The Eclipsing Tide
The eclipse began over the Pacific Ocean.
News stations treated it like a beautiful celestial event at first, broadcasting countdowns and tourist coverage from beaches across the world while millions gathered beneath darkening skies to watch the moon slowly swallow the sun. Cities celebrated. Cruise ships hosted eclipse parties. Scientists discussed atmospheric changes and rare shadow effects across oceans.
Nobody understood what was actually happening beneath the water.
But the survivors of Blackwater Island felt it immediately.
Three days before the eclipse reached totality, Kai woke abruptly at 3:17 in the morning with seawater dripping from his ceiling despite living on the fifteenth floor of an apartment building hundreds of kilometers from the coast. He stumbled into the kitchen half asleep expecting a broken pipe only to freeze when he saw wet footprints leading across the floor toward his balcony doors.
Bare footprints.
Small ones.
Like a child’s.
God.
The glass balcony doors stood slightly open despite Kai distinctly remembering locking them earlier that night. Beyond them, the city skyline glowed beneath storm clouds while rain hammered softly across distant rooftops.
And somewhere far below the city traffic—
he heard singing.
Not loud.
Not fully audible.
Just enough.
Ancient voices moving beneath the rain like something hidden underneath the world had started breathing again.
Selene called him less than two minutes later.
Neither of them even bothered pretending the timing was coincidence anymore.
“It’s getting stronger,” she whispered immediately after Kai answered.
Her voice sounded terrified.
Kai sat slowly on the edge of his bed staring toward the wet footprints still visible across his apartment floor.
“I know.”
Another silence passed between them.
Exhausted.
Heavy.
Then Selene finally asked the question both of them dreaded.
“Do you think Nora’s still holding it back?”
God.
Kai didn’t know anymore.
For three years he convinced himself the Deep Choir remained stable beneath the sea because Nora stayed there willingly maintaining the seal around the Abyss Gate. But Elias’s tape changed everything. The Choir weakened naturally over time. The gate was never truly closed forever.
Which meant eventually—
Nora would fail.
Or worse.
Become something else entirely.
The first disappearances started the same week.
Tourists vanished near coastlines during eclipse festivals in Japan, Chile, Iceland, and New Zealand. A fishing village in northern Norway reported hearing “choirs underwater” before seventeen residents walked silently into the sea during low tide. Videos surfaced online showing strange blue light beneath harbors moments before boats lost communication offshore.
Governments blamed mass panic and internet misinformation.
But Kai knew better.
The Deep Choir was stirring again.
And this time—
it wasn’t only Blackwater Reef.
The ocean itself had become infected by the song.
Four days before the eclipse, Kai and Selene traveled to the Oregon coastline after receiving coordinates hidden within Elias’s cassette recording. The location led them to an abandoned lighthouse standing alone against black cliffs above a violent gray sea. Rain crashed sideways across the rocks while massive waves exploded below the shoreline beneath gathering storm clouds.
The lighthouse door already stood open when they arrived.
God.
That somehow frightened Kai more than if it had been locked.
Inside, the air smelled heavily of saltwater and old paper. Rusted marine maps covered the walls alongside dozens of handwritten notes pinned desperately across every surface. Most contained sketches of ocean trenches, eclipse paths, and acoustic wave patterns stretching across different regions of the world.
But the center wall terrified Kai most.
A massive world map covered in red circles.
Blackwater Reef was only one of them.
There were dozens.
Ancient deep-sea trenches scattered across the planet, all connected by strange markings and notes written in Elias’s frantic handwriting.
GATES
Selene slowly stepped backward after reading it.
“No…”
Elias emerged from the upper staircase before either of them could say anything else.
He looked far older than three years should allow. His beard had turned almost completely gray while dark veins spread faintly beneath the skin near his neck like bruises hidden under flesh. Yet his eyes remained sharp despite the exhaustion hollowing his face.
“You came,” he whispered quietly.
Kai stared at him in disbelief. “You’re alive.”
“For now.”
The answer came too quickly.
God.
Something about Elias felt wrong now.
Not infected exactly.
But touched.
Like years spent listening to the ocean had changed him permanently.
Rain thundered outside the lighthouse windows while Elias slowly approached the map.
“The eclipse weakens the Choir,” he explained softly. “Ancient tides react to celestial alignment. They always have.” His expression darkened. “During totality, the gates become easier to hear from below.”
Selene crossed her arms tightly against herself. “How many gates are there?”
Elias looked toward the map.
“We found thirteen.”
Silence.
Kai physically rubbed both hands over his face. “There are thirteen abyss gates on Earth?”
“Probably more.”
Fantastic.
Another wave crashed violently against the cliffs outside while thunder rolled across the coastline.
Then suddenly every radio inside the lighthouse burst alive at once.
Static screamed through the room.
Kai flinched instantly.
And beneath the static—
came singing.
Low.
Ancient.
Growing louder.
Selene visibly went pale. “No.”
Elias slowly looked toward the dark ocean outside the lighthouse windows.
“It’s beginning early.”
The static deepened.
Then a familiar voice emerged softly through every radio speaker in the lighthouse.
“Nora…”
Kai physically stopped breathing.
Not because the voice sounded like Nora.
Because it WAS Nora.
Weak.
Distant.
Like someone singing beneath miles of ocean water.
Then the radios crackled again.
And Nora whispered something that froze all three of them completely.
“The Choir is drowning.”