I think I had been sitting on the beach since I sent out the message. But I kept staring at the quest about my message in the bottle being a success. This system wouldn’t lie to me right? Someone truly found my message, but would they come? I don’t think I could survive, even figuratively another failed anything. Would I become a shell if that happened?

  Quest Number One Hundred Fifty-Eight: The Final Message in a Bottle

  Name: Unknown Recipient

  Quest Type: Desperation, Call for Help, Liberation Attempt

  Result: Success

  It had been a whim, that last message—a flimsy, desperate gamble clinging to the fraying threads of hope. How many times had I tried this before? Too many to count. This was supposed to be the end. The final plea, cast into the waves as I whispered to myself that it was pointless.

  But somehow, impossibly, it worked. Whether it was the gods’ pity, a twist of forgotten magic, or sheer chance, my words reached someone.

  The warm breeze that had caressed me shifted suddenly, snapping me out of my daze. My knees ached from hours of sitting, curled on the sand, hugging them to my chest. My matted white hair clung limply to my face, brushed aside with an absent hand as I looked up.

  Nothing ever changed here.

  But something was different now.

  Out in the distance, beyond the cursed barrier that separated me from the mortal world, a storm churned on the horizon. It tore at the Sea with furious, unrelenting force, its dark clouds stretching like fingers across the sky. I hadn’t seen a storm in so long I forgot what they looked like—forgot what change felt like.

  My chest tightened as my breath caught. My fingers dug into the sand beneath me. The storm wasn’t here by chance. It couldn’t be.

  Tentatively, I closed the quest windows lingering in my vision. My magic stirred for the first time in ages, hesitant and foreign, like a muscle long unused. Could I still do this? Would the curse allow it?

  My heart thundered as I let my magic trickle outward, tentatively brushing against the Sea’s edge. It was reckless to hope. Reckless to feel anything at all.

  But as the thunder roared across the waves, I thought—for just a moment—that maybe someone was finally coming.

  As I stretched my magic, feeling the water’s calm and broken state—so much like my own—I pressed forward.

  "I can do this," I whispered, the words a fragile mantra. I was scared, out of practice, and broken on every level imaginable, but I’d been strong once. Maybe I could be strong again—if only long enough to figure out what was happening. That’s all this was, after all. Just checking the barrier. Just curiosity. I didn’t dare hope for more than that.

  Carefully, I let my magic explore the edge of my physical constraints. The bitter tang of the curse seeped into me like bile, but I ignored it, testing the water like someone unsure of its temperature. Tentatively, I pushed further, holding my breath.

  Nothing.

  Was this another limit I had forgotten?

  I pushed more power toward the storm now, rising to my feet. My hands clutched in front of my chest, a prayer to dead gods, the gesture more for myself than anyone else. The storm was brutal, doing nothing to steady my nerves. Where once this would have been as easy as blinking, now every action required painstaking focus.

  I shut my eyes, letting the sensations of the world fall away. The soft, warm sand beneath my feet faded. The breeze that had teased my hair and skin disappeared. Even the flashing dot of a notification in my vision—persistent, demanding—was silenced with a thought.

  Eventually, my magic brushed against the storm’s edge, a whirlwind of wild, untamed energy. I let it wash over me, the tang of salt in the air grounding me. I wasn’t outside my prison’s barrier—not yet—but something felt undeniably different.

  What was it?

  Should I search for the message in the bottle? Or should I reach for what didn’t belong here?

  Which would be safest?

  I hesitated, fear tightening its grip around me. My thoughts swirled, chaotic and uncertain, as I tried to reason through the choices. I was scared. Scared that all of this—the storm, the quest, the faint glimmer of change—was nothing but a cruel trick. A way to crush what little hope had sparked when that quest window marked my message as successful.

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  Rationally, the bottle shouldn’t belong here either.

  But if the bottle was alone, what would that mean?

  Does it mean the storm carried it back to me, nothing more than a cruel cosmic joke? Or… does it mean something else? Something worse? Could a mortal be caught in this chaos?

  The thought twisted in my gut. The storm didn’t feel like something that would have an easy answer. If a mortal was in its heart, they wouldn’t survive for long—not without help. I was out of practice, my magic rusty and hesitant, but if someone was there… if someone answered my call…

  Then I was on a time constraint.

  The gods were gone. Nature wasn’t kind or purposeful. It wouldn’t simply deposit an unconscious body at my feet.

  I clenched my fists, magic flickering weakly in response to my tension. Could I combine the search? My bottle and whatever anomaly caused the storm—both shouldn’t belong.

  Could I still do that? Could I focus on both?

  The uncertainty was suffocating. My chest tightened as I tried to steady my breathing. I didn’t know if I had the strength, but I didn’t have the luxury of waiting. The storm raged on, and the salty tang of its wind whispered urgency to my heart.

  A mortal was a fragile thing, I had no time, I just hoped, regardless of the outcome, my magic would last until I got all my questions answered.

  “Bring Forth,” I murmured, sending my intentions with my magic, hoping beyond hope my own magic understood what I wanted to do when I didn’t.

  I first, all I felt was cold and dark, as my magic spread and dived into the wild storm. It was also quiet. Eerie and foreboding, like Poseidon would show up and cast me away once more. The search seemed to take forever though. I was using muscles and senses untapped for longer than I kept track of.

  There was more dark, a taste of salt, more cold, a scent of sun, followed by… … wait?! Sun wasn’t supposed to be in the water, I had no time to think, all my magic zero’d in on the scent like a hound dog on it’s prey and did it’s best to shoot forward.

  I hurt all over, but I would not give up. I didn’t care if I was currently face first on the sand, the scent of sun for so far below the Sea, but I pushed onward. My magic was getting close to my own limit, when I found the source.

  And I near collapsed my magic when the shock of realizing it was a human washed over me. I had succeeded. But I needed to focus, get him to wash ashore before I passed out. Ever so carefully and gently, I gave my magic the intent, bring the human safely to shore.

  The storm howled louder, a furious force that pressed against me from all sides as I fought to keep my focus. The scent of saltwater and sun twisted through my senses, the two conflicting elements so wildly out of place, like a cruel joke that the universe had decided to play on me. But I couldn’t afford to dwell on that now. Not when the life of a mortal—someone who might have been the very answer to my call—hung in the balance.

  I pushed my magic harder, deeper into the chaos of the storm. My arms shook with the effort, every ounce of strength I had left pouring into this single desperate plea. The raw power of the storm clashed with my trembling magic, but I refused to let go. If I could bring someone to me—if I could save them from the tempest that now seemed to rage with malicious intent—then maybe, just maybe, I could escape this curse.

  The realization that it was a human hit me like a punch to the gut. I could feel his warmth, the delicate pulse of life against the cold, unfeeling water. The shock of it nearly broke my concentration, but I couldn’t afford to falter. I was so close.

  With one last, strained cry of intent, I willed my magic to move him. I could feel the pull of the Sea beneath me, the weight of the waves, but I tugged at him—gently, carefully—bringing him upward, inch by inch, as though I were drawing him from the depths themselves.

  His body floated, but my magic was barely enough to keep him from sinking again. My mind spun with exhaustion, each pulse of energy costing more than I had to give, but I refused to let go. I had to do this.

  I have to do this.

  I felt the storm’s fury grow fiercer, pushing back against me as if it knew what I was trying to do. A cruel, mocking force, testing my resolve. But this time, I wouldn’t give in. Not again. Not like before.

  The taste of sun, the warmth I had felt earlier, was now a faint glow in the distance. So much farther than it should have been. It was strange, too strange. But there was no time to question it. Not now.

  Finally, as if in answer to my unspoken plea, the mortal’s body broke through the water’s surface, floating just within my reach. His breath was shallow, his skin pale, and his body battered by the waves, but he was alive.

  Tears pricked at my eyes, though I didn’t dare let them fall. I’d done it.

  But I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t rest. With everything I had left, I sent a surge of magic toward the shore, guiding his limp body gently in that direction.

  As the first wave of relief washed over me, my vision blurred. My body trembled, the weight of my efforts crashing down. But there was no time to collapse. No time to give in to the exhaustion that threatened to claim me.

  With one final push, I sent my magic to the shore, feeling the pull of solid ground, the feeling of sand beneath me once again. I breathed deeply as I felt his body finally meet the safety of the shore.

  And then, I let myself collapse, feeling ever muscle yelling at me in pain. It hurt to move, it hurt to blink, the breeze on my skin hurt. If only I could be unconscious.

  The storm continued to rage, but for the first time in years, I felt a flicker of hope.

  Maybe this time, it wouldn’t be a failure.