The sea, they say, offers solace. A vast, indifferent expanse that swallows grief as readily as it does the sun. After Clara, its ceaseless roar became my only companion, the rhythm of its waves a balm to the ragged edges of my soul. I’d retreated to this northernmost stretch of coastline, to a cottage perched precariously on a cliff overlooking a beach of stark, grey pebbles, where the wind was a constant, mournful presence. I sought emptiness, a canvas for reconstruction, but what I found was something far more profound, and far more terrifying.
It arrived with the dawn, not riding a storm, but gliding in on the tail of a perfectly calm night. I saw it from my study window, a dark smudge against the nascent lilac of the sky, bobbing gently in the shallow surf. An empty boat.
My first thought was concern. A fishing vessel, perhaps, broken free from its moorings? I grabbed my thick wool coat, the salty air already biting at my face, and made my way down the treacherous path to the beach. The sand, usually littered with kelp and the skeletal remains of crabs, seemed strangely clear that morning, as if swept clean by an unseen hand.
As I drew closer, the boat resolved itself into a small, undecked skiff, perhaps fifteen feet long. Its hull was a dull, sun-bleached grey, its wooden planks smooth, almost polished, by time and brine. There was no name painted on its bow or stern, no registration numbers, just the seamless, anonymous stretch of aged timber. A rusty anchor lay coiled neatly in the stern, a single oar rested against the thwarts, and a small, empty bait bucket sat perfectly upright on the floorboards. Everything in its place, yet utterly, unnervingly still.
I circled it, the crunch of my boots on the pebbles the only sound in the vast silence between the waves. No signs of struggle, no abandoned gear, no tattered nets. It wasn't derelict, not truly. It's simply… was. Washed up, yet seemingly without origin or purpose. The kind of flotsam you’d expect after a gale, not on a morning as placid as a pond. The air around it felt strangely still, almost dead, even as the wind tugged at my hair and clothing. A prickle of unease began, a faint tremor in the pit of my stomach. It wasn’t a lost boat. It felt like something deliberately placed.
For a long while, I simply stared. My mind, usually a chaotic storm of memories and words, found itself utterly blank. The boat held a peculiar kind of power, drawing my gaze, compelling an almost reverent silence. Who had owned it? Where had they gone? The questions hung in the air, unanswered, unanswerable. I debated contacting the coastguard, but a strange reluctance held me back. How would I describe it? An anonymous, empty boat that evoked a sense of profound wrongness? They’d think me mad, or at best, eccentric. So I left it, its silent presence a gnawing question mark on the edge of my consciousness.
The next few days blurred into an uneasy vigil. Each morning, I would descend to the beach, half-expecting the boat to be gone, reclaimed by the tide or salvaged by some keen-eyed local. But it never moved. Not an inch. It sat there, defiant in its stillness, its emptiness growing more palpable with each sunrise. I found myself drawn to it, walking circles around its silent hull, examining every plank, every crevice. There was nothing. No secreted message, no forgotten trinket, no tell-tale scratch that might hint at a violent past. It was a vessel designed for absence.
I tried to rationalise it. A fisherman on holiday, perhaps? A joyrider who’d run aground and abandoned his craft? But the sea here was rarely forgiving; abandoned boats usually bore the scars of a struggle. This boat, however, looked as if it had simply stopped. And waited.
The strange phenomena began subtly, almost imperceptibly. My dog, Barnaby, a scruffy terrier mix notorious for his boundless curiosity, would stop dead in his tracks a good fifty yards from the boat, whimpering softly before turning tail and bolting back to the cottage. He’d never done anything like it. Then there were the birds. The gulls, usually raucous and scavenging, gave the boat a wide berth. They would swoop and cry further down the beach, but never above or even near the silent skiff. It was as if an invisible barrier, a zone of quietude, emanated from its hull.
My sleep became fractured. Dreams of a fathomless ocean, of being adrift in a small, empty vessel, a profound, aching loneliness my only companion. I’d wake in a cold sweat, the silence of my room overwhelming, and find myself staring at the dark rectangle of my window, half-expecting to see the boat drifting closer, closer.
One afternoon, a thick, damp fog rolled in from the sea, blanketing the coast in a spectral shroud. Visibility dropped to mere feet. It was the kind of weather that made the world feel small, dangerous, and utterly isolated. Despite the chill that seeped into my bones, I felt an inexplicable compulsion to visit the boat.
I stumbled across the pebbles, guided by the mournful blast of the distant lighthouse horn. The boat materialised out of the mist, ghost-like and imposing. It seemed larger, somehow, more dominant. The dull grey of its planks looked almost black in the gloom, and the air around it felt even colder, a deep, pervasive chill that gnawed at my marrow. I noticed something new. The sand beneath and around the boat was oddly dark, almost saturated, despite the receding tide. It wasn't seaweed, just darker sand. And a faint, cloying scent, like stagnant water mixed with something vaguely metallic, hung heavy in the air.
Driven by a growing, morbid curiosity, I stepped closer. My hand, trembling slightly, reached out to touch the smooth, cold wood. It was colder than the ambient temperature, unreasonably so. As my fingers made contact, a whisper, faint and dry as rustling leaves, seemed to brush against my ear. It spoke no words, just an impression of sound, a sigh of infinite weariness. I snatched my hand back, my heart hammering against my ribs. My imagination, I told myself, a trick of the fog and the relentless isolation.
But as I turned to leave, I saw it. A single footprint, unnaturally deep, pressed into the darker sand near the boat's stern. It was too large to be mine, too distinct to be a random mark. And it led away from the boat, a sharp, clear impression heading towards the swirling mist and the impassable cliff face, before simply vanishing. As if whatever made it had stepped out of the boat, taken a single stride, and dissolved into nothingness.
Panic, cold and sharp, pierced through my forced calm. I scrambled back to the cottage, the image of that lone footprint burned into my mind. I locked the door, drew the curtains, and spent the rest of the day hunched by the fire, a bottle of cheap whiskey my only comfort. Elias, I thought, you are unravelling. The grief for Clara has finally consumed your mind.
Yet, the boat remained. And with each passing day, its subtle shifts became more pronounced, more disturbing. The dark sand around it began to spread, a slow, insidious stain seeping outwards, always damp, always cold. And the silence around it deepened, becoming oppressive, absolute. I saw a dead gull one morning, lying on the pebbles a few yards from the boat, perfectly intact, but with eyes that seemed utterly devoid of life, staring blankly at the indifferent sky. It felt hollowed out.
I stopped going to the beach. I tried to ignore it, to simply pretend it wasn't there. But from my window, it was a constant, malevolent presence, a dark, unblinking eye on the horizon. My sleep became non-existent. The dreams intensified, becoming less about being adrift and more about being pulled. Pulled into an unimaginable void, a place of utter nothingness where even the memory of Clara’s face began to fray at the edges.
One night, a full moon hung like a silver coin in a sky of bruised purple, casting an unnatural, stark light across the landscape. I hadn't slept in days, fuelled by coffee and a growing terror. I stood at my window, staring at the boat. Tonight, it seemed to glow faintly, an ethereal luminescence radiating from its hull. And then I heard it. A faint creaking. Not the usual groan of wood settling, but a rhythmic, deliberate sound, like the boat was flexing, breathing.
My heart pounded with a terrible, primal fear. I knew, with an absolute certainty that transcended reason, that I had to go. Not to investigate, not to discover, but to face it. The boat was calling. Or perhaps, it was simply waiting for me.
I descended the cliff path, the lunar landscape bathed in an eerie, silver light. The air was frigid, cutting, but I felt no cold, only a strange, electric hum beneath my skin. The dark sand around the boat had spread further, now a vast, circular stain of midnight black against the grey pebbles. It glittered faintly under the moonlight, like powdered obsidian. As I stepped onto its edge, the peculiar cold intensified, sucking the warmth from my body, leaving me numb.
The creaking grew louder, a slow, deliberate rhythm that resonated in my bones. It was coming from inside the boat. I peered over the gunwale. The interior was still empty – the coiled rope, the single oar, the bait bucket. But they still weren't. They vibrated, subtly, with the creaking. And then I saw it.
On the floorboards, glistening darkly in the moonlight, was a pool of water. Not seawater, but something thicker, darker, reflecting the moon like liquid mercury. And within it, slowly, impossibly, an impression was forming. A footprint, identical to the one I’d seen in the fog, but this one was appearing from within the liquid, as if something was slowly, painfully, rising from it.
My breath hitched in my throat. I couldn’t move. I was rooted to the spot, compelled to watch this impossible genesis. The impression deepened, solidified, and then slowly, agonisingly, another impression began to form beside it. And then another. And another. A faint, sickening smell, like old blood and the bottom of the ocean, wafted from the boat, filling my lungs.
The creaking reached a crescendo, a final, wrenching groan of tortured wood. And then, silence. Absolute, profound, suffocating silence.
The dark, mercurial liquid in the boat was now still. But it wasn't just reflecting the moonlight any more. It was reflecting me. Not my current self, ravaged by fear and sleeplessness, but a younger me, vibrant and alive, standing next to Clara, her hand in mine, laughing joyous and carefree. A memory, perfectly preserved, perfectly whole.
And then, slowly, the reflection began to fade. Not just my image, but Clara’s too. Their faces blurred, their smiles softened, their colours drained, as if being leached away by an invisible sponge. The vibrant memory became a pale, washed-out ghost, then a faint, indistinct blur, and finally, just the dark, shimmering surface of the liquid. The boat had consumed a memory, a part of my very being.
A cold, hollow laugh escaped my lips, devoid of humour, full of a terrible understanding. The boat wasn't empty. It was a vessel for emptiness. It drew in life, warmth, memory, leaving only the husk. It had come not seeking a passenger, but a sustenance. It had come for me.
A terrible weariness, deeper than any exhaustion I had ever known, settled upon me. My legs felt like lead, my mind a fog. I stumbled forward, drawn by an irresistible force, and without conscious thought, hoisted myself over the gunwale and into the boat. My feet landed in the dark, cold liquid. It instantly sucked the warmth from my skin, a thousand tiny needles pricking my soles.
I looked at the opposite gunwale, at the single oar. It beckoned. With slow, clumsy movements, I reached for it, my fingers brushing against the cold, smooth wood. It felt impossibly heavy. As I gripped it, a final, perfect image flashed in my mind: Clara’s eyes, full of love, a single tear tracing a path down her cheek. And then, even that faded, consumed, leaving behind a blank, echoing void.
I was empty. Truly, utterly empty. The pain, the grief, the fear are all gone. Only a profound, chilling peace remained.
I sat down on the thwart, the oar across my lap. The creaking began again, a soft, rhythmic lullaby. The boat stirred, gently, almost imperceptibly, against the dark, dark sand. The moonlight glinted on the water, no longer reflecting anything.
And then, it began to move. Slowly, patiently, it turned its bow towards the vast, dark ocean, beckoning, waiting. My last thought, before the ocean’s embrace claimed what little was left of me, was a single, chilling realisation: The boat was never meant to wash up. It was meant to set sail. And I was its new, empty cargo.
The next morning, the sun broke through the clouds, painting the sky with streaks of rose and gold. The beach was empty. The dark stain on the sand had vanished, leaving only the ordinary, grey pebbles. And in the shallow surf, bobbing gently, lay a small, undocked skiff. Its hull was a dull, sun-bleached grey, its wooden planks smooth, almost polished. A rusty anchor lay coiled neatly in the stern, a single oar rested against the thwarts, and a small, empty bait bucket sat perfectly upright on the floorboards. Everything in its place, yet utterly, unnervingly still.
And empty. Waiting.
-|The End