy with me, yes. But maybe not for much longer.