Chapter 1: Beneath the Waves
The sea had always whispered secrets—secrets that few dared to listen to. Along the craggy cliffs that lined the coast of Breydon, tales of a long-forgotten cathedral had drifted in the salty winds, carried from mouth to mouth for centuries. It was a legend wrapped in mist, a fable lost to time. Until now.
It had all begun with the storm.
The night it raged, no one in the village had dared venture near the cliffs. The waves rose like living things, crashing with the force of a thousand thunderclaps, and the wind howled with a voice that sounded almost human. But the storm had not been the true cause of the cathedral’s disappearance. The cathedral had been waiting, its silent ruin resting beneath the waves, its shattered towers buried in the ocean’s cold embrace for far longer than anyone knew.
And now, after decades of sleeping beneath the sea’s surface, it had risen.
When it first appeared, only those closest to the edge of the village had seen it. Fishermen, their boats already battered by the ferocity of the storm, saw it rising like a ghostly monolith from the depths of the sea. Towering spires, now cracked and weathered, gleamed with an unearthly pallor, as if the cathedral had never truly belonged to the land. As the sun rose the next morning, the sea calmed, but the cathedral remained, standing defiantly against the horizon, half-submerged in the grey waters.
Lydia Fisher had heard the stories. Her father had spoken of it in hushed tones when she was a child—his voice trembling as he recounted the ancient church that had fallen into the sea. He would tell her of its grandeur, the towering stone arches, and the stained-glass windows that shimmered like jewels. But it was not the cathedral’s beauty that had stuck with her. It was the legend of its fall: that the church had once been a place of worship, a sanctified ground for peace and forgiveness, until something had driven it to ruin.
A curse. A vengeance.
Lydia’s family had lived in Breydon for generations, but she had always been drawn to the ocean, to the cliffs where the land met the sea. She would visit the shores, standing at the edge, letting the winds carry her thoughts far beyond the waves. In those moments, she felt closer to something ancient, something eternal. But after that night, something in her would change. She would never be able to forget the cathedral.
The day it reappeared, Lydia had been out on the cliffs, watching the waves clash violently beneath the wind’s ferocious howls. It was as if the sea itself had become a beast, thrashing and screaming. But then, amidst the chaos, something caught her eye—a faint glimmer, like moonlight dancing on the water, though the sky had not yet darkened.
At first, she thought it was nothing. A trick of the light, perhaps. But when it came again, more forcefully this time, she understood: the church had surfaced.
Her heart pounded as she squinted through the mist. The cathedral rose from the sea like an enormous shadow, draped in fog and framed by the tattered clouds. It looked ancient, its stone crumbling, as if time itself had eaten away at its structure. The windows, long shattered, reflected the murky sea, and the heavy stone doors, once grand, now stood ajar as if welcoming something—or someone.
She could hear the faintest sound, like whispers, carried by the wind. At first, she thought it was the wind itself, howling through the broken walls of the cathedral. But then the whispers grew louder—no longer distant, but coming from all around her.
The dread in her chest grew as the words twisted and curled in her mind, beckoning her. She wanted to leave, to run far from this place where shadows clung to the edges of reality, but her legs refused to move. There was something about the cathedral—something that pulled at her, tugged her closer, as if it were alive and aware of her presence.
“Do not come closer.”
The words were not spoken aloud, but lodged themselves in her mind like a painful memory, demanding her attention.
Lydia turned to leave, but her body betrayed her. The sea had called her, and the sea had claimed her. It was inevitable.
In the days that followed, those who dared venture near the shores spoke of the cathedral in hushed tones, as if mentioning it aloud would invite its curse. No one had seen the inside—none who lived to tell the tale, at least—but they spoke of the strange figures that moved among the shattered walls of the once-beautiful church. Figures that seemed not entirely human, faces twisted in silent screams.
Lydia found herself unable to resist returning to the cliffs each day. She would stand at the edge, watching the cathedral rise and fall with the tides. Each time, it felt as though the ocean was holding its breath, waiting for something. And then, on the sixth day, it happened.
She was not alone.
A man stood beside her, his silhouette barely visible against the darkening sky. His eyes were sunken, his face drawn with exhaustion. Lydia barely recognized him. He was a stranger—though there was something oddly familiar about him. He had the look of someone who had seen things no one should ever witness, his eyes hollow with the weight of terrible knowledge.
“I see it too,” he whispered, his voice trembling. “It won’t stop calling.”
Lydia looked at him, her heart pounding. “Who are you?”
The stranger’s eyes glimmered with a strange light, as if he knew more than he was willing to say. “It’s not just the sea. It’s something worse. The cathedral is hungry. And it’s coming for all of us.”
Lydia felt a chill run through her. The whispers from the cathedral were no longer just in her mind—they were real, and they were growing louder with every passing day.
Something had awoken beneath the waves. And it would not rest until it had taken what it desired.
