“If you are reading this, you have set me free.”

The message was written in an ancient rune, but Jordan understood it perfectly well. Coming from a lineage of witch hunters, his father and uncles all told stories to him and his brothers, warning them of these creatures- especially the sea witch. He never thought this day would come, and he never thought he would fall in its trap the first time he had been in a beach for ages.

“What does it say?” Janet, his fiancée asked.

Panic rose up his throat. He didn’t know what to do. And even if he did, it’s all too late now.

“Run.”

“What?”

“Run. Go as far from the sea as possible,” he almost begged Janet.

“You’re not making any sense,” Janet tried to protest as Jordan ran into the shallow waters.

He tried shoving the piece of parchment back into the bottle, hoping that he can undo how they unleashed the sea witch trapped in the bottle. He knew this wouldn’t work, but he stubbornly did so anyway.

“Jordan, what’s happening?” Turning back, he realized that Janet had followed him into the waters, and the waves that splashed her ankles were starting to glow ominously.

“No! No!” Tears fell from his eyes in desperation. He rushed to Janet and hugged her, whispering to the sea witch spirit slowly taking hold of her body. “Please, take me instead. Leave her be.”

An icy tentacle punctured his stomach. He stepped back. It wasn’t Janet anymore.

“Your father cried the same thing, and he trapped me in this bottle for 30 years. I won’t fall for that again.”