Chapter Nine
ONCE UPON THE PACIFIC
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CHAPTER NINE: THROUGH TEMPEST & TIME
The map had gone blank.
One minute, the crimson lines glowed under moonlight like veins on parchment — the next, it was a void. Washed clean.
Erased.
But the sea… the sea was far from silent.
It roared.
It howled.
It remembered.
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Milo gripped the wheel, his knuckles white with salt and fear.
Rain lashed his face, the sky now ink-black and flickering with blue veins of lightning. The compass spun wildly — no North, no sense, just chaos.
But through it all… he heard her.
Eliora.
> "You're close, Milo… but not yet."
He screamed her name into the wind —
No reply.
Only time breaking loose.
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FLASHBACK (OR IS IT?):
He's 19 again. Standing on the dock.
Eliora is laughing, barefoot, drenched from the rain, holding his face like the world wasn't crumbling around them.
> "Promise me," she had whispered. "Even when time forgets us… you won't."
Then she kissed him — and vanished.
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Back to Now.
The boat trembled violently — as if trying to buck him off.
The sea beneath turned mirror-like — and in it, he saw himself… and behind him, a younger version of him, smiling beside Eliora.
He blinked.
Gone.
The storm cracked open the sky. And Milo fell.
He hit the deck. Hard.
For a second — nothing.
And then everything.
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TIME WARP:
He opened his eyes to a sky he didn't recognize — copper-tinted clouds, two moons above, no stars.
The sea was still, but the boat was gone.
He stood on water.
Or was it memory?
All around him, fragments of his past floated like glass shards — the night they danced in Havana, the day he buried the antique locket, the first time he saw her in yellow.
And then… a storm again.
But this time, it came from within.
> "You must let go… or drown."
The voice wasn't Eliora's.
It was his own.
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The Test
The tides pulled hard — dragging him toward a whirlpool of flashing memories, blinding light, and deafening whispers.
He screamed, thrashed — but then…
He remembered.
Her hand, reaching for his in that last moment. The warmth. The love. The silence after she was gone.
He closed his eyes.
And let go.
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The Calm
When he opened them, the storm was gone.
So was the sea.
He stood on damp sand, alone, drenched, the air thick with fog and the scent of forgotten things.
And ahead, rising from the mist…
The Lost Island.
The one from the sketches. The one she always described in dreams.
The one he never thought was real.
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End of Chapter Nine
To be continued....
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