The Drowned One

Author’s note: I do apologize for slacking on these stories. Illness and a general lack of creativity prevented me. I do hope you enjoy this next entry of The Toll Booth Universe!

The Water set his lungs on fire. Cold, merciless waves crashed over him again and again, the inky blackness of a starless sky seeking to devour him.

Maybe this wasn’t the brightest idea, he thought helplessly.

The sailor had gone overboard thirty minutes earlier. No beacon. No strobe. Just a shouted warning, a splash swallowed by wind, and then nothing. Joshua entered the water knowing the odds—knowing that by the time someone called man overboard, the sea had already begun its work.

He went in because someone hadn’t come back up.

The tether line jerked. A question.

Joshua clenched his teeth and kicked, fighting the onslaught of waves.

Something moved beneath him.

Not a surge. Not a current. A shift—slow and deliberate, as if the water itself were turning over. Joshua felt it along his calves first, a pressure passing under him instead of around him. His light swept downward on instinct, catching nothing but silt and shadow. Still, the sensation lingered, trailing toward the rocks with the certainty of something that knew where it was going.

He could hear his shipmates’ voices—muffled, far off.

Breathing became work. Cold and rain battered him from every direction, the heavens themselves pouring down. He thought, dimly, that this must have been what it felt like to be Noah on the ark.

Only his ark felt very far away.

The tether still held.

Then—

SNAP.

Oh shit was the last thing he thought as the waves closed over him and the world went dark.

The first thing that came to mind was that he was cold. Next, he registered that he was wet. No—drenched.

Stone pressed into his back. Not the rolling violence of open water, but the hard, unyielding certainty of rock. Joshua sucked in a breath and coughed, seawater burning its way up and out of his chest. The air tasted of salt and iron.

He rolled onto his side, muscles protesting, and forced his eyes open.

Joshua groaned and took in his surroundings. It wasn’t anywhere he recognized. The storm still churned on the horizon, but it kept its distance, circling the small outcropping of land where he now lay, as if unwilling to cross an unseen line.

Maybe this is the eye of the storm, he thought—though it felt less like calm than restraint.

He pushed himself to his feet, brushing grit and weed from his clothes.

The place was wrong.

The lighthouse stood at the highest point of the island, its base rooted in stone that rose steadily from the shore as if the land itself had been drawn upward toward it. The climb was gradual but unmistakable; every path, no matter how it wandered, sloped in that direction. The tower was taller than it should have been for an island this small, its whitewashed sides weathered smooth by centuries of wind and salt. It did not feel abandoned.

It felt finished—as though it had already done all the work it was ever meant to do, and now simply waited.

Pines and scrub grass clung to the rocks beside him, twisted and wind-shaped, yet farther inland stood palms that should not have survived this latitude. The air smelled of cold brine and warm decay, of sea and soil occupying the same breath.

Joshua swallowed.

“This isn’t…” he muttered.

He never finished the thought.

“You’re not in the eye of anything,” a voice said behind him.

It wasn’t raised to be heard over the surf, yet it carried easily, as if the wind itself had agreed to listen. The tone held no urgency, no concern—only correction.

Joshua turned.

A man stood a short distance away on the rocks, hands clasped behind his back. He wore a heavy wool coat darkened by damp, its hem dripping steadily onto the stone at his feet. His beard was gray and stiff with salt, his face lined in a way that suggested long habit rather than age. He did not seem bothered by the weather, nor particularly interested in Joshua’s presence.

“The storm isn’t circling you,” the man went on. “It’s waiting.”

He lifted his eyes toward the horizon, where the clouds churned in a slow, patient ring.

“It always does.”

Joshua took a haltering step back, thrown off by the man’s sudden appearance.

“Who are you?” Joshua demanded. “Where am I?”

The man smiled patiently, like a pool waiting for a diver.

“You may call me Nemiros,” he said.

As the lighthouse beam passed over them, Nemiros’ steely gray eyes caught the light and flared green—not bright, not human, but deep, like something living far below the surface.

Joshua blinked.

They were gray again.

Joshua shifted uneasily. “I—I need to find my shipmates. Is there a radio on the island? Maybe in there?” He nodded toward the lighthouse.

“No radio,” Nemiros said. “Your ship is very far away.”

Joshua glanced past him, scanning the rocks and the narrow strips of beach below.

“Where’s the sailor?” he asked. It came out more hoarsely than he meant.

Nemiros followed his gaze, unhurried. “Close,” he replied. “Closer than you are.”

That didn’t sit right.

Joshua stepped around him and made his way downslope, boots slipping on slick stone. The surf rolled in gently here, almost respectfully, waves breaking without force against the rocks. He spotted the sailor near the waterline—half-slung on his side, one arm trailing uselessly in the foam.

Alive. Still breathing.

Joshua knelt beside him and checked for responsiveness. Nothing. No resistance. No fear. The man’s chest rose and fell as if the ocean itself had taken over the work.

Joshua grabbed his wrist and pulled, dragging him a little farther from the surf.

The sea withdrew without protest.

“Hey,” Joshua said, firmer now. “Stay with me.”

Something scuttled across the rock near his knee.

He looked down.

A small crab had emerged from a crevice, its shell pale and slick, one claw raised as it navigated the wet stone. It moved with quiet urgency, angling away from the shoreline toward a higher ledge, as if it knew better than to linger.

A shadow passed overhead.

Joshua barely had time to register it before the seagull dropped. No cry. No hesitation. Just wings, beak, and a sharp, efficient snap. The crab vanished, legs twitching briefly before the bird lifted back into the air, already swallowing.

The rock where the crab had been was instantly bare.

Joshua stared at the spot longer than necessary.

The tide rolled in and erased it.

Behind him, Nemiros spoke—not watching the bird, not watching Joshua.

“Everything that lives reaches a point it can’t stay past,” he said.

Joshua stood abruptly, turning his back to the sailor. The man’s arm had slackened again, fingers curling weakly against the stone.

“Help me get him up the beach,” Joshua said. “We can stabilize him. Evac him when the storm clears.”

Nemiros did not move.

“The water will take him,” Joshua pressed. “I won’t let that happen.”

For the first time, Nemiros looked directly at him.

Not sternly. Not coldly.

With something like recognition.

“Choice ended before you arrived,” he said.

Joshua shook his head. “I pulled him out.”

Nemiros’ gaze lifted—not to the sea, but upslope, toward the lighthouse rising above them.

“No,” he said softly. “You interrupted him.”

Joshua felt it then—a pressure at his back, subtle but insistent. The island seemed to narrow, every path tightening toward the slope that led upward.

Nemiros stepped closer, his boots leaving wet prints on stone that was already dry.

“You’re standing where all endings lead,” he said.
“And you’re still trying to carry him back.”

Joshua opened his mouth to answer, and felt the ground cool beneath his feet, as if it were remembering something older than stone.

The sailor sat bolt upright.

He stared at the lighthouse—not with panic or longing, but with the quiet certainty of something that knows where it is meant to go.

Joshua froze.

“Hey,” he said, the word coming out sharper than he intended. “Easy. You’re okay. You’re safe.”

The sailor did not respond. He planted his palms against the stone and pushed himself to his feet with a care that bordered on reverence. His movements were slow but certain, like someone following instructions he no longer needed repeated.

“Stop,” Joshua said, rising quickly. He reached for the man’s arm.

The sailor stepped out of his grasp—not quickly, not defensively. Simply out of range.

Joshua felt a flare of panic. “You can’t walk,” he said. “You’re hypothermic. You need to sit down.”

The sailor took a step uphill.

Joshua moved in front of him, blocking the path. “Listen to me,” he said. “You don’t know where you are.”

The sailor stopped.

For a brief, irrational moment, Joshua thought he’d gotten through.

Then the man looked at him—not past him, not through him, but directly at him for the first time. There was no fear in his eyes. No confusion. Not even gratitude.

Only relief.

Joshua’s breath caught.

Behind him, Nemiros spoke.

“He knows exactly where he is,” he said.

Joshua turned on him. “He’s in shock.”

The sailor stepped around Joshua and continued uphill.

Joshua spun and grabbed him again, firmer this time. “I said stop!”

The sailor staggered—not from resistance, but from surprise. He looked down at Joshua’s hands on his arm, puzzled, as if noticing an object left somewhere it didn’t belong.

“Please,” Joshua said, his voice breaking despite himself. “Don’t do this.”

The sailor gently removed Joshua’s hands.

The touch was warm.

Joshua stared at his fingers afterward, as if that alone should have meant something.

The sailor resumed his climb.

Joshua followed, breathing hard.

Nemiros walked with them.

The wind thinned as they rose, the sound of the surf falling away behind them until it became something distant and irrelevant. Ahead, the lighthouse loomed larger, its white stone unmarred by cracks or rust, its door standing open as if it had never been closed.

The sailor reached it first and stepped inside without hesitation.

Joshua crossed the threshold a moment later.

So did Nemiros.

The interior of the lighthouse was cool and dry, the air unmoving. A spiral stair climbed the inner wall, its stone worn smooth by passage. The light above swept in slow, patient arcs, its source hidden somewhere far overhead.

They ascended together.

Joshua lost track of time on the stairs. Each step felt lighter than the last, as though gravity itself were loosening its hold. The sailor never faltered. Nemiros moved just behind him, close enough to guide, never touching.

At last, the stair opened into a circular chamber at the top of the tower.

The pool lay at its center.

It was shallow and perfectly still, a smooth, dark surface that reflected neither the light nor the walls nor the three figures standing around it. No source fed it. No drain marked its edge. It simply was.

Joshua felt his breath slow against his will.

The sailor stopped at the rim.

Nemiros came to stand beside him.

Joshua waited for him to go farther.

He didn’t.

Nemiros remained at the edge of the pool, his boots planted firmly on dry stone.

“This is as far as I go,” he said.

Joshua turned to him. “Why?”

Nemiros did not look away from the water. “Because guiding is not the same as entering.”

The sailor stepped forward.

Joshua lunged.

Nemiros’ arm came up—not to block, but to steady him.

“Don’t,” Nemiros said quietly.

Joshua sagged against the stone, chest heaving. “You don’t know what happens after.”

Nemiros nodded. “Neither do I.”

The sailor placed one bare foot into the pool.

The water did not ripple.

It did not pull.

It did not change.

The sailor took another step.

Then another.

When the water reached his knees, the edge of him began to soften—not dissolving, not vanishing, but losing the sharpness that made him separate from the space around him.

Joshua covered his mouth.

Nemiros did not move.

The sailor went on.

When he was gone, the pool remained exactly as it had been before.

Still.

Waiting.

Nemiros stepped back from the edge.

Joshua sank to the floor.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke.

Then Nemiros said, very softly, “That is how it always happens.”

Joshua stared at the water. “And you just… watch?”

Nemiros looked down at him.

“I make sure no one is pushed,” he said. “And no one is dragged back.”

The lighthouse light swept overhead, steady as breath.

Outside, the storm waited.

Joshua’s story will continue.