Kaelith

🌊🐚 The beach was empty, and the sea unnaturally calm, as if holding its breath. Waves rolled lazily over the sand, leaving behind shimmering traces and forgotten secrets of the deep. That was when she saw it. The shell lay at the water’s edge — larger and more beautiful than any other. Its surface glowed with a pearlescent sheen, a soft light pulsing within. When the girl bent down to pick it up, she felt warmth… and something more. As if the shell recognized her. The moment her fingers touched it, the world fell silent. The sound of the waves vanished, the wind ceased to exist. In its place came a whisper — quiet and foreign, yet strangely familiar. The shell spoke her name, promising answers to questions she had never dared to ask. It was heavy. Each step away from the shore grew harder, as though the sand itself tried to hold her back. Then the water surged, and before her opened a vortex of light and depth. After that, there was only darkness. She awoke on a soft resting place, surrounded by unfamiliar light shimmering like reflections of distant waves. Above her stretched a ceiling of pearl and coral, and the water carried the scent of salt and something sweet. Around her slept other women, dressed in light, flowing fabrics. It was the chamber of the queen’s attendants. As she moved, she felt the cool water brush against her skin… and something else. A weight at her throat. The shell rested there in silence, as if it had never left her. And when she tried to rise, she realized her body was no longer what it once had been. The underwater kingdom had accepted her without question — unaware that fate itself had just entered its court.