He touched it with his fingertips and lifted them to his nose. The smell was sharp, oily, faintly metallic. Not the sea he knew. His stomach tightened. If the others saw it, they’d claim the monster left some poison in its wake. He could already hear Marta twisting it into another story.
But Erik wasn’t so sure. No fish, no storm, no living thing left a trace like this. He glanced out across the bay, its surface calm and silver in the morning light. Harmless on the outside, yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that something waited beneath, watching, biding its time. By noon, the village was buzzing again.