Captain Elias Blackwood stood at the helm, his gray eyes fixed on the horizon. His hand never left the worn wood of the wheel.

Night fell like a stone dropped into deep water. The sky went black, and the stars came out one by one—cold, distant, indifferent. The crew moved quietly, checking ropes and sails that didn't need checking.

Then the singing began.

It started as a whisper. A thread of melody so faint it could have been the wind. But it wasn't the wind. Every sailor on deck froze. Every face turned toward the dark water.

The voice grew. It wrapped around the ship like silk, pulling, coaxing, promising something that felt like home. The crew moved as one toward the railing.

Y/N's feet carried them forward without permission. The railing was cold beneath their hands. Below, the water was black as ink, and in the middle of it sat a woman on a jagged rock.

Her hair was long and wet, black as the sea itself, threaded with pearls that gleamed like tiny moons. Her skin was pale, almost luminous. Her eyes were sea-green, and they glowed.

She was beautiful. She was wrong.

The song stopped.

The silence that followed was worse. The woman's gaze swept across the crew—hungry, dismissive, bored—until it landed on Y/N. She stilled.

Something shifted in her expression. Not hunger. Not hunger at all.

The only sound was the captain's ragged breathing and the distant, fading echo of a song that had never quite ended.