No one slept.
Some people sat in the sand with their knees pulled to their chests, eyes red and unfocused. Others paced until their legs shook, stopping only when exhaustion forced them down. A few stood near the water, staring at the horizon like it might open if they looked long enough.
The body was still there.
They hadn't moved the boy.
No one wanted to touch him again.
The tide crept closer, inch by inch, dark water licking toward blood-stained sand. Each time a wave reached the body, the mother flinched like it had struck her instead.
The father hadn't made a sound in a long time.
Aiden watched from a distance, jaw tight. He didn't know what he was supposed to feel anymore. Grief didn't fit. Shock didn't either. Everything felt… heavy. Like the world itself had decided not to give them space to breathe.
The ocean shifted.
Not violently.
Not suddenly.
Deliberately.
The massive shape beneath the surface moved closer to shore. Water rose and fell around it, the motion slow enough that people almost convinced themselves it wasn't happening.
Almost.
Someone noticed first. A woman near the rocks pointed with a shaking hand.
"It's closer," she whispered.
No one answered.
Then another voice, louder. "It wasn't that close before."
The murmuring spread. Heads turned. Bodies tensed. The distance between the shoreline and the thing in the water had shrunk—subtly, but unmistakably.
Aiden felt it in his chest before he fully processed it.
Pressure.
Not pain.
Not fear.
The kind of weight that made standing still feel like a mistake.
"We can't stay here," someone said.
A man stepped forward, trying to sound confident. "It hasn't attacked. We shouldn't provoke it."
A wave rolled in harder than the rest, crashing against the rocks. The sound echoed like a warning.
Aiden took a slow breath.
"It's not waiting," he said.
A few people turned toward him, startled by the certainty in his voice.
"What?" the man asked.
"It's not watching us," Aiden continued. "It's approaching."
"How do you know?" someone snapped.
Aiden hesitated. He didn't have an answer that would satisfy them. He just… knew. The same way he'd known not to let the fight escalate earlier. The same way he'd known the boy was already gone before anyone said it out loud.
"Because if it wanted us dead already," Aiden said quietly, "we wouldn't still be talking."
That landed harder than he expected.
Silence followed.
The father finally moved. He stood, unsteady, lifting his son's body with shaking arms. No one tried to stop him. No one offered to help.
"We're leaving the shore," he said hoarsely. "Now."
That broke something.
People scrambled to their feet, panic snapping into motion. Groups formed instinctively—families, friends, strangers grabbing onto strangers because being alone suddenly felt impossible.
Someone shouted, "Inland! There has to be land further in!"
Aiden looked past the chaos, toward the towering landmass rising in the distance. Stone and greenery clung to it at unnatural angles, paths barely visible through mist.
It wasn't safe.
But it was farther from the water.
"Move!" someone yelled as another wave slammed in, closer than before.
The creature beneath the surface shifted again.
The pressure increased.
People ran.
Feet slipped in wet sand. Someone fell and was dragged up by others. Shouts turned sharp, desperate. The shoreline behind them disappeared under advancing water.
Aiden stayed near the back, watching for anyone who couldn't keep up. He grabbed a stranger who stumbled, hauled them forward without stopping.
"Don't look back," he said.
The ground began to rise beneath their feet as they left the beach behind. Rocks replaced sand. The air felt thinner, colder.
When Aiden finally glanced over his shoulder, the shore was gone.
Water covered it completely.
The place where they had arrived—where everything had ended—was underwater now.
Ahead of them, the land waited.
Unknown.
Unforgiving.
But not drowning.
Aiden tightened his grip on his jacket and kept moving.
Whatever this world was, it wasn't giving them time to mourn.
End of Chapter 3