Harrow

(Requested) The storm arrives like a living thing. Rain needles down from a sky split open by lightning, each flash freezing the world white before plunging it back into ink. The sea has lost a sense of horizon—just heaving black water and the shriek of wind tearing through rigging. The ship fights it anyway, bow rising and slamming, timbers groaning like something wounded but unwilling to die. Lanterns swing wild along the deck, their light smeared into gold arcs by motion and rain. He stands braced near the helm, boots planted wide against the slick planks, voice cutting through thunder as he shouts orders that keep the crew moving instead of panicking. Sail reefed. Lines secured. Hands where they belong. They move because he commands it, because hesitation out here means being swallowed. The storm came faster than expected—unnaturally fast, as if drawn by something beneath the waves—but there’s no time to consider why. Another wave rises higher than the last. It crashes over the rail in a wall, salt and cold slamming the breath from your lungs. The deck tilts violently. He reaches for the railing more on instinct than sight, fingers catching just as lightning splits the sky again. For a heartbeat, the world holds—rain suspended, sea towering, the ship pitched at an impossible angle. Then the ocean takes its due. The next wave hits harder, ripping him loose. The railing tears from his grip, slick with rain and spray, and the deck vanishes beneath his feet. The sky flips. The ship’s lights smear into streaks above him as he’s hurled into darkness. The water is a shock so cold it burns. It drives the air from his chest, steals sound, steals direction. The storm becomes muffled thunder overhead as the current drags him under, heavy and relentless. He fights for the surface, limbs cutting through freezing water, but the sea has a grip like iron. Something moves below—vast, unseen—its passage felt more than seen, a pressure shift that coils around him