The fog rolled in before dawn, thick as a held secret. It swallowed the pier’s last lantern, then the rowboat, then the gulls’ cries. At low tide, something emerged from the sand — not driftwood, not kelp, but a locked chest crusted with barnacles and older than the town’s oldest lie.
By noon, the tide had reclaimed the chest. The fog lifted like a curtain. But the lighthouse keeper swore he saw two sets of footprints leading into the sea — and only one set coming back. seaside mystery
That night, every window facing the bay fogged over from the inside. And if you pressed your ear to the glass, you could hear breathing — slow, patient, salted — from somewhere deep beneath the waves. The fog rolled in before dawn, thick as a held secret