The boat rocked harder now.
More than just the swell of the sea—this was pressure. Movement. Massive bodies below, shifting, brushing the hull like gods testing the bones of a temple before bringing it down. The wood creaked, groaned, screamed.
I grabbed the demon's head and yanked it from the fishing line.
He didn't get a warning. I just pulled him in and slammed him against the railing—once, hard. He bounced. Gurgled something through what was left of his throat. I didn't listen.
Then I nailed him there.
Rusty steel through skull. Deep. The kind of nail that never comes out. One last insult: to be pinned to the edge of the world like a mounted trophy.
He could watch from there.
He deserved to watch.
I turned from him, walking across the unstable deck toward the ritual site. The motion of the ship had scattered it—bones knocked over, small tokens shifted out of place, hearts rolled a few inches off center. The chaos of the sea had touched even this.
I couldn't leave it like that.
So I knelt. One by one, I returned the offerings to their places. Set the skulls straight. Aligned the ribs. Tucked the broken fingers back beside the hands I'd matched them to. It wasn't perfect. It never would be. But it had to be right.
When I finished, I stood. And looked out.
The raft was gone from the ship. Already lowered into the water, drifting away. Small now in the distance, rocking slightly as it moved across the waves.
They were paddling.
Two silhouettes framed against the burnished sea. The girl. The merman.
From this far, I couldn't make out much detail—but I didn't need to. I saw her. Saw her head turn. Saw the way she kept glancing back.
At the ship.
At me.
Even from here, that glance hit like a gut punch.
I'd never asked her name.
The thought came slow and sharp, like a knife pressed gently against skin. Not enough to bleed. Just enough to hurt.
I'd been beside her, fought beside her, survived hell with her. And I'd never even asked her who she was. It was sad. But it was life, wasn't it?
Sometimes you don't get closure.
Sometimes you don't even get an introduction.
Sometimes someone walks into your story, changes everything, and walks out again before you've even had time to say thank you.
I watched the raft get smaller. Watched the girl—that girl—fading into distance. And I gave them both a goodbye. Not a wave. Not a word. Just something quieter. Something heavier.
From the heart.
The raft deserved it. It had carried me when the world tried to sink me. Had held me when even the sea refused to.
Now it carried them.
I hoped it was enough. I had to believe that.
The merman—I gave him no more thought. Not out of disrespect. Just truth. He was a figure carved by circumstance. A flicker of fate that hadn't turned hostile. We weren't enemies. Not quite friends either. Just… intersecting paths.
I still remembered the moment I pulled a gun on him.
Still remembered the way his eyes locked on mine, cold and unreadable.
He should have killed me.
But he didn't.
And I didn't kill him.
We left it at that.
A rare kind of peace.
I wasn't sure if it was understanding or exhaustion.
And the girl…
The blue-haired girl.
She was… something else.
Maybe it was because I hadn't seen many people in this place. Maybe it was just her. Maybe it was her. I couldn't tell.
There was something about her—something carved from steel but wrapped in sunlight. Her eyes—blue as the ocean, but deeper. Sadder. They held stories. Storms. Secrets. I could've looked at them for days and still not known the half of it.
And that hair. It wasn't just a color—it was a signal. A flag. A challenge. Blue that danced with the wind like it had its own soul. And when the sun caught it just right? It glowed. As if the sea itself loved her too much to let her fade.
But it wasn't just that. Wasn't just the look or the sound of her voice—though both lingered in the air even now.
It was her temperament.
She had this mix of iron and empathy that didn't belong in this world. Not here. Not in this place of blood and brick and beasts. She should've broken. Should've screamed. But she didn't. She fought. She acted. She survived—not by accident, but by choice.
She was one of a kind.
And still… there was something more.
Familiar.
Not memory. Not exactly. Just that feeling. That you've seen someone before. That you've felt them, once. In another life. In a moment so brief you didn't even know it mattered until it was gone.
Like the girl you see once in an airport.
You never speak. You just cross paths. And then you carry her with you—forever. For no reason you can name.
That's who she was now.
The girl I'd remember even after everything else slipped away.