Page 3 of Storm and Sea

So, Atreus moved his few belongings to the top of the lighthouse, where only a broken beacon kept him company.

“He didn’t leave. He abandoned you.

Couldn’t wait to leave behind

his pathetic excuse of a son.

You weren’t worth staying for.”

A voice whispered in his mind. Not his voice, or at least, he didn’t think it was. It didn’t feel like his. But it was in his head, so what else could it be?

“Your father couldn’t get away fast enough.

You were nothing to him⁠—

just a dead weight he couldn’t wait to drop.

You’re not worth anything.

You never were.”

Atreus shook his head as though the words were an insect buzzing in his ear. He scolded himself for letting wayward memories crawl from the shallow grave where he’d buried them. This place was a ghost of his youth, and he would gladly leave it behind.

Yet, it still served a purpose. The house acted as an effective deterrent for thrill-seeking humans who occasionally invaded his island. Most of the time, they didn’t brave the ‘haunted’ lighthouse, but on the rare occasions they did, they never made it past the first floor. Atreus wrecked the place into a state that promised only the most morbid hauntings.

He was quite proud of his handiwork, with broken shards of glass littering the floor (away from his walking path) and the deliberately placed smears of blood in the shape of handprints. He’d used fish’s blood to set the scene and was happy with the result. Nobody would bother him here. Nobody would discover the creature that haunted the lighthouse.

“The freak not even a father could love.”

Atreus silently exited his home, feet sinking into the soft carpet of grass that finally bloomed after a long winter of frozen ground. The scent of a storm wafted into his nose, promising one hell of a battle between the sea and sky.

“Why did you have to come now?” Atreus cursed at the mass of gray swirling above him.

If the rain didn’t stop before tomorrow…

He shook his head, not allowing the thought to manifest. The storm would pass in time.

It had to.

Atreus filled his lungs to full capacity, tasting the spray of the sea. It was his favorite smell in the world—the salt, the untamable force of nature, the birthplace of life itself.

When Atreus was one with the sea, he was whole.

He allowed gravity to guide him over the cliff, eyes closed, relishing the whoosh of air as he dove. He fell, and the sea welcomed him home. The cool water stung his human flesh, but only for a moment. Because within the span of a heartbeat, Marvassa took his body.

The change.

The ability to transform from one state to another with the caress of water. Human skin evolved into a mosaic of scales and fins in less than a second. As he immersed himself in the frigid sea, Atreus’s body relaxed, shifting from a warm-blooded land-dweller to a cold-blooded creature born of the ocean. An extra weight materialized in his lower back. Atreus flexed his powerful tail, fins rising in a display of sharp spines and hooked barbs. A shiver rippled through him as he reclaimed his true self.

Atreus was Mer.

He kicked at the water, marveling at how his webbed feet sliced through it with far more efficiency than his stubby human toes ever could. The sensation reminded him of the legless fountain in Baia Vita’s town center. Humans knew of Mer only through myths and cautionary tales; creatures conjured from their imaginations rather than reality. The fountain depicted a Donna del Mare—a supposed sea goddess—with the upper body of a voluptuous woman and a single fishtail forming her lower half. Atreus had to suppress a laugh the first time he saw the sculpture. She was supposed to be regal and mysterious, but to him, she looked more like a manatee with hair.

Luckily, Atreus retained all four of his limbs upon transformation—but he did gain a powerful tail, so at least that part of the legend was accurate.

He ran his tongue over pointed teeth, enjoying the feel of elongated incisors behind his lips. Humans, with their flat teeth, relied on tools to hunt. They lacked the sharp claws and barbed fins that made Atreus deadly. Not only was their eyesight poor in the dark, but they were completely useless beneath the water.

He’d once seen Leo return from a swim with red, puffy eyes. That was when Atreus learned that humans kept their eyes closed underwater to avoid the stinging salt. The idea baffled him. Worst of all was how often Leo had to surface. Atreus’s best friend remained below the surface for only two minutes before coming up for air.