Chapter 2: Echoes Beneath the Surface
The storm had passed, but the air still felt heavy, as though the earth itself was holding its breath. The sky, once an angry red, had darkened to a brooding grey, and the village of Breydon had fallen into an uneasy silence. The sea, now calm but unsettlingly still, stretched out to the horizon, hiding the cathedral beneath its vast, murky depths.
Lydia couldn’t stop thinking about the strange man who had appeared by the cliffs—the man who had spoken of hunger and death. His words echoed in her mind like a chant, haunting the spaces between her breaths. He had seemed so familiar, yet she had never seen him before. His hollow eyes, darkened by some unspeakable knowledge, still lingered in her thoughts.
The cathedral, looming from the ocean’s grasp, was no longer just a curiosity. It was a dark presence that could not be ignored. Each day, Lydia’s thoughts seemed to grow more tethered to it, like an invisible thread pulling her closer to the waves. She could not break free, nor did she know if she wanted to. She felt, deep down, that she was bound to the cathedral somehow—its fate intertwined with hers in ways she could not yet understand.
The stranger, whose name she had yet to learn, had vanished as quickly as he appeared, leaving only his words behind. “It’s coming for all of us.”
She had returned to her small cottage by the sea that night, trying to shake off the feeling that the ocean was watching her, waiting for her to come back. She tried to sleep, but the dreams began immediately, wrapping themselves around her like a cold shroud.
In her dream, she stood before the cathedral once again. But this time, it was not half-submerged in water. It was whole, towering before her with its dark spires piercing the sky. The stone was blackened, as if charred by an eternal fire, and the windows shimmered with an unnatural glow. As she stepped closer, she felt a presence inside the church—a force that moved beyond the realm of mortal understanding, something ancient and patient.
She could hear whispers again, just as before—quiet at first, but then growing louder, more insistent, until they became a cacophony of voices. The voices of the drowned. The voices of those who had fallen beneath the waves, trapped in the depths of the sea and the cathedral itself.
“Come closer.”
The words were not her own, but they seemed to draw her in, like the pull of the tide. Her feet moved against her will, the sand beneath her cold and unforgiving. She reached the steps of the cathedral, the ancient stone slick with the sea’s relentless kiss. The doors creaked open, revealing the darkened interior.
Inside, there was no light. Only shadows that writhed and shifted like living things. The air was thick with the scent of saltwater, mingling with something else—a rancid, fetid odor that made her stomach turn.
And then, from the darkness, they came. The figures of those who had perished when the cathedral had first sunk beneath the sea. Their faces were indistinguishable, their eyes wide with fear and pain, as if they had died in terror, trapped in their watery graves. Their bodies were half-drowned, their skin pale and slick with brine, but they moved, dragging themselves toward Lydia with an unnatural, jerking motion. Their mouths opened, but no sound came—only the whispers. Endless whispers of torment.
“Save us,” they seemed to say, though the words were faint, distorted by the water that had claimed them.
Lydia tried to move, to run, but her feet were rooted to the spot, as though the cathedral had taken hold of her, binding her to it. She wanted to scream, but no sound escaped her lips. The figures surrounded her, pressing close, their cold, clammy hands reaching for her, their eyes full of desperation.
Just as they were about to touch her, a sharp cry pierced the air—a cry of anguish that tore through the dream like a knife.
Lydia awoke, her heart pounding in her chest, her body drenched in sweat. The room around her was dark, the only sound the rhythmic crash of the waves against the shore. She lay still, trying to calm her racing breath, but the feeling of those cold hands still lingered on her skin.
The dream had been too real. Too vivid.
And when she opened her eyes to the dim light of morning, she knew it was only the beginning.
The village had changed in the days following the storm. The people who had once wandered the shores, their laughter carried by the wind, now moved in silence, their eyes darting to the sea as if afraid to look too long. No one spoke openly of the cathedral, but Lydia could sense the fear growing in them. It was a fear that did not speak of the ocean or the storm, but of something older, deeper, a terror rooted in the land itself.
She had spoken with a few of the villagers, asking them about the cathedral, but their responses were always the same—short, clipped, as though they were reluctant to even mention it aloud.
“It’s an old legend,” one woman had said, her eyes shifting nervously. “Nothing more.”
But Lydia could sense the truth in the woman’s voice, the fear she tried to hide.
The sea, it seemed, had awakened something. But what?
Lydia could not shake the feeling that the answers lay in the drowned church, beneath the waves, in the secrets it held. She had to go back, no matter the cost. The whispers in her dreams had called to her, but she knew now they weren’t just dreams. The cathedral, and its drowned souls, were calling to her. And they would not stop until she answered.
