The Watcher of Dusk Rock

Somewhere off the North Atlantic coast, where the sea carves whispers into the stone cliffs, stands Dusk Rock Lighthouse. For nearly seventy years, it’s been abandoned—no keepers, no ships, no records. The locals say the last man who lived there vanished, leaving his light burning for three nights after he was gone.

That was in 1954.

Now, in the spring of 2025, Rachel Myles, an investigative podcaster with a taste for maritime mysteries, arrives in the sleepy village of Greystone. She's chasing a story after a fisherman reported seeing the Dusk Rock light blinking again during a storm. Three flashes. A pause. Then one long beam that swept across the sea like an accusing finger.

“They say no power runs to it,” the old harbormaster told her. “And no one’s been out there since the last keeper disappeared. If the light’s on, it’s not man-made.”

Ignoring warnings, Rachel secures a skiff and braves the tides. As she approaches, the lighthouse seems to grow taller than it should, looming impossibly against the fog. The dock is rotted but still holds. Her boots crunch over shards of old glass, seaweed clinging to everything.

Inside, time has died. Rusted stair rails, mold-covered journals, and a shattered oil lamp suggest someone left in haste—but something stayed behind. Rachel ascends the spiral stairs, each creak like a breath held too long. Halfway up, she hears it: a faint humming, mechanical but off-key, like an engine breathing its last… or trying to start again.

At the top, the lens room is warm. That’s the first thing she notices—warmth in a place that should be freezing. The second: the light isn’t electric. It’s a flame. Floating. Flickering without fuel.

Rachel records everything, whispering into her mic. Then the light turns, slowly, toward her. Not the beam. The flame itself.

And it pulses. Once. Twice. Thrice. Pause. Then one long, flickering burst.

She realizes it’s not warning ships. It’s communicating—with her.

Down below, her boat untethers and floats into the mist.

And in the silence, the keeper’s logbook flutters open on its own. The last page reads:

“The light must never go out. It remembers who looks into it.”

Rachel does not scream. She just stares.

And somewhere, deep inside the fog, the watchers stare back.