The morning draped Saint-Malo in a shroud of fog, the sea's breath curling through the streets like a mourner's sigh.
Elias Moreau sat in his cold room, the candle's stub flickering weakly, its wax a frozen tear on the warped table. His lungs ached, each breath a jagged shard, the blood on his kerchief a crimson confession he could not hide.
The notebook lay open, its pages stained with last night's verses—
"a breath lost to the deep"—
but the quiet was shattered by a knock, sharp as a blade against the silence.
His mother stood in the doorway, her coat damp with mist, her face etched with lines of regret and resolve. The scent of her lavender perfume clashed with the room's musty air, a ghost of a home he'd lost.
Her eyes, once warm, now held a cold fire as she stepped inside, her boots leaving wet prints on the floor.
"Elias," she said, her voice a thread pulled tight,
"this poetry—it's killing you. Come back to the factory, to us."
Her hands trembled, clutching a scarf she'd knitted years ago, its wool frayed like their bond.
He rose, his legs unsteady, the weight of his illness pressing him down.
"This is my life," he rasped, gesturing to the notebook,
"my breath, my legacy. Not your machines."
The words hung heavy, a bridge burning between them.
Her lips quivered, and she stepped closer, the warmth of her presence a fleeting memory against his chilled skin.
"You're a ghost already," she whispered, her voice breaking,
"chasing dreams that will bury you."
The sea's distant roar seemed to echo her words, a chorus of doom he could not escape.
She pressed the scarf into his hands, its texture rough against his palms, and turned to leave.
"If you choose this path, don't come back," she said, her silhouette fading into the fog.
The door creaked shut, a final note in their fractured song, and Elias sank to the floor, the scarf clutched to his chest. Tears stung his eyes, their salt mingling with the blood on his lips, and he wept—alone, unmoored, a son cast adrift.
The candle sputtered, its light dimming, as if mourning with him.
In the silence, a sound rose—a soft hum, faint as a memory, threading through the walls. Was it Celeste, her voice carried on the wind from last night's shore, or a trick of his grieving mind?
He staggered to the window, the glass cold against his forehead, and saw a figure on the cliff—distant, indistinct, swaying as if caught in an unseen tide.
His mother's words echoed:
"a ghost already."
Was it her, or the girl from Celeste's sketch, a phantom tied to that year—1975—haunting the edges of his world?
The question burned, a spark in his despair, as the sea whispered its riddle, unanswered.
He returned to his notebook, the pen shaking in his grip, and wrote:
"She left me to the tide, her love a shore I cannot reach."
The words were for his mother, for Celeste, for the shadow on the cliff—threads of a story he could not yet weave.
The room grew colder, the fog pressing against the panes, and Elias wondered if his legacy would be worth the price of this solitude, or if the sea held a truth that would claim him before his ink could dry.