The churning waves of the ocean swirled and lapped up at the rocks on the coast. Salty froth bubbled at the beach, sneaking further towards the person at the shore. Toes flexed and clenched, fisting the alabaster grains of sand beneath them. The sand was cool to the touch, despite the sun peaking just over the horizon.

It was peaceful there. Calm.

The sweet scent of ambrosia and the sea swam over her senses, luring Elena's wits into a dreamy space.

Large sunglasses slid down the woman's nose as she folded her body forward, palms meeting the sand.

Inhale… Exhale…

The woman feebly attempted to nudge the shades up with her shoulder for the umpteenth time that morning. She shifted positions with slow calculation, moving her body into an inversion.

Deliberately, one foot at a time and with arms just slightly trembling under her weight, the woman turned into a handstand. That place, the one at the heart of her spine- knitted together with matted scar tissue- tugged, causing her to wince. Her glasses fell to the sand with a plop.

The daily reminder of the incident from a year prior caused acid to bubble up in Elena's throat. The pulse of blood was beating heavily between her ears as the pressure rose in her head. The woman's weathered and well-loved baseball cap, the only memento from that time, long ago, fell to the ground alongside the glasses.

The images flitted past her mind before she could stop them.

The fear.

The blood.

It was all in front of Elena once again, begging for her to be dragged under its unrelenting grip. Enough, the voice at the back of her mind snapped irritably.

With arms shaking much harder than before, the woman split her feet from one another. Dark, brassy tendrils had escaped the hair tie at the back of her head. They brushed against her cheeks, pulled by gravity towards the sand. She knew that she had to finish her yoga practice before the sun rose. Though the beach was empty, it wouldn't be that way for long.

Breathe, the deep, velvet-soft voice growled.

Elena let out a shuddering exhale, the breath dragging itself from her lungs. Abdominal muscles that had not been used for many months were quaking as she brought her toes back down to the sand. Letting out a breath of relief, her body collapsed in on itself- knees and brow coming down hard onto the sand.

Breathe, Elena… You are alive…

Tears pricked at the corner of her eyes.

You're alive, the voice assured. You survived.

All she wanted to do was to run back to the safety of her isolated home at the farthest edge of the island, climb into her bed and cry until she fell asleep.

Elena didn't know how or when she moved up into a sitting position, but she moved back, sitting cross-legged, and wiped the sand from her legs and palms with the towel next to her.

The turbulent whoosh of the ocean washed over her then. As it had over the past thirteen months, the water grounded the woman- back to a place that wasn't so scary and raw as her past, but a place of comfort and refuge that was her...

Before she could finish her thought, Elena spared a lingering glance at the water before standing. In that single glance, she started. The girl had to do a double take. The world spun with the speed of it. Her heart tripped over her stomach and shot up into her throat.

There was a dark shape floating in the water.

The shape was small and irregular. Tendrils of some sort slipped over and through the water.

Elena staggered forward, her eyes squinting against the bright light of dawn on the horizon. Her feet slipped into the water- her toes gripping, clenching the wet gloop of muddy sand beneath them.

A spark of something she had not felt in years sparked within her core. It was so slight and barely present, but it was there.

It was shocking that through the veil of self-hate and loathing that had been so all-consuming, something else was finally there. Some emotion that could barely be identified and seemed to touch her consciousness like the elusive wisp of a dream.

Curiosity.

The feeling was curiosity. What is that…?

Before she knew what was truly happening, without certainty or any real cause, the woman was paddling out to the dark shape in the water.

What are you doing Elena? This is wrong. You're going to get hurt. It might be someone looking for… Don't go out there. You're going to drown... You're going to… Elena shoved back the voice and its anxieties. She pushed it back so far into a little corner of her mind that she couldn't hear or understand its muffled protestations.

Something was pulling her to that shadow in the water. It was like a fishing line, with its hook caught so deep in her flesh. Luring… reeling her into its orbit.

That curiosity… it was such a breath of fresh air, gripping Elena's subconscious from its slumber and shoving it into the shockingly frigid depths of the ocean.

She had to stop several times, wiping the water from her burning eyes, and treading water within the soothing waves. The jean shorts and sports bra she was wearing were clinging to her body, heavy with salt water.

Part of her wanted to swim back to shore. It was the part that was tired. The part that knew her heart was pounding too hard and much too fast, rocking against her other organs. Elena noted the metallic taste at the back of her throat, threatening to choke her. But the other part? It was that… curiosity, she supposed. That line that was tugging at the deepest depths of her core, urging her to keep going.

So, she did. She kept swimming.

She couldn't remember at what precise moment she figured out what that object was.

Elena paddled into range of it, slowing into a more cautious stroke.

It was quite an odd size, well over six feet long. There was some dark, swirling fabric entangled over the length of it.

That velvet-soft whisper that was ever-present, the one that made the woman question her sanity, was suspiciously silent for the first time. It was a merciful kindness, she had to admit.

Despite her nerves, the woman dove beneath the surface of the deep blue water to get a better look at the object. Bubbles of air tickled her lips and clinging eyelashes as she kicked herself further beneath the surface of the water.

Pure and unadulterated serenity washed over her as the sudden reprieve of silence and pressure took over her mind and body. Elena swam beneath the object, moving aside whispers of inky-black fabric. A thick mass of the material was caught on a sizeable lump of cement, tethering the object to a raised shelf of sand a few meters below. Frowning in confusion, Elena looked up, analyzing the features of this mystery item.

…

…

…

A startled, muffled shriek pulled the last of the air from her lungs. She needed air but couldn't move somehow. That indescribable, tangible pull was holding her fast.

It was a person.

A man, she corrected herself automatically.

The object was a man. It was the body of a man. He was clothed in a black cloak, one which resembled the garb of Death himself. The inky tendrils flowed through the water, spilling and rolling with the gentle waves.

The burning in her lungs forced the woman to pull back, snapping the strange attachment she had to the body. She surfaced with vicious gulps for air. Instinct immediately took over as Elena rolled the body over in the water and looked for… something.

Anything.

Anything that would tell her she wasn't currently gripping onto the corpse of a dead man who was acting as a macabre buoy.

With shaking fingers, Elena reached up to the man's throat, pulling away the rigid collar buttoned there. She moved it just below his chin to check his pulse but stopped short. Threads of deep red liquid were spilling from him, pouring out into his watery grave. The woman reached around to the other side of the corpse's throat, pressing the pads of her pruned middle and forefingers against the body's almost translucent flesh.

She waited, not even daring to breathe as she floated there next to the body.

It was so slight that she wasn't sure if it was truly there. A heartbeat. There was a faint pulse flitting against her fingers.

"Holy shit!" she sputtered, water flying with the force of the exclamation. Elena's eyes widened as she took in the length of this man.

There wasn't a boat or soul in sight that could have deposited him here. It was as if he had just dropped from the heavens. And there was no way that he could have survived floating in the water, upside down, breathing in water… probably unconscious for a serious length of time, going by the gruesome injury gouging his neck.

It was a mystery. It was ridiculous. It was impossible.

Elena dove back under the water and swam down to that cement mass embedded in the sand. As she tugged furiously at the fabric tangled within it, the woman noticed something peculiar. Adjoining the mass of cement was a section of… A section of intricate stained glass and brick.

The fabric finally gave way and Elena shot to the surface.

Out of pure muscle memory, from days long ago, Elena rolled the man onto his back. She swiftly looped her arms under his armpits and came to grip his head between her trembling hands. With a firm grip, she held fast to the blood-slick puncture wound under the man's jaw.

Coming as close as she could to him, his back glued to her front, she propped the man's limp head against her collarbone. His shoulder-length hair clung to the side of her face. She felt the man give a great exhale before he settled once more against her.

"You're going to be okay," she whispered into his ear, hoping this impossible man could hear her, even in his catastrophic state. She was begging herself to believe the words coming out of her mouth.

"Whoever you are…I am going to save you."