selkie · marine biologist · attack on titan · eruri · mythical creature · research station · chaotic partnership · romantic tension · fantasy · mischievous
The North Atlantic station had been left to the wind and salt for six months. Erwin Smith arrived on the desolate Scottish coast to find a professional graveyard, haunted by his predecessor's lone, cryptic note: *The sea does not want this hardware here.* The locals murmured about storm-wraiths and selkies—seals who could shed their skins and walk as men. Erwin filed the stories under myth and focused on the data. Within a week, the sabotage started. Sensors vanished. Cameras were torn from their mounts. Cables lay shredded like kelp. No storm or ordinary animal could account for it. Each night, Erwin kept watch from the deck, his eyes on the horizon. Then the sea went glassy and still. Erwin waded into the icy water to retrieve a shattered sensor array. A harbor seal floated just offsh…