Into the Void

Sara dreamed of the ocean the way she remembered it as a kid — cold, gray, endless, the kind of water that didn’t sparkle so much as brood. In the dream, she stood at the shoreline with her boots sinking slowly into wet sand, the tide tugging at her laces like it wanted her to step closer.

The sky was wrong. Too pale. Too still. No gulls, no wind, no sound except her own breathing.

That familiar pressure built in her chest — the tight, buzzing ache she carried through her waking life whenever she tried too hard to act normal. Here, in the dream, it felt heavier. Like the ocean was mirroring it back at her.

She walked forward until the water reached her knees. It was freezing, but she didn’t flinch. She kept going, the waves rising to her waist, her ribs, her shoulders. The ocean didn’t fight her. It didn’t crash or roar. It simply opened, quiet and patient, as if it had been waiting.

When she finally let herself fall forward, it wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t a leap. It was a surrender — a slow, deliberate fold into the water, like she was giving herself permission to stop holding everything together.

The cold swallowed her whole.

For a moment, she floated in perfect silence. No fear. No panic. Just weightlessness, like her body had dissolved and she was nothing but breath and memory.

Then something brushed her ankle.

Not a creature. Not a hand. Just… presence. A ripple that didn’t belong to the water.

She tried to look down, but the ocean turned black beneath her, a darkness that felt aware. Watching.

A faint shimmer moved below her — not shape, not shadow, but eyes. Bright, unnatural, emerald green. The same eyes that haunted the edges of her dreams, the only part of the man she could ever remember.

Her heartbeat kicked hard.

And she woke with her sheets tangled around her legs, chest tight, the phantom cold still clinging to her skin.