Chapter 1
The air thickened as dusk melted into night. Shadows stretched across the mangrove roots, curling like fingers from another world. Amira stood still at the edge of the beach where golden tides lapped the shore, glowing faintly in the moonlight. A hush had fallen—too complete, too unnatural. Even the frogs that once sang their nightly chorus had gone silent.
The villagers had warned her.
They said this part of the coast was no place for the living after sundown.
They said the dead whispered here.
But Amira could no longer flee from the truth.
The visions.
The humming she now heard when alone.
The echo of footsteps when no one followed.
The wind picked up, carrying the scent of brine, old smoke, and something else—burnt palm oil, sweet but acrid. That was how her grandmother's compound used to smell before she passed. And just like that, memory pulled her back.
Amira had not spoken of what happened the night she saw her grandmother's ghost.
She hadn't dared.
But now, standing before the threshold between sea and spirit, her feet rooted in the sand, she whispered into the dark:
"I'm not afraid anymore."
A ripple ran through the trees. The palm fronds trembled though the breeze had died. Then a shape stepped forward—a woman cloaked in the shimmer of the tide's reflection, eyes wide, mouth unmoving, yet Amira could hear her as though the voice echoed inside her bones.
"You've come."
Amira's heart thundered. "Who are you?"
The woman did not answer directly. Instead, she raised her hand, and from her palm spilled golden water. It hovered in the air, then spun itself into a circle, a portal shimmering like the surface of a disturbed well. Inside it, Amira saw flashes of places she had never visited but felt drawn to—an ancient shrine swallowed by forest, a ruined lighthouse with a cracked lens, a woman crying out in labor in a hut ringed by salt.
Then the vision shattered, and darkness swallowed the tide.
"You were born between the veils," the ghostly woman said, her voice echoing now like many voices layered together.
"You carry a gift and a curse. The choice has always been yours—bury the truth, or step into it."
Suddenly, Amira felt the earth beneath her shift.
Saltwater surged, not from the ocean, but from beneath her own feet.
She stumbled backward—
—but another hand caught her.
Warm. Solid.
Elias.
He was drenched, his face pale, eyes darker than usual.
"You shouldn't be here," he said hoarsely. "They'll mark you."
But Amira had had enough of secrets.
"Elias," she whispered, tears mingling with sea spray, "tell me everything. No more riddles. No more half-truths. Who are you really? And what am I becoming?"
Elias's shoulders sagged. He looked at the ghost, then at Amira. The storm inside his eyes quieted, and finally, he spoke.
"You were never just a girl from the coast. You're a bridge between the realms. I've known it since the day you walked into my lighthouse. That's why the whispers started. That's why the sea listens when you speak."
The woman in gold began to fade, her light consumed by the thickening night.
Before she vanished, her voice rang out once more:
"The tide will rise again. And when it does, your choice will determine who survives."
Then silence. A final hush.
Amira sank to her knees, not in fear, but in dawning comprehension. The supernatural wasn't just haunting her. It was calling her. And she had finally heard it—clear, chilling, and true.
Shall I continue with the next scene—perhaps the aftermath at the village, or Amira and Elias exploring the ruined shrine shown in the vision?