The Lighthouse Keeper’s Last Song

The fog rolled in like an old widow’s sigh-soft, salt-heavy, and ancient. It crept over the rocks and cliffs of Gannet’s Reach, swallowing every sound but the sea’s murmuring moan. Atop that lonely headland stood the lighthouse: gray, rust-veined, and blind.

Silas Thorne had heard the stories, of course. Every pub from Brackmere to Thistle Hollow whispered of the old tower where no light shone and no man returned. But stories were only stories-until the fog began to sing.

It was not a song like any he knew. No notes, no harmony-just a vibration in the bones, a ghost’s breath through a cracked flute. It called him this sound. Not loudly. Not desperately. Just... persistently.

And so, with boots damp from seawater and eyes narrowed against the mist, Silas climbed the cliff path, the one locals avoided even in clear weather. His flashlight flickered as he approached the iron door at the base of the lighthouse. It was ajar.

Inside, silence. Then a faint click-click-click, like a child winding a toy.

The spiral stairs stretched up into the dark, each step groaning as though it resented being touched. Halfway up, he paused. His fingers brushed the wooden railing, and they froze.

A note had been carved with a blade, ragged but unmistakable:

“The sea will claim what light won’t save,

Singing souls beneath the wave.

Wind the song, hear the cry-

One by one, the living die.”

A chill worked into his spine like seawater through a cracked hull.

Above him, the song grew louder.

He reached the top and found the lantern room stripped bare-except for a music box, small and silver, perched on the windowsill like it belonged there. It was open, playing a tune with no melody. The sound was wrong, like something remembering what music used to be.

And beside it, etched into the glass in some dark, flaking rust-no, not rust-was another line:

“Sing with me, or drown alone,

The tide will take your final tone.”

Silas stepped back. The air pressed against him now, thick as seawater. The fog outside pulsed against the windows like it was breathing. And the walls-they were breathing too.

He turned to flee, but the stairs below had vanished. Only mist waited there, shifting, swirling, hungry.

Then he heard it: a voice, low and aching, behind the tune.

“Keeper...” it whispered. “Another note... for the chorus.”

Silas’s mouth opened. He didn’t mean to speak-but a sound escaped, soft and quivering, a single tone that did not belong to him.

The music box clicked, as if pleased.

And outside, the fog parted for just a moment, revealing the ocean. There were faces in it-dozens-watching. Waiting. Singing.

They say the lighthouse still stands.

And some nights, when the fog rolls in just right, you can hear it-

not just the song... but the harmony.

Another voice added.

Another soul claimed.

The keeper always needs a chorus.