The sea was wrong. That was the first thing Emily noticed as she stood barefoot on the damp porch, the salt wind wrapping around her like a whisper. It wasn’t the color or the tide—it was the silence. The waves lapped without rhythm, like something breathing too slowly. Down the shoreline, patches of bioluminescent algae shimmered in pulses that didn’t match the moon’s pull. She’d come here to fix things—to reconnect with Randall, to escape noise, stress, civilization. But nature had its own script, and it was already rewriting hers.
Inside, the air had turned thick. The other couple—Mitch and Jane—had stopped talking hours ago, their words lost to the strange lethargy that filled the house like a fog. Randall paced, distracted, muttering about how it all felt like a dream. But dreams don’t sting your lungs. Dreams don’t rot the skin beneath your fingernails. Emily stared at her reflection, skin flushed and eyes rimmed with pink. Something was blooming inside her. Something she didn’t remember letting in. And outside, the waterline crawled higher.
The infection—or the evolution—didn’t come with screams. It was a surrender. First the body softened, then the mind. Jane wandered into the surf at dawn, her silhouette glowing faintly under the rising sun, hair unraveling like kelp. Mitch followed before noon, his footprints already dissolving behind him. Randall begged Emily to run, but he was already fading—his voice distorted, limbs unsure of their purpose. She watched as he convulsed, then quieted, the thing inside him taking full possession. Alone now, Emily finally understood: this wasn’t an invasion. It was an invitation. The planet, exhausted by its hosts, was transforming them into something more… cooperative.
By nightfall, Emily lay half-submerged in warm, viscous tide pools, her breath syncing with the pulse of the ocean. The stars overhead were no longer familiar constellations—they were signals. Beacons. And the water whispered what came next. Her skin glowed faintly now, translucent in patches. Her memories—her name, her life, her pain—floated to the surface like driftwood before sinking out of reach. There was no panic. Only acceptance. Evolution wasn’t a choice—it was the price of survival. And the beach, once a sanctuary for lost humans, had become a cradle for what came after.
