ONCE UPON THE PACIFIC
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Chapter Thirteen: Her Voice in the Fog
The sea breathed like a living thing—slow, patient, knowing.
Milo stood at the helm of the Eliora, eyes lost in the horizon, where mist curled like fingers over the water's skin. The memory of the lilies still lingered in his senses, their scent like a ghost. But it wasn't sorrow that sat beside him now—it was something else.
Her voice.
"Let the ocean carry what you can't."
It echoed again, soft as salt in the wind.
He closed his eyes, recalling her final words. But there had been more, hadn't there? Words buried in silence. Unspoken. Waiting.
He reached for the map again. The ink shimmered faintly, the word "Trust" still pulsing like a heartbeat.
Suddenly, the compass spun wildly. The fog thickened. The stars above twisted out of place, rearranging themselves into constellations he didn't recognize.
Milo gripped the wheel tighter.
"Is this it, Eliora?" he whispered. "Is this what you meant?"
And then—he heard it.
Not a voice. A hum.
From deep below.
The ocean was… singing?
It was low and haunting, like a lullaby sung through centuries of loss. As if the tides themselves remembered. And in that sound, Milo felt something stir inside him—a calling.
The Eliora creaked and shifted, carried not by wind or current, but by something unseen. A force pulling it forward.
Not toward land.
But toward truth.
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