ONCE UPON THE PACIFIC W
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Chapter Eighteen: Beneath the Hollow Roots
The fog lingered low, curling around Milo's boots as he stood before the massive tree in the heart of Echo Island. Its roots twisted like ancient veins through the mossy earth, pulsing faintly under his feet—as if something alive waited beneath.
The pendant Eliora once wore now hung around his neck. It had grown strangely warm since he crossed the threshold into this part of the island. And now, it pulsed gently against his chest… in rhythm with the roots.
He knelt and placed his hand on the soil.
A low hum answered—a vibration that wasn't quite sound, but memory.
He saw Eliora again.
Not in full, not like before. Just her silhouette among swaying reeds. Her head turned toward him, hair caught in a wind he couldn't feel. Her lips moved without sound.
Then—another voice, unfamiliar but ancient, echoed from the trees:
"This island remembers what the sea forgets."
Milo staggered back. The air shifted, and from beneath the roots, the ground cracked.
He stared in awe as the tree slowly pulled apart—revealing an entrance. A spiral of stone steps, leading downward into a glowing cavern.
With a steadying breath, he stepped inside.
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The cavern pulsed like a living heartbeat, its walls laced with coral-like patterns and crystalline veins. Strange markings covered every surface—glyphs that seemed to shift the longer he stared.
There, in the center, stood a pool.
Still. Glassy. Lit from below by a light that felt older than the stars.
He approached, drawn like a tide to the moon, and knelt beside the water's edge.
And then—it showed him.
Memories not his own.
Visions of sailors, dreamers, lost souls who once wandered here.
And among them—Eliora.
Not in mourning, not in pain, but transcendent. A guardian of the tides. A soul who had become part of the current, of the secret beneath the waves.
She turned in the vision and spoke—not to him, but to the ocean:
"Guide him home when he is ready."
Tears welled in Milo's eyes. He wasn't just chasing her anymore. He was becoming what she had become—a vessel of memory, of mystery.
He touched the water.
It surged.
The glyphs on the walls ignited in spirals of color. The cavern trembled. The pendant on his chest blazed—then crumbled to dust.
The storm above had begun again.
Milo raced back up the spiral path, emerging just as lightning cracked the sky and the sea roared in welcome.
But he was no longer afraid.
The island had given him something no map ever could.
Truth.
Not all who are lost need to be found.
Some just need to understand why they wandered.
And Milo now understood:
The Forgotten Tides had chosen him… and the story wasn't done yet.
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