The surface of the Great Mirror was unnervingly still, a sheet of hammered silver that reflected a sky drained of all color.
Elias sat in the center of the small wooden skiff, his fingers curled so tightly around the fishing line that the nylon bit into his skin. Usually, his father's heavy breathing or the constant grumbling about the "paltry catch" filled the silence. Today, the silence was a physical weight.
Then, the world tilted.
It wasn't a wave; it was a displacement of reality.
The water didn't ripple—it tore. From the glassy depths, a nightmare of ink and shadow rose, shedding tons of seawater like a falling curtain. The skiff groaned, the wood screaming under the sudden, violent turbulence.
Elias didn't scream. He couldn't. His lungs had turned to stone. He collapsed, his knees hitting the floorboards with a dull thud, and he pressed his forehead against the damp wood. He stayed there, a broken compass needle, waiting for the crushing dark.
The air suddenly grew thick with the smell of ancient salt and ozone. A low, vibrating hum rattled the very marrow of his bones. A shadow fell over him—not the shadow of a cloud, but something solid, immense, and impossibly close.
Two orbs of bioluminescent light, cold as starlight, swept over his shivering frame. Elias felt the Leviathan's gaze like a physical touch, weighing his soul against the vastness of the deep.
"So small," a voice echoed, not in his ears, but directly in the center of his skull. It was a sound like grinding tectonic plates, surprisingly melodic yet terrifyingly vast. "Do you seek the harvest, or do you seek the end, little spark?"
Elias remained motionless, his eyes squeezed shut. He felt the boat dip precariously as a massive, muscular weight draped over the side. Then, something slick, warm, and terrifyingly powerful wrapped around his torso.
The Leviathan's tongue was the size of a tapestry, rough and wet, coating his tunic in a thick, glowing brine. With a flick of its titanic muscle, it didn't swallow him; it licked him—a gesture of curiosity that nearly snapped his ribs.
As quickly as the pressure had come, it vanished. The Leviathan exhaled a mist that smelled of the beginning of time and began its descent.
"Wait," Elias whispered, his voice cracking, finally finding a spark of courage in the wake of his terror. But the abyss does not wait. With a final, graceful swirl of its trailing, ribbon-like fins, the creature vanished.
The water smoothed over as if the monster had been a hallucination, leaving Elias drenched, gasping, and forever changed.
He looked down at his hands. They were glowing with the faint, residual light of the creature's touch.
...