The Lighthouse That Called My Name

It was supposed to be a quiet weekend.

I was tired. Burned out. Too many long nights in the city. Too many deadlines. So I packed my duffel, left my buzzing phone on the kitchen counter, and drove east… straight to the edge of the map.

It was a coastal village called Gorseby, where the wind always howled like it had something urgent to say. A single inn stood at the edge of the cliffs, facing the ocean like a stubborn old man daring the sea to come closer.

I checked in, unpacked my books and blanket, and was just settling down by the fireplace when I saw it.

The lighthouse.

It stood alone on a narrow ridge, half a mile from the shore, rising from the rocks like a broken tooth. The odd part? It wasn’t lit. No warm glow. Just a cold, dark silhouette.

“Old Marrow Point,” the innkeeper muttered when he caught me staring. “Hasn’t worked since ’78. Shipwreck, they said. Took six souls with it. No one’s touched it since.”

Six souls.
That night, I dreamt of waves crashing and a voice calling my name.


---

Next morning, against every instinct, I walked down the jagged path to the lighthouse. Rusted gate. Cracked windows. The scent of salt and secrets in the air.

As I reached the door, something strange happened.

It opened. On its own.

No wind. No hand. Just… opened.

I stepped inside.

The air was thick, like breathing through history. Dust danced in the sunlight, and every creak of the floorboards echoed like a whisper. I climbed the spiral stairs, slowly, feeling like I was being watched — not with hostility, but familiarity.

At the top, I found an old logbook, half-burnt and brittle.

I flipped it open and froze.

My name was written inside.

Not once. Dozens of times.
Page after page.
My name, written in different hands… over decades.

"Elias. Elias Moore. Elias."

I felt dizzy. My name is Elias Moore.
But I’d never been here before.


---

Then… the light turned on.

Without electricity.

Without anyone touching it.

The entire room glowed, bathing me in golden light — and from that light stepped a man. Tall. Weathered. Familiar.

He looked like… me.

“Elias,” he said, gently. “You came back.”

I stumbled back. “Who—who are you?”

“I’m the keeper,” he said. “And so are you. Always have been.”


---

What followed was a blur of voices, images, memories not mine — but somehow… deeply mine.

I saw the shipwreck of ’78.
I saw a man — me — locking the lighthouse doors as the storm approached.
I saw villagers shouting, running, blaming.
I saw fire.
And then silence.

I wasn’t a visitor.

I was a returning soul.


---

The lighthouse, you see, doesn’t just guide ships.
It remembers.
It keeps time differently.
It binds those who died in duty… to come back, again and again.

The name in the logbook? Mine.
Every time I returned. Every life.
A cycle.

A loop.

And this time… I broke it.

As dawn lit the sea, I knew what I had to do.

I walked to the controls.
Turned the wheel.
And let the light shine again — for the first time in 47 years.


---

When I got back to the inn, the innkeeper stared.

“You… you look different,” he said slowly.
“You okay?”

I nodded. “Just tired. Had a strange dream.”

He didn’t respond. Just stared behind me.

When I turned around, the lighthouse…
was gone.

Not dark.
Not broken.
Gone.

As if it had never existed.


---

I left Gorseby that afternoon. Never went back.
Never spoke of it.

But sometimes, when I close my eyes,
I see the waves.

And hear the wind calling my name.