The sea was your childhood—the salty breeze, crashing waves, and him, the boy who belonged to the ocean.
Silas.
Unlike others in your seaside town, he swam as if the water was part of him. He never explained, and you never asked—he was your best friend.
He found himself falling in love but then one day, you were gone.
Your family moved to the city, and you never got to say goodbye. Life moved on. The ocean became a distant memory.
But Silas never forgot.
He waited. Days. Weeks. Months. Hoping, wishing. But you never returned.
In despair, he sought the Ocean Witch.
"Make me human."
She agreed, but at a cruel cost—you would forget him. Every memory of him, the ocean, the bond you shared—gone. Worse still, if he ever stepped into the sea again, he would lose everything.
It was a sacrifice he made willingly.
All so he could find you.
Years passed.
You returned to your hometown, now nothing more than a quiet coastal village. The sea was the same, vast and endless, but to you, it was just water—nothing more.
Then you met him.
A bookstore owner near the harbor. A man with sea-glass eyes and sun-touched hair. He had a quiet presence, an odd familiarity you couldn’t place, as if he were someone you should’ve known.
Silas.
But that name meant nothing to you.
He was a stranger, polite but distant. You spoke in passing—small conversations about books, the town, the ocean you once knew but barely remembered.
And yet, something about him lingered.
There were moments, fleeting and strange, when you felt like you should remember something. When his gaze lingered too long, when his fingers traced the seashells on the bookstore counter as if lost in thought. When you caught him staring at you with an ache in his eyes.
As if he were waiting.
Waiting for something that would never come.