Elias stopped the recording. He looked at the thumbnail of the video—a blurry, pixelated shot of the impossible. He knew that by tomorrow, people would call it a glitch or a trick of the light. But for one minute and one second on a Wednesday morning, he had captured proof that the ocean was hiding something much older than the town of Blackwood.

For three days, the local news had reported "unusual tidal patterns," but Elias knew better. He had seen the ripples—perfect, concentric circles that moved against the current. At exactly 8:45, they appeared again.

He wasn’t filming the sunrise or the gulls. He was filming the water.