Journal Entry – November 2, 2024
Location: Off the Coast of Naxos | "No-Moon Night"
Writer: Enrique Demetriou
We went out to sea before dusk.
The plan was simple: night fishing under low tide, no moon, just a couple rods, a crate of Mythos, and my uncle swearing at the engine whenever it sputtered. I almost didn't come. Athens was getting cold. I'd fallen behind on coursework. And I hadn't touched my guitar in weeks.
But something in me needed the water again. Not the party-crowded beaches or port cafés—this. The open black.
The part of the world that doesn't care if you exist.
Around 2:15 a.m., we killed the engine. The ocean stilled. No music, no lights, no chatter—just breath and salt and the soft creak of the hull as it rocked. The stars looked like they were hanging just above the water.
I remember closing my eyes.
And then I felt it.
Like the drop in pressure before a thunderclap. Like being watched—not with suspicion, but recognition. A memory, wading up from the deep.
I opened my eyes. Leaned over the edge.
There was something in the water. Not close. Maybe thirty meters out. Just a faint shimmer. Like moonlight—but there was no moon. The ocean should've been black, but that spot was moving, pulsing with soft white light.
Not mechanical. Not manmade.
It was her.
I know it was her.
I couldn't see her face—not clearly. But I saw the shape. Elongated. Graceful. Her bioluminescence shimmered in slow rhythms across her back and spine like breath.
And her eyes…
They caught the starlight like mirrors. They knew me.
She rose slightly, shoulders breaking the surface. Not swimming. Hovering.
Like she'd just surfaced from a dream.
I wanted to call out.
I couldn't speak.
My heart thudded so loud it felt like it was trying to answer her song.
No one else on the boat stirred. My uncle was snoring against the cooler. My cousin was watching a football match on mute. The world had shrunk down to her, and me, and the endless water between.
She didn't come closer.
Just watched.
The light across her body dimmed. Not vanished—just softened, as if she was fading backward into her world again.
And then—before slipping under completely—she did something strange.
She raised her hand.
Just one. Palm out. Still and solemn. A gesture of recognition… or maybe goodbye.
I raised mine without thinking.
She vanished into the black.
I haven't told anyone.
I just stood there for the rest of the night, holding that moment in my chest like a secret ember.
Warm, impossible, glowing.
What was that?
A dream? A warning? A second chance?
Or maybe…
She wanted to show me that she remembered.
And in that silence, that salt-heavy night, I understood something I couldn't put into words:
Whatever she is,
whatever world she belongs to—
She reached out, not to pull me under,
but to meet me halfway.