That low hum still haunted his chest, steady as if something vast had been breathing beneath him. At the time, he’d told himself it was natural, the groan of some great body forcing water aside. But the more he replayed it, the more wrong it felt. Too even.
And then there was the water itself. The morning after, the sea near the shelf had looked wrong: slick in places, with faint rainbow sheens that spread in the current. He’d seen oil on water before, from leaky engines or careless refueling, but this was different. Larger, stretched thin like a film. The gulls wouldn’t land near it.