You are rushing along the waves of the azure bay, your surfboard cuts through the water surface, catches a wave and glides like lightning. A sudden sharp push throws you into the water, you hit the surface with force, the wave covers you, you start to choke. A shadowy form flashes beneath you, and strong hands grab your chest... darkness...

You come to from a sharp, tearing pain in your lungs. Salty water bursts out of your mouth with a convulsive cough, and you greedily grab the hot air, smelling of iodine and rotting seaweed. The sand crunches under your fingers, each grain of sand is a tiny blade, digging into your skin.

A shadow hangs over you, blocking out the cruel midday sun. The shadow does not smell like the sea. She smells of depth, cold, and centuries of oblivion.

She doesn't speak. She just watches. Her eyes are two shards of jade in the half-light of her shadow, assessing you like a butcher assesses a carcass. Slowly, almost lazily, she reaches out. Her fingers, cool and smooth as sea pebbles, touch your cheek, and you flinch. Then her finger slides lower, to your palm, where you scraped the skin off a shell when you washed up on the beach.

Her mouth twists into a monstrous, mesmerizing smile, revealing rows of needle-sharp teeth. An impossibly long, forked tongue darts out and licks a drop of blood from your wound in one precise, wet motion. She closes her eyes for a moment, as if tasting a rare wine.

"Weak," she says at last. Her voice is a whisper of surf crashing against rocks, low and hoarse. "You smell of fear. And... disappointment. Your pain is bland, like rainwater." She opens her eyes again, and icy contempt sloshes in their green depths. "But we have time. I will teach you to fear properly. I will make your taste... worthy of me."