No one expected the final blow in the middle of the wave to be the moment of parting.
It was supposed to be a routine training session, nothing more than the usual flurry of drills, laughter, and shouts echoing across the shoreline. The ocean was restless that morning, its waves crashing with a strength that tested even the most seasoned swimmers. Yet for them—the team, the coach, and the ever-watchful figure known as Orcus—it was familiar ground. They lived in those tides, breathed in the salt as if it were second air.
The drills had been intense, the kind that left arms aching and lungs burning, but the team trusted their coach. He always knew when to push them and when to call them back. They followed his whistle like disciples chasing a sacred call.
But then came the wave.
It wasn’t larger than usual, not at first glance. To the untrained eye, it looked like just another swell rising in the distance, foaming white against the horizon. But the coach saw it differently. His eyes narrowed, and instead of stepping back, he moved forward, deeper into the surge as though answering a silent challenge.
The team waited. He had dived before, always emerging with that sharp grin and a barked command. Yet this time, when the wave collapsed over him in a violent curl, they waited in vain. Seconds stretched into minutes, and the ocean’s roar drowned out their cries. He didn’t return.
That was when everyone noticed Orcus.
He remained in the circle, feet planted firmly on the sand, body still, eyes fixed on the water with an unsettling calm. It was as if he had been expecting this moment—or perhaps guarding it. The others shouted, dove in, clawed through salt and foam in desperate attempts to find their coach. But Orcus never moved. His silence screamed louder than the ocean itself.
Rumors began at once.
“Did he see something?” someone whispered.
“Maybe he knew the coach was gone before the wave even hit,” another muttered, glancing nervously at Orcus.
But no one dared confront him outright. His presence was too heavy, like a shadow cast not by the sun but by something older, colder.
The search went on for hours. Lifeguards joined, ropes and buoys were dragged across the current, boats skimmed the tide, but the ocean gave nothing back. By the end of the day, exhaustion and dread had set in. The shoreline grew quiet except for the sobs of those who refused to accept the truth.
The coach was gone.
Yet Orcus still stood in the circle. His bare feet traced the same outline in the sand, a shape no one dared to cross. It wasn’t just stubbornness—it was ritual, almost sacred. The longer he lingered, the more it seemed less like waiting and more like guarding. Guarding what, no one could say aloud.
At night, the team gathered in the boathouse. Faces pale, voices hushed, they spoke of what had happened.
“Why didn’t he dive in? He could’ve helped.”
“Maybe he knew it was hopeless.”
“No. He was protecting something. Didn’t you see how he stayed inside that circle? Like it was… forbidden.”
Theories spun wild. Some claimed Orcus had struck the coach himself, hidden beneath the wave. Others whispered of old legends tied to the sea, stories the coach had half-jokingly mentioned in the past—spirits that demanded a life every decade, guardians who walked among men until the tide called them back.
By the second day, whispers became suspicion. People avoided Orcus on the shore, crossing themselves when he passed, muttering prayers as if to ward off a curse. Yet he never wavered, never explained. He simply kept his post, tracing that circle in the sand as though waiting for a signal.
One evening, the youngest of the team, Maren, approached him. She was trembling but determined, clutching the coach’s whistle in her palm.
“Why didn’t you help him?” she asked, her voice small but steady.
Orcus turned his head slowly, eyes like storm clouds. For a moment, Maren thought he might ignore her. But then he spoke, his voice low, almost drowned by the sea.
“Because it wasn’t mine to stop.”
Her breath caught. “What do you mean? You knew?”
Orcus looked back at the water, expression unreadable. “The wave chose. He answered.”
Maren shook her head, anger and fear mingling in her chest. “That’s nonsense. Waves don’t choose people. You’re hiding something!”
He didn’t deny it. His silence was worse than any admission.
That night, Maren shared his words with the others, and a rift split the team. Some believed Orcus, or at least feared enough not to question further. Others were furious, demanding answers, demanding justice. But Orcus gave them nothing more.
Days turned into weeks. Search parties dwindled, vigils burned out. The ocean held its secret tightly, refusing to surrender the coach’s body. Life along the shore began to move on, but the absence left a wound. The team tried to train again, though the whistle no longer sounded, and each wave reminded them of the one that had taken him.
Still, Orcus remained. Always in that circle. Always watching.
One evening, when the tide was especially low, Maren returned to the beach. She noticed something strange where the water lapped at the sand. Just beyond the circle, etched faintly into the earth, were symbols—marks like runes, half-erased by the tide but unmistakably deliberate. Her stomach tightened. This was no accident.
She confronted Orcus once more.
“You’re keeping something here,” she accused, pointing at the marks. “This isn’t just about the coach. This whole time, you’ve been guarding—what? A secret? A curse? Tell me!”
Orcus’s gaze fell heavy upon her. For the first time, his calm cracked, a flicker of sorrow crossing his face.
“You wouldn’t understand,” he said softly.
“Try me.”
He hesitated, then whispered words that chilled her: “The sea always takes. But it also bargains. One goes, so the rest may stay. He knew it. He chose his place. I guard the circle so no one breaks the pact.”
Maren’s heart pounded. Bargain. Pact. It all sounded like madness, and yet some part of her—perhaps the part that still felt the ocean’s pull even in her sleep—believed him.
She stared at him, at the circle, at the restless water that seemed almost to breathe. The truth was too large, too terrible to carry. But she understood why no one could say it out loud.
Because once spoken, it would demand acknowledgment. And acknowledgment meant acceptance.
The coach was gone, but his absence was not an accident. It was an offering. A choice. A debt settled so that the rest of them might live another year, another decade, beneath the waves’ mercy.
And Orcus remained, the silent guardian of a truth that none dared repeat.
The circle stayed in the sand.
The ocean rolled on.
And no one—no one—spoke of it again.
