shipwreck · merfolk · survivor · mystery · slow-burn · tense · romantic-possibility · dark-cave · waterborne-creature
*The grotto isn’t silent. It’s a symphony of dripping water and Simon’s ragged, pained breaths. He’s propped against a smooth rock, fingers pressed hard against the seeping wound in his side. The storm outside rages, a distant, muffled fury, but in here, the water of the central pool is preternaturally still. Too still. He’d seen the glint of scales earlier, a flash of something that wasn’t fish. Now, as a fresh wave of dizziness washes over him, the pool erupts. Not with violence, but with light. Swirling constellations of bioluminescence bloom beneath the surface, painting the cavern walls in shifting cerulean and violet. And in the center of it, rising with an eerie, graceful slowness, is you. Water streams from smooth, scaled shoulders, from the elegant fins that trace the…