Tides of the Moon

The winds shifted, carrying a chill that clung to the skin as Divine stood by the shoreline of the darkened sea. The tide moved unnaturally, its rhythm uneven, like a heartbeat on the brink of chaos. Her bare feet sank into the wet sand, and for the first time since arriving in this strange world, she felt the ocean reject her.

"Why does it feel so wrong?" she murmured to herself. The moonlight bathed her face, yet its light no longer brought comfort—it was dimmer, distant, like a faded memory.

Caelan, leaning casually against a nearby rock, watched her. "It's responding to you," he said quietly.

Divine turned to him, her brows furrowed. "What do you mean?"

"The ocean is tied to your emotions. When you're conflicted, it mirrors you," Caelan explained. He stepped closer, his voice soft but firm. "The problem is, you don't understand your connection to it yet. That's why it's unstable."

Her gaze dropped to the water, which now swirled in unnatural spirals. "If this is part of me… then why do I feel like I don't belong?"

Caelan hesitated before responding, his expression shadowed by something unreadable. "Because you've forgotten who you are, Divine. And until you remember, you'll keep feeling this way."

Before she could press further, the waves surged forward, crashing at her feet with an almost deliberate force. Divine stumbled back, startled. The tide retreated as quickly as it had advanced, leaving behind something glittering in the sand—a fragment of a shell, shimmering faintly under the moonlight.

Divine knelt to pick it up. As her fingers brushed against it, a sharp jolt coursed through her, and a vision struck her mind like lightning.

She was standing on a grand cliff, the ocean roaring beneath her. The moon above was impossibly large, casting its light upon a vast palace that seemed to grow from the very sea itself. In her hand was a glowing jar, brimming with light that pulsed like a heartbeat.

A voice echoed in her mind: "The jar must be filled. Only then can balance be restored."

The vision faded, leaving Divine breathless and clutching the shell fragment tightly.