RÍONE stood at the edge of the water, the tiny waves tickling the underside of her feet.

She looked at the horizon, towards the unchanged sky that was her home for the last few days. It was still the soft cerulean shade, like that evening, so long ago, when she left Jake alone in the forest to go get help. All in vain.

Ríone took a step further into the depths, the water reaching up to her ankles. There were no more tears on her face. No unpleasantness marred her countenance. Yes, her face looked sunken and her lips chapped, but a calm smile played over them. Even her hair that messily floated with the winds looked beautiful. Like she was a water nymph going back to her home.

Another two steps deeper, and the water rose close to her knees.

Her heart was calm. It thudded with a gentle melody, no longer afraid or tensed. Maybe that was the power of giving up. Resigning to fate. Not everyone is powerful enough to fight. She definitely was not. Someday, she knew, someone would do what she failed to accomplish.

Three more steps. She was now knee-deep in the seawater.

A single tear rolled down her left eye. She would miss them all — Derek, the girls, Timothee, and even her agent. They would never meet again. There was no chance of that happening in this life. Yeah, sometimes she thought some of them could be really annoying, but she still had nothing but affection for all of them. And she felt bad, especially for her agent. She was yet to submit the manuscript, or finish it for that matter.

Six more steps. The water rose to her chest.

Ríone smiled. A full-fledged smile that showed her teeth. She knew she was going to meet the others — her mother, Jake, and Sean. Perhaps Miss Eloise even. They would accept her, would they not? A sob escaped her lips as the thought of her mother's warm arms, and the smell of her coconut perfume. Soon she would get that back.

By this time, she could feel the tentacles of the thing crawling around her ankles and attaching themselves onto it. Its touch was soft, quite similar to that of a mother. She raised an eyebrow. Why was it being so gentle with her when it killed the others so viciously? Could it be because she had almost escaped its clutches once?

She laughed at the thought. That was not something she accomplished by her own calibre. It was her mother all along. Her mother was her strength.

The grip of the tendrils tightened. They pulled her deeper towards its den, to the depths where it had taken so many others before her, albeit with much greater cruelty. The past two decades was just borrowed time; an acknowledgement, perhaps of her willpower. At last, it was taking claim of what was rightfully its — what belongs to Loutham stays in Loutham. It gave her a choice, unlike the others. A choice to determine her end.

Ríone closed her eyes. In the last few moments of her life, she wanted no longer to think of things undone. She conjured the image of her daughters, their tiny hands and puckered faces, so akin to their grandmother. Her lifelines. The ones whom she left behind to find answers. Or maybe that was her fate luring her to her final destination. Either way, she wished she could see them for one last time.

Her body trembled with the last tears she would ever shed.

The tendrils pulled her down faster. Water rose to her mouth. She could taste its salt and that of her tears mingling with each other and becoming one. As if this was always meant to be. As if the dreams that haunted her sleep were the calls from the sea. What she did was answer it. And here she was, being returned to the very source from where life emerged.

It was part laugh and part sob that came out of her lips, as she plummeted headfirst into the gloomy depths. And the last thing she saw before darkness swallowed her forever and ever was an eye.

An eye that promised her answers.

THE END