Rhys Hale adjusted his earpiece as the wind howled over the ridge. The Arctic night was a blanket of black, pierced only by the faint orange glow of the isolated research station below.

“Team Bravo in position,” he whispered.

“Copy,” came the reply. “You’re green in ninety. No casualties. In, out, vanish.”

Standard rules. No errors. No trace.

Rhys checked his gear one last time, exhaled into t...

No one knew quite what to expect from Delilah Ray.

She’d disappeared two years ago — left behind a bustling career as a New York event designer and dropped off the map after a scandal involving a high-profile client and a six-figure wedding that never happened.

But now, here she was. Back. Sort of.

The invitation was cryptic. A wax-sealed envelope, hand-delivered:

_“You are invited to an unfor...

That night, I couldn’t sleep.

The bottle sat on my windowsill, the paper curled like a sleeping creature inside.

The moonlight turned the glass almost silver, as though it had been carved out of the night itself.

I kept wondering how far it had traveled—how many hands it might have passed through before reaching mine, or if the sea itself had cradled it all this way, refusing to let it sink.

The ...

The bottle was small and green, like the kind you’d keep a message in if you wanted it to last.

I almost missed it, caught in the rocks.

Inside: a water-stained scrap of paper, with only seven words still legible:

“I’m still here. The sea remembers me.”

I turned the bottle over and over in my hands.

It had no name. No origin.

But somehow, it felt like a reply.

I never saw the ship myself, onl...

They say the ship wasn’t always on the surface.

That long ago, it belonged to the depths—gliding silently beneath the water like a secret.

But one day, it forgot how to sink.

I came across it by accident. The tide was low and I was walking past the salt marsh.

There it was: wood bleached by years, anchor rusted and half-buried in silt, yet still drifting, inch by inch.

It moved like a dream that...

The morning the sky broke open in light, I saw it.

A ship, pale and still, drifted toward the shore like a memory trying to return.

It made no sound. It cut no waves.

I stood barefoot on the sand, and the tide curled around my ankles like it was listening.

The ship bore no sails. No name. No crew. But inside, I swear I heard a voice—soft, childlike, humming a song I had never learned but somehow...

The transformation lasted three hours. By the time I returned to my regular body—naked, in the neighbor’s garden, covered in soil and feathers—I knew I had something dangerous on my hands.

Naturally, I bottled it.

I labeled it _“Hangover Cure 2.0 – TEST ONLY”_ and hid it in the fridge behind expired kimchi.

The next morning, my roommate Max woke up with his usual Sunday regrets and decided to t...