Page 173 of Bewitched By the Sea Monster

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I don’t dream anymore. Only nightmares come to me.

Until Pippi finds me. Until I dream, again. And love. And live.

Shegives.Pippi gives. Too much.

And people take from her. Too much.

I’ve taken too. Her kindness. Her laughter. Her smiles. Her dreams. I’ve taken them and used them to make myself feel alive.

I don’t want to take anymore.

I don’t want to be so lost, sodistracted, that I hurt the ones I love.

Never again.

“Pippi, I do love you. And I’m…I’m sorry.”

I am a beast.

And I’ve sent my heart away, where it will be safe.

And then I am in pain—unlike any I’ve been in. Pain that consumes. And…ravages.

I am screaming.

Crying.

The pain burns throughout my entire body.

I am begging for an end.

Begging for death.

But it does not come for me.

Instead, life does. It wraps me in a soft embrace—a hold that feels so very much like Pippi’s—and tells me I am not done.

And then the pain is gone.

I am surrounded by the sea. Struggling to swim with limbs that feel small and insignificant against the watery titan.

I am confused. Disoriented. I don’t understand why I am in the sea, in my skivvies, as it were, or why ships surround me. I don’t understand why my arms and legs feel strange, or why my neck seems frustratingly short—how am I to see my surroundings when I can only twist or tilt my head a few measly inches?

I don’t understandwhoI am.

Her name is the first word that returns to me.

I call it.

And there she is.

The sea has stained her hair a darker crimson, and blood decorates her face and neck—myblood, I think, although I’m not certain.

She is so lovely. A goddess—one who radiates so much beauty and light, it hurts to cast your eyes upon her.

I want to hold her, and I weep as I realize I have arms thatcanhold her, but I’m too far away.

“Alistair?”

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