No one spoke for a moment.
The shoreline looked the same.
The waves made the same sounds.
The sand beneath our feet still gave with every step.
But it didn't feel the same.
I didn't feel the same.
My breathing had steadied—
my hands had stopped shaking—
but something inside me hadn't settled.
It hadn't left.
"Everyone still here?" Torvin muttered.
He tried to make it sound like a joke.
It didn't land.
Still bracing from where he got hit.
"Barely," I said.
Torvin and I looked at our injuries, not knowing if that would be the end of it.
Freya didn't answer.
She was looking at her hend.
There was blood on her fingers.
Not much.
Just enough to notice.
But she wasn't looking at the cut.
She was watching how her hand moved.
Like she didn't fully trust it.
"Freya?" I said.
She blinked—
like she'd been somewhere else for a second.
"I'm fine," she said.
Too quick.
Her voice didn't shake.
But it didn't have it's familiar steadiness to it.
Torvin exhaled hard—
dropping down onto a rock.
"That thing—"
He stopped.
Ran a hand over his face.
"I felt it," he said.
No one asked what he meant.
"When it grabbed me..."
His voice tightened slightly.
"It wasn't just... pain."
He looked up at us.
"It was like it looked through my mind, and was pulling at it."
"Yeah," I said quietly.
Because I'd felt it too.
Malek stood a few paces away.
Looking at a place where the creature had been.
"I didn't feel that," he said.
We all turned to him.
"Anything?" Torvin asked.
Malek shook his head once.
"No fear."
"No pressure."
"Nothing."
Not just resistant.
Untouched.
"Then what hit us?" Torvin asked.
That brought it back.
All of it.
The moment it died.
The way it... broke.
"That wasn't it attacking," I said slowly.
"That was something else."
"The essence," Freya said.
We all looked at her again.
She didn't hesitate this time.
"It didn't disappear," she continued.
"It transferred."
No one liked that word.
"So we took something from it," I said.
"Or it left something in us," Torvin added.
"Both," she said.
"That's how it grows."
"Then we use it," Malek said.
Simple.
"I don't like this," Torvin muttered.
Malek shrugged slightly.
"You don't like anything."
"That's not true," Torvin shot back.
"I liked being normal."
"Normal has come and it has gone, we need to figure out how to save the village." I reply with fake optimism.
"What if it uses us? What if we are just playing into that giant ocean beast's hands?" Torvin asked the group.
Unsettled.
"We don't really have a good answer for that, and even if it was trying to manipulate us, what choices do we have?" I say through gritted teeth.
I looked back toward the sand.
The marks we had followed earlier—
the patterns—
suddenly felt… clearer.
Not easier to see.
Easier to understand.
Like my mind was connecting things faster than it should.
Malek glanced at me.
"You notice something?"
I nodded.
"Yeah."
I didn't know how I knew.
I just did.
Freya tightened her grip on her blade.
Her breathing steadied.
Too steady.
"I can feel it," she said quietly.
"What?" Torvin asked.
"Where to move," she said.
A beat.
"Like… if I stop thinking about it—"
She shifted slightly—
effortlessly.
"My body already knows."
She frowned slightly.
Not afraid.
Curious.
Torvin pushed himself back up.
slower this time.
"I don't like this," he muttered.
But as he spoke—
something shifted.
The air around him felt… heavier.
Not physically.
Emotionally.
Like his frustration had weight now.
"You feel that?" I asked.
"Feel what?" he snapped—
sharper than he meant to.
Then he paused.
"…Okay I definitely don't like that."
Malek didn't react.
He just watched us.
"You've changed." he said.
No judgement.
Just matter of fact.
He was right.
We had.
Not completely.
Not yet.
Standing there on that stretch of shore.
We were one step closer to beating this thing.
Or becoming one with it.