The sea had always whispered.
But now, it murmured with purpose.
Not just to Quinta—though she heard it loudest—but to the others as well. Those who carried the shape. Those who had begun to change.
At first, it was subtle.
Fishermen found strange symbols etched into the hulls of their boats at dawn. Children drew impossible things in the sand—spirals that pulsed when no one was looking, faces with too many eyes watching from beneath waves.
And then came the dreams.
Not visions like before.
Not memories.
Warnings.
Quinta stood on the cliffs again, the wind tugging at her damp clothes, her skin shimmering faintly under the pale moonlight. She hadn't slept in three nights.
Every time she closed her eyes, it was there.
Something vast.
Something hollow.
Something hungry .
She turned to Frank, who watched the horizon with his usual quiet intensity.
"You've felt it too," she said.
He didn't answer right away.
Finally, he nodded. "Yes."
"It's not the First," she whispered.
"No," he agreed. "It's worse."
She swallowed hard. "Then what is it?"
Frank looked down at his hands—webbed, slick with salt even when dry, pulsing faintly blue.
"There are things even the Veythari feared," he said. "Things that lived in the deepest trenches, where no light has ever reached. Where pressure could crush stone and time forgets its name."
Quinta shivered.
"They called it the Hollow God ," he continued. "Not a being of flesh or thought, but something older. Something born of absence."
She frowned. "That doesn't make sense."
"It doesn't have to," he said. "It exists anyway."
Behind them, the village slept uneasily.
None of them understood yet.
But they would.
By morning, the tide had changed.
Where once it rose and fell with predictable rhythm, now it surged unpredictably—flooding the shore without warning, then retreating so far it left the seabed bare, cracked, and steaming in the cold air.
People began to vanish.
Not all at once.
Just one or two at a time.
A child who wandered too close to the waterline and never returned. A fisherman who went out at dusk and was never seen again.
No bodies.
No signs.
Only silence.
And fear.
Elder Rellis came to Quinta at dusk, face pale, hands shaking.
"We found this," he said, holding out a piece of driftwood.
It wasn't wood.
It was bone.
Blackened.
Twisted.
Carved with the same spiraling symbols the children had drawn.
Quinta touched it.
A scream echoed through her mind—not hers.
Something deeper.
Something screaming from beneath the earth.
She pulled back, gasping.
Rellis stepped forward. "What is happening?"
She met his eyes.
"The ocean is afraid again."
That night, the council gathered.
Frank sat beside her, silent but watchful. The new Veythari—the ones who had awakened since the First's return—sat around the fire, their skin tinged with bioluminescent glow.
One by one, they spoke.
"I dream of something waiting."
"I hear it calling my name."
"I woke up covered in salt."
Quinta listened, heart pounding.
When silence fell, she stood.
"We were wrong to think we had returned to balance," she said. "We only restored part of the world."
Frank tilted his head. "You mean… the Hollow God?"
She nodded. "It was never gone. It was just waiting."
"For what?" someone asked.
She looked out over the firelit faces.
"For us to forget."
Back at the cottage, Quinta stood before the mirror.
Her reflection had changed again.
Her eyes were darker.
Her skin glowed faintly, even in daylight.
And her chest—her four breasts—pulsed steadily, in time with something deep beneath the sea.
She pressed a hand to the glass.
And the mirror rippled.
Not reflection.
But connection.
From the other side, something watched.
Something smiled .
That night, the sea screamed.
Not in sound.
In feeling .
Pain.
Hunger.
Desire.
Quinta collapsed to her knees, clutching her chest as if her heart might tear free.
Frank caught her before she hit the floor.
"She's waking," Quinta gasped.
"Who?" he asked.
Quinta looked up at him, tears streaking her face.
"The First knew this would happen."
"What do you mean?"
She met his gaze.
"She didn't just wake me."
She opened the way.
And now…
Something else is coming.