Dave always knew there was something wrong with the sea. He didn't talk about it to anyone, but he had a pet shark, a small, unruly thing that barely fit into the tank in his basement. He wasn't a collector, not in the way that people usually are. It just kind of happened.
One day, a fisherman had dropped it off at the docks, almost pleading with Dave to take it. "You have the space," the man said. "She's too much for anyone else. She'll die in the wild." So, Dave did. He brought it home. The shark was a killer, sure, but it wasn't his problem. The ocean had made it that way.
At first, it lived in a tank, but it grew. And then it started to get restless. The water started to cloud with each passing day. Dave knew it wasn't right, but he didn't know what to do. He didn't think about it much. He had enough problems. The sea had always been a part of him, like a constant undercurrent that tugged at his mind.
The town had been built on it, and the people there had never been quite right, either. A little too close to the edge, a little too desperate for something they couldn't quite name.
The disappearances started quietly. A woman from the bakery. A teenager who worked the local gas station. People spoke about them in hushed voices, a lot of theories and not much else. But Dave noticed something.
The more people disappeared, the more his shark's behavior changed. It would swim in circles, faster and faster, its eyes always locked on the small, darkened window that separated it from the rest of the house. It was as if it could sense the tension in the air, the pull of the sea that was starting to drag the whole town into its depths.
The town, nestled along the jagged coast, had always been a place where things happened and never got explained. The fog rolled in thick in the mornings, smothering the streets with a suffocating presence, and the people seemed to just go through the motions. The restaurants had the same menus every week, the bars served the same drinks, and no one ever really asked how things had changed over time. No one seemed to care much.
But as the months wore on, more people started to vanish. It wasn't just the quiet ones anymore. It was families, children, workers at the shipyard, the town's few tourists. The sheriff tried to maintain order, but there wasn't much he could do. People in the town were used to keeping their heads down. The missing were forgotten just as quickly as they'd disappeared.
Dave kept to himself. The shark, which he'd named Sable, was a constant reminder of something darker, something deeper in the sea, something that he didn't understand but always feared. He began to hear the whispers, the things that came from the depths of the water. People used to say that the ocean had its own voice, that it could call to you if it wanted, pulling you into its depths.
He tried to ignore it, but every night, the sound of the waves crashing against the shore seemed to grow louder. The wind would whip up and scatter things around his yard, always in odd patterns, like the sea was trying to tell him something.
One night, after an especially brutal storm, Dave went down to the basement to check on Sable. He hadn't fed the shark in days, hadn't bothered to. The shark had become more unpredictable, darting back and forth in the tank, its movements frantic and erratic. The water had turned black. He'd cleaned it a hundred times, but it always returned. Something was wrong.
That night, the air was thick with something he couldn't name. As Dave stood in front of the tank, watching Sable's restless movements, a sound came from the depths. It wasn't a growl, not a warning, but a rumble. Deep, rhythmic. It shook the walls. Dave's heart beat faster, his breath short. He stared into the blackened water, watching as the shark's eyes locked on him.
A sound. A voice, not from the shark but from the darkened water.
"Feed me."
Dave stepped back, his pulse quickening. He looked around, his hands trembling. He could almost hear the ocean inside the house, feel it beneath his feet, beneath the floors. The wind outside picked up, knocking against the windows.
He didn't want to, but he couldn't stop himself. His hands shook as he reached for the fish tank's cover, pulling it off and letting the smell of rot hit him full force. Sable darted to the surface of the water, eyes wide and wild. She was hungry.
Dave didn't know why he did it. He grabbed the last fish from the fridge and tossed it into the tank. Sable attacked it immediately, tearing into the body with such force, Dave could almost feel the bite.
It wasn't just the shark. Something in the water seemed to shift, moving beneath the surface, like a hunger. A desire.
The wind rattled the house, and outside, the waves crashed harder against the shore. Dave felt the pull again. It wasn't just the shark anymore. It was the sea, calling to him, pulling him toward the depths.
The following day, the sun never rose. The sky stayed dark, clouds covering every inch of it. The ocean had started to retreat from the shore, pulling away from the beach like a snake shedding its skin, leaving behind only a barren stretch of sand and broken rocks.
People started to notice. More went missing. And then, one by one, the homes started to empty. They just vanished, like they'd been swallowed whole by the sea itself.
Dave sat in his living room, staring out the window. The town, what was left of it, felt abandoned. It felt like a place that had never belonged to anyone, like it had been waiting to be erased. The houses stood empty, windows dark. The streets were quiet, too quiet.
There were no more cars at the docks. No one walked along the pier. The town was dying, suffocating on the very air it once thrived on.
And then came the knock on the door.
It wasn't a knock, really. It was more like a tapping. Soft at first, but persistent. Dave stood from his chair, his legs stiff. The house felt colder now. The wind outside howled, and the knocking seemed to match the rhythm of the waves crashing on the shore.
He opened the door.
No one was there. Just the fog, thick and wet, wrapping itself around the steps. But as he looked down at the ground, his breath caught.
A trail of wet footprints led toward the door.
They stopped. Right there. Right at his feet.
Dave felt his heart stop. He looked up, and the air grew heavy.
From somewhere deep within the house, he heard it. The voice. That low, rumbling whisper. It came from everywhere. From the walls, from the floor, from the sea itself.
"Feed me."
He ran. He didn't know where he was going. He couldn't think. His legs moved, carrying him out the back door, past the old docks, toward the water.
The ocean wasn't far now. He could feel it. It wasn't just pulling him. It was pulling everything. The town, the people, the land itself was being drawn into it.
The sky opened up above him, a storm tearing across the horizon. The wind screamed, the waves crashing higher, louder. He heard them, the voices, calling from the depths.
The water was rising. The town was sinking.
Dave fell to his knees on the sand, his hands shaking as he looked at the empty town behind him. There was no escape. The sea had already taken everything. And as he watched, the last piece of the town—his house—disappeared into the waves.
The sea had claimed it all.
And then, just like that, Dave was gone.