Bound to the Tide

The lighthouse stood tall against the storm, its stones whispering with the weight of forgotten time. By the sea’s edge, where the waves crashed like desperate hands against the jagged rocks, she drifted—pale, ethereal, a whisper of what she once was. The ghost of a girl, her gown tattered by years of wandering, forever lost in the memory of that night.

Her name had long since been swept away by the tides, but the grief, the love—those lingered. They bound her to this forsaken shore. Every night, she glided across the cliffs, her eyes, hollow but hopeful, fixed on the horizon. She searched the endless waves, yearning for a glimpse of him—the one she had lost to the sea.

They were once lovers… bound by fate. A shipwreck had torn them apart, the tempestuous ocean swallowing him whole. She had washed ashore, her body cold and broken, her final breath lost to the wind. She never saw him again, never felt his hands upon hers, never heard his voice call her name.

Yet she wandered, night after night, her spirit clinging to the fragments of her hope. The lighthouse’s light turned slowly, casting long shadows over the water, flickering like the last heartbeat of a fading memory. In its glow, she sometimes thought she saw his ship—a shadow in the mist, standing tall against the storm, waiting for her. But it was always the fog, always the sea playing cruel tricks on her fragile heart.

In her eternal waiting, she found her purpose—not to reunite with him, but to bear witness to the waves, the storm, the silence. To remain as a testament to the love that once was, and the sorrow that followed.