Today, I became the new lighthouse keeper on Kuru Island, a desolate speck of land swallowed by an endless expanse of unforgiving ocean. This island doesn't show up on any map, quite strange, but I don't really care since I can't read the map. The job is a punishment, a self-imposed exile to escape the suffocating weight of a 20 thousand dollars debt I'll never repay.
You may think, 20 thousand is just a small number, but in my country, it is big enough to make you stay awake at night. My average salary was just $500 per month, which means I'll have to save up for 40 months, more than three years. And I haven't added the interests and subtracted the monthly expenses. Then how long does it take to repay the debts? I don't know.
I'm lazy, unskilled, and utterly disposable—my only "talent" is a knack for bullshitting through customer service jobs. But here, there's no one to bullshit. Just me, the rhythmic crash of waves, and the occasional supply boat bringing canned food and fresh water. It's monotonous, isolating, and mind-numbingly dull. Perfect for an introvert like me, though. No coworkers, no small talk, no boss breathing down my neck. Just solitude. Or so I thought.
The words echoed in my mind like a grim prophecy: "You will have everything you need to accomplish the job." The lighthouse stood isolated, like a skeletal sentinel on the edge of oblivion, its cold, unblinking eye waiting to pierce the night.
The supplies were stored in the cellar, enough to last three months—or so they said. The quarterly supply ship felt like a distant promise, a lifeline I wasn't sure would ever come. The marine radio hissed faintly, a static whisper of ships that might be out there… or might not. The long-distance radio telephone, my only tether to the coast guard station, felt more like a cursed artifact than a tool. Its crackling voice would be my sole companion in the endless dark.
My tasks were simple, they said. Too simple. Like a ritual carved into stone, unyielding and eternal. Every six hours during the day, every three hours at night, I'd have to report. The lighthouse's light had to burn from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., a beacon for ships—or a lure for something else.
Sleep would come in stolen fragments during the day, if it came at all. At 6 p.m., I'd wake, my body heavy with dread, and step outside into the howling wind. The weather checks were routine, but I know the air always felt wrong, charged with something unseen. Turning on the lamps felt like waking a slumbering beast, their light cutting through the fog like a blade.
Every three hours, I'd repeat the "ritual": Check the weather, report, ensure the light still burned. Over and over. Seven days a week. No weekends. No breaks. Just an endless, suffocating cycle. But guess what, as long as I can earn money to pay off the debt (without doing too much), then everything is going to be just fine!
The job came with rules. Strange, unsettling rules that lingered in the back of my mind like a splinter I couldn't remove.
Rule one: The light must be turned on at exactly 6 p.m. every day. Not a second sooner, not a moment later. It doesn't matter if the sky is clear, choked with fog, or if the horizon is empty of ships. Sometimes, it's not about guiding anyone home—it's about keeping them out there. Easy enough—I'd set a timer.
Rule two: Do not stare into the mirror in the storage room after 1 a.m. If you're foolish enough to be in there when the clock ticks past midnight, shut your eyes, stumble backward, and lock the door. Please remember. Always lock the door.
Rule three: At precisely 3:33 a.m. on Tuesdays, there will be a knock on the front door. Not the kind you'd expect from a visitor. It's slow, deliberate, like something testing the wood. Do not answer. Do not even look through the peephole. Just sit in the dark and pretend you're not there. My stomach churned when I read that one.
Rule four: The radio may turn on itself sometimes. You will hear old voices, or even your own voices. Do not respond, no matter how familiar it sounds. Just turn it off after the loudest scream. This should be over in a minute, they said.
And then there was rule five: If you look out the window and see another lighthouse was blinking, run to the basement, lock the door, and do not come out. Your duty will be handled by someone else. Someone else? Who? There's no one else here. Just me.
Standing right here, in this lighthouse, receiving the handover of the job from the principal keeper, I felt like the nights stretched longer than they should, the darkness pressing in like a living thing. The radio's static grew louder, more insistent, and sometimes I swore I heard voices in it—whispers that didn't belong to the coast guard. The lighthouse's beam felt less like a guide and more like a warning, a signal to the things that lurked beyond the waves.
And I couldn't shake the feeling that I wasn't going to be alone. That something was waiting, watching, biding its time. The job was simple, they said. But simple doesn't mean safe. And out here, in the shadow of the lighthouse, safety was an illusion.