Thomas Grayson had spent forty years tending the Blackthorn Lighthouse, its beam cutting through the fog like a sword. But retirement had come, and with it, a quiet life in a cottage far from the sea.
Or so he thought.
One stormy night, the whispers began. At first, he dismissed them as the wind, but they grew louder, more insistent.
“Thomas… come back.”
The voice was familiar, like the echo of a dream he couldn’t quite grasp. Against his better judgment, he returned to the lighthouse—now automated and abandoned.
The sea was restless, waves crashing against the rocks with a fury he hadn’t seen in years. Inside the tower, he found his old journal, its pages filled with sketches of a woman he didn’t remember.
Her name was Eleanor.
And she had been his wife.
But how could he forget her?
As the nights passed, the whispers became visions.
Eleanor standing on the cliffs, her hair tangled by the wind.
A shipwreck he couldn’t recall.
A child’s laughter echoing in the fog.
The sea was trying to tell him something, and Thomas knew he had to listen.
The truth, when it came, was a tidal wave.
Eleanor had died saving their daughter during a storm, and Thomas, unable to bear the guilt, had erased them from his memory.
But the sea remembered.
And it wasn’t done with him yet.