Story 1015: The Lighthouse of No Tomorrow

The sea screamed louder than the dead.

As the shattered boat scraped onto the black rocks, Esmé Dreadmoor stood unmoving, staring at the solitary lighthouse ahead. It flickered with an eerie green glow, pulsing like a heartbeat. The sky above churned with thunder, but no rain fell—only ash.

The island was not on any map. Solomon had found it etched on the spine of a drowned sailor. It wasn’t supposed to exist… yet here it stood, wrapped in salt and whispers.

“This is the place,” muttered Mister Vex, brushing barnacles from his coat. “Where time drowns.”

They climbed the narrow path. Bones littered the shore—seagulls with hollow eyes, sailors twisted in mid-scream, their bodies caught in loops of time. One man kept drowning every few seconds, face vanishing beneath invisible water.

Talia sketched in silence. Her page began to weep ink.

Inside the lighthouse, reality shifted.