Coughing. That was the first thing—loud, ragged, and unstoppable. Salt scraped at my throat, and every gasp of air felt like swallowing knives.

  I rolled onto my side, spitting out water that burned on the way up. My ribs heaved, muscles trembling with every shuddering.

  "Shi—" I wheezed, unable to complete a single word.

  The world came in flashes—grains of sand too close to my face, the roar of waves pulling back to sea, the sting of sun on waterlogged skin. I coughed again, a sharp pain lancing through my chest. Had I cracked something? No, just the sea trying to kill me from the inside out.

  Ugh, why was I—? What was I—? I groaned, the questions only adding to the pounding ache in my skull.

  Carefully, I rolled onto my stomach and tried to push myself up. My arms shook, muscles quivering like rubber, and I barely made it to my knees before collapsing again. Sand clung to my damp skin, scratching at my palms.

  I forced my head up, squinting against the glaring sun. The beach stretched endlessly in both directions, broken only by scattered bits of driftwood and seaweed. There was no sign of… anything. No buildings. No boats. No people.

  The realization struck harder than the waves. I was alone.

  “Well, fuck,” I gasped, letting the word escape with what little air I could muster. Giving up on my futile attempts to stand, I flopped onto my back, the cool grit of the sand pressing against my drenched clothes. I had a feeling I’d be here for a while before I could move again.

  It was then that I noticed something strange. The sound of the waves faded with each passing moment, leaving behind an unnatural stillness. No gulls cried, no breeze stirred the air—just the faint hiss of foam meeting shore.

  It was too quiet. Unnervingly quiet.

  I tried to focus, tried to make sense of it. Where the hell am I? The questions spun in my mind like a hurricane, none of them landing long enough to stick. My head felt foggy, like it had been buried under layers of sand for far too long.

  Think, I told myself. Focus.

  I pushed through the exhaustion, trying to pull the pieces of my past together. The last thing I remembered was—what? A storm? No, the waves. I remembered water—cold, choking, desperate. I remembered struggling, trying to swim, trying to breathe. The panic, the salt, the suffocating weight of the ocean.

  But how did I get here?

  I closed my eyes, gritting my teeth against the throbbing in my skull, but every time I tried to latch onto a clear thought, it slipped away like sand through my fingers. Who was I? Where was I headed?

  I felt a tightening in my chest as I attempted to remember anything, even just a name, something familiar—but it was as if the very act of remembering was too much for my brain to handle.

  Suddenly, a sharp pain shot through my head. The world tilted violently, everything going black at the edges. I gasped, clutching my temples, as if willing my own memories to return—but the pressure only built. The more I tried to hold onto the pieces, the more they scattered.

  No… I thought desperately. Come back…

  But it was too much. I barely felt the sand beneath me as the dizziness consumed me, and then, mercifully, I lost the battle with consciousness.

  Eventually, I blinked my eyes open once more, groaning, as I weakly sat up, pressing a palm to my temple to dull the pain. I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on. My head was a mess of fog, the kind of dizzying confusion you only get when your body has been through too much. The waves still roared in the distance, but this was different—less calming, more like an ominous reminder of how close I’d come to being swallowed by them.

  I stared at the horizon, trying to focus, but my mind just kept bouncing from thought to thought, none of them sticking. How had I ended up here? The last thing I could remember was being… in the water, struggling. But that didn’t explain how I’d gotten to the shore, or how long I’d been out.

  I took a slow, shallow breath, feeling the ache in my chest from where I’d gasped too hard earlier. The Mediterranean sun beat down on me relentlessly, too bright for how my head felt. Stay focused, Ronan. Stay with it.

  But the longer I tried to make sense of it, the harder it became. The salt in the air was heavy, mixing with the taste of seawater still lingering on my tongue. I shifted uncomfortably in the sand, trying to push myself upright. My arms felt like lead, my body unresponsive as I forced one shaky leg under me, finally getting to my knees.

  What the hell had happened? Was I still dreaming?

  I glanced around, the beach empty, save for the scattered rocks and driftwood. No sign of a shipwreck. No signs of anyone else. The isolation felt… wrong. There was something off about it. Even the air was still—too still for the kind of shore I remembered.

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  A dry laugh escaped my lips, weak and incredulous. "This is insane."

  I wiped the back of my hand across my face, trying to clear the remnants of confusion. As I stood, my body swayed, and I had to catch myself on a nearby rock to steady myself.

  It was then that I felt the strange pull in the air, something subtle but undeniable. Something I couldn’t explain, like a presence that didn’t belong—though I had no idea what that meant. Maybe it was just the aftershocks of my near-drowning brain. Maybe I was still delirious.

  I took another unsteady step forward, but the world seemed to tilt again. Pain flared behind my eyes, sharper this time, and I stumbled backward. I gritted my teeth, forcing my feet to hold steady. The last thing I needed was to pass out again. I needed to get out of here, whatever this was.The sun hung too high in the sky, beating down mercilessly. Every step I took on the sandy terrain seemed to take more energy than the last, my muscles protesting as I dragged myself forward. The steady rhythm of the waves kept me grounded, but everything else was a blur. I couldn’t remember how long I’d been walking, but my body was starting to feel the toll of it.

  Focus, Ronan. Focus.

  I scanned the shore ahead, looking for any sign of shelter, anything that might give me a clue about where I was. That’s when I saw her.

  Lying on the sand, motionless. For a moment, I thought she was just another casualty of the sea, someone like me who had been thrown ashore. But there was something about the way she lay there, her long hair matted and sun-bleached to the ground, tangled like seaweed, that made my chest tighten. The hair was so wild and unkempt that it seemed to have become part of the earth itself. Her clothes—faded, worn, and white—had been stripped of their color by the sun, now just ghostly remnants of what they once were. The sun had taken everything from her, and even her skin seemed to be a strange mixture of tan and natural tones, as if the sun had soaked into her very bones.

  Is she alive?

  I staggered over, my legs unsteady, my head still swimming. As I drew closer, I could see that she was breathing—though shallowly, as if every breath was a struggle.

  I crouched beside her, unsure of what to do. There was something about her, some feeling I couldn’t quite place. I reached out, my hand hovering near her shoulder, unsure whether to touch her. A strange pull, like something drawing me in, tugged at me. But I hesitated.

  I leaned in closer, checking for signs of injury. There was nothing obvious, no bleeding or broken bones, but there was something unnerving about her stillness. She wasn’t moving much, even though the breeze should’ve made her hair sway, should’ve made her shift. It was like she wasn’t even fully part of the world around her.

  I took a deep breath and, against my better judgment, reached out, brushing my fingers against her arm.

  The moment my skin made contact, a jolt ran through me, not physical, but mental—a sudden, sharp clarity that struck me right between the eyes.

  “Welcome to Ogygia,” the voice whispered, or maybe it wasn’t a whisper at all. It wasn’t coming from around me, but from deep inside my mind. "You—Ronan—came across a mysterious bottle, with a message that talked about the gods and the titans, but it wasn’t signed. And you don’t know what truths lie within."

  I froze, my fingers still pressed to her arm, as the words flickered in my vision, translucent and glowing. They burned into my brain like a brand, but they didn’t make sense.

  But then… the storm.

  The voice seemed to unlock something—fragments, memories, flashes that came in a rush. I saw it: the boat. The storm. The dark clouds that rolled in without warning. Elliott's frantic voice shouting over the wind, his hand grabbing for something—the bottle.

  My heart skipped a beat. The bottle. The one that had washed up with the tide, its wax seal broken, the message inside nearly unreadable. I had no idea what it said then—just that the storm had come out of nowhere, and in the chaos, we both scrambled for cover.

  “Elliott!” I thought, panic rising in my chest. Where was he? Was he okay?

  I struggled to push the memory further, to see more, but it kept slipping away like water through my fingers.

  The words on the screen—on my mind—still flashed in front of me: “You don’t know what truths lie within.”

  It felt like a riddle I couldn’t crack.

  I gritted my teeth, my head pounding as the pain from before returned with a vengeance. I had to keep focusing. The bottle, the storm… there was something more. There had to be. A connection, a clue. The bottle had to mean something. But what?

  I blinked, shaking my head as if that would clear the haze.

  Suddenly, a sharp pull—a magnetic, invisible tug—snapped me out of my thoughts. I looked back down at the girl.

  She was the one who saved me. I realized.

  That strange power, the pull that I couldn't explain—it had to be connected to her. To whatever had happened just before I lost consciousness. But how?

  I swallowed hard, trying to push the overwhelming confusion out of my mind. There were too many questions, too many flashes of memory, too many things that didn’t add up.

  I stumbled back, catching myself with a hand pressed to the sand. My legs were shaking, my head spinning.

  Get a grip, Ronan. I thought desperately.

  The voice was still in my head, still playing the words over and over, and yet, nothing felt solid. Nothing felt real except for the feeling that something big had just happened. And that girl—whoever she was—was somehow tied to it.

  But… how was I supposed to piece this together?

  I glanced around, trying to orient myself, but the beach stretched out, empty and desolate. There was no sign of Elliott. No sign of anyone. Just me, standing over a girl who might have saved my life—or might just be a part of whatever strange fate I was caught up in.

  I let out a frustrated sigh.

  Come on, Ronan. Focus. I tried to ground myself, but everything felt too surreal. Every time I tried to latch onto a single thought, it slipped away. I couldn’t think straight—not with the storm still raging in my skull.

  And as if in answer to that thought, the world started spinning again. The dizziness crept up, faster than before. My legs buckled, and the pain in my skull flared once more.

  No, not again...

  I barely felt the sand beneath me as my vision went black again, the world tipping sideways. Before I fully lost consciousness, one last thought pierced through:

  I have to remember what happened.