Ankyra Sound he aims his pistol at the sky-

On the shoreline, walking high over the white crests, shrouded by the moon and the wind. This was what she had always loved of the very very few things she’d ever loved back in her home. The ocean, just as wild and ferocious as a fire. Unpredictable, liable to kill you at any point in time, to slam you wholeheartedly into rocky shores or toss you gleefully into the mouth of sharks.

Winifred forgot this. Overconfidence leaked from her very pores like saltwater leaked down the cliffs. The water made the rocks slick, she had learned well in her youth between busted lips and bruised chins, scoldings loud and shrieking.

She could almost hear it now, the shrieking. It was getting closer. Her head jerked up from the swagger of a walk, curving skyward. A bird, gold and resplendent as her siblings.

And that’s all it took.

A misstep, striding out onto rock that was not there. A peripheral illusion, the dark water melding into the rock seamlessly.

She didn’t get the chance to make a sound more than a punched out gasp as the world gave way beneath her, claws scrambling for purchase and not able to find it. She hit the turbulent winter ocean with a mighty crack, the waves spinning her in disorienting circles. Pain dug into her body, wrapping like the chords of a great jellyfish around her back legs, shredding strips of skin off her side where the wicked claws hooked.

The ocean repaid its dues in kind.

The world simply dissolved

only bubbles remained

And dawn broke. The ocean lapped at the wounds like a kitten, like a sibling trying to say I’m sorry, crooning it to ears that didn’t hear. It pushed her up onto the beach, rolling away to lap at what it could reach. It fell from her sides and her hips like a bridal train, twisted fibers curved around her legs and sprawling across the sand, harsh metal hooks dug deep into the flayed skin of her side and her back, barbs curving up through chunks to wedge deeper. Had she been conscious, perhaps she would have thought it painful. But she wasn’t conscious.

And she wouldn’t be for a while.