The Inland Sea

My name is Elena Vega, and I’ve spent most of my life trying to forget what happened when I was seventeen. I grew up in a small fishing village on the coast of Oaxaca, Mexico, where the ocean was a constant presence—sometimes generous, sometimes cruel. My family lived in a modest house with a tin roof that rattled in the wind, and our nearest neighbors were the Cárdenas family, who had moved from the mountains a few years before. They kept to themselves, but their eldest son, Mateo, had a mysterious allure that fascinated me.

Before I get to the heart of the matter, you must understand that I’ve been haunted by the same dream since childhood. It’s not like other dreams; it’s visceral, leaving me gasping for air. In this dream, I walk down a narrow street paved with black stones, slick with moisture. The buildings on either side are tall and crooked, their windows dark, and the air smells of salt and decay. At the end of the street, there is a door—a heavy wooden door with iron hinges. I always know I must open it, but I never want to. I push it open, and behind it is a vast, dark ocean that stretches to the horizon, but here’s the twist: the ocean is upside down. The water is above me, a black ceiling of rolling waves, and I am standing on a dry seabed littered with bones. I always wake up screaming.

The second dream is worse. I’m floating in a calm sea at night, but the water is thick as honey. When I look up, the stars are not stars; they are the glowing eyes of creatures that watch me from the abyss. Something brushes against my leg, and that’s when I wake, my skin crawling.

The third dream is the most painful: I’m standing at the edge of a cliff, and below me, the sea is boiling. I feel an overwhelming sorrow, as if I’ve lost someone I never knew, and then I fall. I never hit the water; I just keep falling.

I had never told anyone about these dreams, but Mateo seemed to understand the darkness in me. One evening, he invited me to his house, where his younger sister had just gotten a talking board—the kind that claims to communicate with spirits. I was hesitant, but he assured me it was just for fun. The board was made of polished wood, with letters and numbers etched in gold. We placed our fingers on the planchette, and I felt a chill run down my spine.

We asked the usual questions: ‘Is anyone here?’ The planchette slid to ‘YES.’ I was stunned. Mateo seemed excited. He asked, ‘What is your name?’ The planchette moved erratically, spelling ‘T-L-A-L-O-C.’ I didn’t recognize the name, but it felt ancient. Mateo asked, ‘Why are you here?’ The planchette spelled ‘Y-O-U-R S-I-N-S.’ A coldness filled the room, and the candle on the table flickered, not from wind, but from something unseen. I felt a pressure in my ears, like descending deep underwater. I tried to pull my hand away, but it was as if my hand was glued to the planchette.

Suddenly, the room went black. When my vision returned, I was no longer in Mateo’s house. I was standing on the cobblestone street from my dream, but this time it was real—I could feel the cold stones beneath my bare feet. The buildings were the same crooked shapes, but they were alive with a faint, sickly glow. I walked toward the door at the end, my heart hammering. I didn’t want to open it, but my legs moved on their own. I pushed the door, and it swung open to reveal the upside-down ocean.

But now, I saw something else: a figure standing on the seabed, silhouetted against the dark waves. It turned, and it had no face—just a smooth, gray expanse. It reached out a hand, and from its fingers, a dark liquid dripped. A voice spoke inside my head, ‘You let me in.’ I screamed, and then I was back in Mateo’s house, surrounded by his family. They were staring at me with wide eyes. The board was overturned, and the planchette was splintered.

That night, I told my mother about the dream and the board. She turned pale and clutched a cross around her neck. ‘That name, Tlaloc, is an old god of rain,’ she whispered. ‘But that was not him. It was something wearing his name.’ She told me that when you invite the unknown, it can leave a door open. She took me to a local curandera, a woman who dealt with the spirit world. The curandera lit copal incense and rubbed my hands with herbs. She chanted, but I saw in her eyes that she was afraid.

For weeks, I tried to live normally, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. Shadows in my room seemed to lean toward me. The ocean, which I had always loved, now felt menacing. One night, I woke to find myself standing at the edge of the sea, my feet wet, the waves lapping at my ankles. I had no memory of walking there. I looked at the water, and the reflection of the moon shimmered, but beneath it, I saw a shape—a huge, dark thing that moved just below the surface. It circled me, and then it spoke with the same voice: ‘You will return.’ I stumbled back to my house, shaking.

Mateo, feeling guilty, tried to help me. He told me that the night we used the board, he saw something over my shoulder—a black shape that coalesced and then seeped into the floor. He said he felt an immense pressure, as if the air itself was heavy. He had been in a trance and could barely move. He apologized and said he knew a way to undo it. He had a scroll in his room, a family heirloom, with a ritual to banish spirits that had attached themselves. He offered to perform it that night.

I agreed, desperate. We gathered candles, salt, and the remains of the board. At midnight, we went to a secluded beach, where the tide was low, exposing rocks that normally were submerged. We drew a pentagram in the sand and placed the broken board at its center. Mateo chanted words I didn’t understand, and I felt the air grow cold. Then, the water a few meters away began to boil, not from heat, but from an unseen agitation. A dark figure rose from the sea, taller than any man, with ragged edges as if made of smoke. It had glowing red eyes. It shrieked, a sound that tore through me, and the sky blackened with clouds that swirled like a vortex.

I was terrified, but I tried to recite the words the curandera had taught me, praying to the saints. Mateo held the scroll, but it burst into flames in his hands. He cried out, and the entity lunged at him, wrapping tendrils around his waist and pulling him toward the water. I screamed, reaching for him, but I was thrown back by an unseen force. I watched as he was dragged into the sea, his cries swallowed by the waves. The moment he disappeared, the water calmed, and the sky returned to normal. I was left alone on the beach, shivering, the candles extinguished.

They never found Mateo’s body. The village whispered of a drowning, but I knew the truth. I had brought a curse upon both of us. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat; I felt his absence like a physical wound. My mother took me to the curandera again, but the curandera said the entity was too strong, that it had been feeding on my fear and connection to the sea. She gave me a charm made of bone and told me to never speak of the board again, to never utter the name Tlaloc, and to move far away from the coast, for the sea was its domain.

So I left my village, traveled inland, and settled in a city many hundreds of miles from any ocean. I tried to build a life, but the dreams continued, always ending with the door, the upside-down ocean, and the faceless figure. I’ve started reading websites like this, hoping to find others who’ve experienced something similar, to know if they have found a way to close the door for good. But I’ve never told this story before, not even to my therapist.

Last week, I woke up with sand in my bed. The sea was calling me back. And last night, I saw the face of the figure for the first time. It was Mateo’s face, pale and bloated, his eyes empty. And his lips moved without sound, but I read the words: ‘Join me.’ I write this now, feeling the pull growing stronger every day. I don’t know how long I can resist. The door is open, and the sea is waiting.