The Apex Leviathan fell.
Not like a creature. Not like a beast.
Like a judgnt.
It crashed into the ocean with such force that the world moved. I couldn’t even tell how far. The ship tilted, groaned, skidded across the water like a leaf caught in a god’s breath. My knees buckled. The sky trembled. And the sea bent around her like it had no choice.
She had ascended.
Now she had returned.
And this ti, she was coming for us.
She would leap again—I could feel it in the sea’s rhythm. Not rage. Not hunger. Just the will of a thing born to consu. And when she ca down next, she would not miss. The ship, the ritual, the bones, the blood... all of it would be devoured.
And that was exactly what I needed.
This was their funeral.
The one I planned for the girls.
Not with flowers. Not with prayers.
With blood and bone and gods that still listened—if only to destroy.
I stood at the ritual site one last ti.
"You were born in the waters." I said quietly, the words dragged out like breath from a dying lung. "Waters that never made room for the weak."
They weren’t tears in my eyes. Not really. Just the sting of salt and mory.
"You lived by these waters. Struggled through currents that only punished. And you died in them. Because this world hated souls like yours—souls that dread."
I looked at the bones. At the hearts that still beat in their cradles. At the remnants of what they once were.
"And now..." I took in a breath. It hurt. "Now I give you back to it. To the water. To the Leviathan who rules it. May she take you farther than I ever could."
I gave the ritual a final glance. Checked every placent, every angle. The bones were aligned. The circle unbroken. The blood still fresh.
Everything was ready.
All it needed now... was to be swallowed.
I turned to them one more ti—the girls. The broken. The left behind.
And I clutched the locket.
Just a trinket. Just a fragnt of tal. But to , it was everything. It was hers. The red-haired girl. The one whose body I never found. The one who never got even a scrap to call hers in death.
"This is all I can do." I whispered. "Forgive ... if it’s not enough."
Maybe it was stupid. Maybe it was madness.
But it was all I had left.
I walked to the cannon. My stupid escape plan.
I loaded it with gunpowder—far more than it was ever ant to hold. Then I jamd a thick tal slab down into it. A buffer. A crude shield. Enough to stop the blast from turning my body into ash. Maybe.
And then, I climbed in.
Feet first.
I felt my legs wedge tight into the barrel. Cold tal against blood-ward skin.
This was the kind of decision you didn’t co back from.
Unless you had blood like mine.
I lit the fuse. The slow kind. A thick strand of cord that hissed and spat like it knew what was coming. I could hear the ship creak as it leaned further. The sea moved differently now.
And I felt it.
The Apex was coming.
Her mouth opened.
I couldn’t see it. But I felt it. The way the air shifted. The sudden vacuum in the wind. The pull of gravity—not down, but forward, toward her.
She wasn’t just going to consu the ship.
She was going to erase it.
Swallow the ritual whole. Take the girls. Take the bones. Take the sin.
And I...?
I took my arms and head out of the cannon.
One hand still gripped the locket.
I didn’t care what happened to my body. I didn’t care if I shattered into a thousand pieces. The blood could fix that. Rebuild. Stitch. Burn and seal.
But the locket?
That couldn’t be remade.
That was sacred.
That was holy to .
So I held it close, cradled in my palm like a fragile soul.
The fuse burned closer. The tal vibrated beneath . The sea scread.
And in that mont, just before the shot, just before the world split in two, I looked out over the water.
And I saw it all.
The ritual. The ship. The bones.
The girls.
Their dreams.
Their deaths.
Their silence.
And above them—her.
The Leviathan.
Mouth open. Shadow cast.
The world’s inevitable end.
And I sighed.
"Fate." I muttered to the sky. "You really don’t miss, do you?"
The fuse hit the chamber.
The cannon roared.
My body was flung into the sky, through smoke, through pressure, through the jaws of the world.
And beneath , the Apex Leviathan swallowed it all.
The ship.
The ritual.
The girls.
And maybe, just maybe—she would carry them farther than I ever could.
You really are Inevitable, aren’t you fate?
Reviews
All reviews (0)