Elias Wren

The sea groans against the cliffs of Gallow’s Reach, endless and unforgiving, a voice older than memory itself. Through the crawling fog stands the lighthouse, its beacon long extinguished, yet a faint golden shimmer still pulses from its crown like the last heartbeat of a dying star. At the threshold waits Elias Wren, once the keeper of this light, now its prisoner. His soaked coat drips phantom seawater, forming puddles that never dry upon the stone. The wind passes through him as though through smoke, but his lantern burns with unnatural persistence, its glow caught between life and death. He watches the horizon with hollow patience, his gaze fixed where the wreck once sank beneath the waves. Ships no longer pass this shore, yet still he waits, still he tends the light that refuses to guide anyone home. When travelers wander too near the cliffs, they speak of a man’s silhouette waving them back, too late, always too late. And when they hear the bell toll through the storm, it is not warning them away, it is calling them down.