After the breakup, Ellie fled to the family cottage—a weathered shanty perched on a jagged cliff above the sea. The waves roared below, drowning out her thoughts, but she didn’t mind. She spent her days pacing the creaking floorboards, her hands brushing past faded wallpaper, her nights wrapped in blankets by the fire. Healing would take time, she told herself, but here, at least, she could breathe.

While rummaging through the attic one evening, she found a small wooden box wedged beneath an old rocking chair. It was heavy with Polaroids. The pictures were idyllic—sunlit waves crashing on the rocks, pale seashells scattered across the sand, the silhouette of the cottage against a blood-red sunset. 

The perspective seemed oddly intimate, as though taken from just beyond the porch or peeking through the windows. Ellie shivered but pushed the thought away. Whoever left these behind must have been an artist, she reasoned.

But her nights grew restless. She started hearing faint tapping at the windows, even though no one was there. One morning, she found a photo tucked under the door: it was of her, sitting by the fire, a blanket pulled tightly around her shoulders. It hadn’t been there before. She clutched the Polaroid, heart pounding, and scanned the empty shoreline.

The next day, the knock came.

A man stood on the porch, lanky and pale, his smile stretched just a little too wide. His clothes clung damply to his frame, as though he’d walked straight out of the sea. “I’m here for the box,” he said, voice soft, almost polite.

Ellie hesitated. The pictures had unnerved her, but handing them over felt wrong. “Who are you?”

His smile faltered, revealing yellowed teeth. “I’m someone who knew this place very well. Your father and I were… close.”

Ellie froze. Her father had died years ago, his memory tied to the same sandy shorelines now haunting her dreams. “You took these, didn’t you?”

The man’s eyes darkened, and for the first time, Ellie noticed his hands. They were raw, scarred, the skin barely clinging to bone. “Your father owed me something,” he said. “And you’re here now. That makes us… connected.”

Ellie slammed the door, bolted it, and fled to the attic. Her hands trembled as she sorted through the box again. This time, she looked closer. The photos weren’t just of sunsets or waves—they showed fragments of something else. 

A decayed figure in the background. The outline of a man’s face pressed against the glass of the cottage window. And in the last picture, her father’s unmistakable shape, pale and bloated, half-submerged in the surf.

The tapping returned, louder now, more insistent. She clutched a photo of the man on her porch—he was smiling in it, the same eerie grin, but the background showed her father tied to a post, the tide lapping at his feet.

“You’ll have to open up eventually,” the man called, his voice cracking like a breaking wave. “I’ve waited so long, Ellie. I won’t be ignored.”

The next photo slipped under the door. It was of her, clutching the box, wide-eyed with terror. But the man wasn’t outside anymore—he was behind her, his smile spreading impossibly wide, his hand stretching toward her throat.

The box fell from her hands, and the photos spilled across the floor like bloodstains. The images began to change, their edges curling as though burned. 

They showed her father being dragged into the sea, his face a mask of terror, his arms outstretched as if begging her to run. A reflection of her own face stared back from the glassy Polaroids, mouth open in a scream she hadn’t yet made.

The door splintered. Saltwater poured in, filling the room with the stench of rot. The man stepped through, his body half-decayed, seaweed clinging to his sunken chest. His fingers curled like claws.

“This is where it ends,” he whispered, voice gurgling with seawater. “Where your father left his debt unpaid. And where you… become mine.”

Ellie tried to scream, but the cold water swallowed her voice. The last thing she saw was a Polaroid floating past her—an image of her own face, mouth agape, forever captured in the moment the tide claimed her.

The End