Reincarnated As Poseidon

The storm had passed.

Or so the mortals thought.

The ruined city still bore its scars—streets cracked by salt, walls bowed inward from the weight of tides, survivors huddled in rooftops praying to gods who no longer answered. And yet the sea was unnervingly calm. Clear. As if it had retreated into silence.

But Melissa knew better.

She stood ankle-deep in the flooded streets, her dress clinging to her like a second skin, her amber eyes scanning the horizon. The gulls had not returned. The fish had vanished from nets. The harbor smelled not of brine and salt, but of something heavier—divinity.

She whispered under her breath, "He's still here."

Not Dominic. Not the fractured boy she once thought she knew. But Poseidon—risen, awakened, unstoppable.

And Melissa, daughter of no throne, no god, no legacy, found herself caught in the center of the tide.

When the waters first rose, she should have fled. Every instinct told her to leave the city, to run inland with the rest of the survivors. But the whispers wouldn't let her. They had started weeks before the drowned bell tolled. Soft at first, like the sound of waves in a seashell. Then stronger, words laced into dreams.

Melissa.

Melissa, child of shore.

She had tried to ignore them. She had prayed. She had begged. But the whispers only grew. And then, when the sea itself entered the city, the whispers became a song.

And the song spoke of him.

Poseidon.

But it wasn't just a call. It was a command.

When Melissa found him, he was not a god upon a throne. He was a shadow at the water's edge, a figure half-lit by moonlight, his presence bending the flood around him.

"Poseidon," she whispered.

His eyes opened—twin abysses, vast and ancient, yet carrying a faint human trace. He studied her, not as a man studies a woman, but as the sea studies the shore—measuring, claiming, reshaping.

"You heard it," he said, voice like a tide pressing into stone.

Melissa trembled. "The song."

"It is not a song," Poseidon replied, stepping forward. The water rippled outward, yet her feet remained dry where he walked. "It is the truth of the deep. Few mortals hear it. Fewer survive it. You… are chosen."

The word struck her harder than the flood itself. Chosen.

She shook her head. "I'm no priestess. No oracle. I don't even know why—"

"Because the sea remembers," Poseidon interrupted, his gaze sharp. "You carry its blood, though not purely. A lineage once erased by the council. Forgotten, but not lost."

Melissa's chest tightened. She wanted to demand answers—lineage, council, forgotten bloodlines—but the god's eyes silenced her.

"Stay near me," Poseidon commanded. "The gods will come. And when they do, your role will begin."

Her role. The words were chains and freedom at once.

Days later, when the council finally sent their emissaries, Melissa understood why Poseidon had bound her fate to his.

Three lesser deities descended—not the great Olympians, but their servants. One bore a spear of coral, another a staff of storms, the last a whip of silver kelp. Their task was simple: test the drowned god's return.

The battle that followed split the harbor anew. Waves crashed against waves, winds screamed through drowned alleys, lightning carved scars into water. Poseidon fought not like a god reclaiming dominion, but like the tide itself—endless, unbroken, inevitable.

And yet it was Melissa who turned the fight.

The emissaries' weapons, forged in the divine realm, were meant to pierce immortality. When one spear struck true, Melissa moved. Not knowing why. Not thinking. Her hands reached for the shaft, and the moment she touched it, the coral cracked like brittle glass.

The emissary faltered, confusion breaking divine arrogance. Poseidon's strike followed, drowning the god in a surge that dragged him screaming into the depths.

Melissa's hands bled. Her body shook. But Poseidon's eyes lingered on her—not with gratitude, but with recognition.

"You are more than chosen," he murmured. "You are key."

While Poseidon pressed deeper into the mortal world, Olympus stirred above.

From their crystal thrones, they had watched the drowned bell, the floods, the emissaries' failure. Now whispers spread through divine halls.

Melissa's name reached their lips.

A mortal who shattered divine coral. A woman who stood beside the drowned god.

"She is his anchor," declared Athena, her voice sharp as bronze. "Cut her, and the tide falters."

Zeus's voice thundered. "If Poseidon has found a mortal link, then we sever it. Bring her to Olympus. Alive or broken—it matters not."

The decree spread like lightning across the heavens.

Melissa's life was no longer her own.

---

The Choice

Back at the ruins, Melissa sat on the seawall, her reflection shivering in the moonlit water. Her hands still bore faint scars where the coral spear had broken. She touched them absently, her thoughts swirling.

Poseidon appeared silently beside her. No ripple, no warning. Just there, as though the sea itself had chosen his place.

"They've noticed me," Melissa said quietly.

"They've noticed us," Poseidon corrected.

Her chest tightened again. "Then I'll die."

His gaze softened, just slightly. "Or you will live, long enough to see the sea reshape Olympus itself."

Melissa turned to him, searching his face. There was power, yes—endless, terrifying power. But beneath it, there was something else. A grief older than storms. A loneliness vaster than oceans.

And she realized why the sea had called her.

It wasn't only her bloodline. It wasn't only the key Poseidon needed.

It was because he, a god reborn, needed a witness. A tether.

And Melissa, foolish mortal though she was, had chosen to stay when the tide rose.

She swallowed, her voice shaking but steady. "Then I'll stand with you. Even if Olympus itself comes for me."

Poseidon's abyssal eyes glowed faintly. He reached out, his hand brushing her scarred fingers. Not tenderly. Not romantically. But like a god sealing a pact.

"Then the sea and shore are bound."

The waves lapped higher, whispering against the stones. Somewhere deep below, the drowned god stirred. Olympus's decree burned bright above. And Melissa's path, once ordinary, was forever tied to Poseidon's storm.

The tide had chosen her.

And now, there would be no turning back.