The Tide Manuscript

Three years ago, a handful of us from the university lit department decided to reunite at a crumbling coastal inn called The Gull’s Rest, perched on the storm-bitten cliffs of Cape Avernus. The place had a reputation for its salt-weathered beams and a library no guest was allowed to enter, but we were more interested in cheap rooms and a chance to drink away old grudges. I was the last to arrive, delayed by a flat tire on the empty highway that snaked through the pines. My friend Elias, a man with a laugh like a saw, offered to ride with me.

We reached the inn just past midnight, the moon a jaundiced slit behind a bank of fog. The others were already in the common room, their voices a ragged chorus that died the moment we stepped through the door. Our host, a gaunt woman named Morwen, stood by the hearth, though no fire burned. She smiled with too many teeth and said, ‘Ah, the final pages are here. The manuscript is nearly complete.’ Her words hung in the air like a spoiled scent, and no one laughed.

The bedrooms were arranged like a spine along a corridor, each door painted a different shade of rot. I was given the last room, the one that faced the sea. Inside, the wallpaper peeled in sheets that resembled aged parchment. On the desk lay a leather-bound book, its title embossed in flaking gold: ‘The Tide Manuscript.’ Curious, I opened it. The first page was blank, as were the second, third, and fourth. But on the fifth, in a spidery hand, was a description of our arrival—my car’s tire, the fog, Elias’s laugh. The words were damp, as if they had just been written.

I slammed the book shut and pressed my palm against its cover, feeling a faint pulse, like a heartbeat far below the sea. I dismissed it as a prank by the others, but when I went to the common room to confront them, they were all staring at a new page that had materialized on the table. It read: ‘He touched the book. The ink stirs.’ Morwen stood behind them, her finger tracing the lines. ‘Every guest who comes to Gull’s Rest leaves a mark,’ she said. ‘But not all of them leave.’

That night, I could not sleep. The sound of the tide was not the gentle lap I knew but a rhythmic scratching, like a nib on paper. I crept to the library door, which was unlatched. Inside, the shelves were filled not with novels but with identical leather-bound volumes. Each one glistened under the dim light, their spines unmarked, but when I pulled one out, it opened to a name—a previous guest, perhaps, from years ago. The page described how he had locked himself in his room and carved a confession into his own arm. The next volume held a woman who had walked into the sea, convinced she was ink being washed away.

I returned to my room and found the book on the desk had grown thicker. The margins were filling with sketches of our faces, but our eyes were hollow, and our mouths were open in silent cries. Beneath one sketch, a line: ‘Elias is beginning to fade.’ I ran to Elias’s room, but his door was ajar. On his bed lay his clothes, still warm, and a fresh page in the book: ‘He has become part of the narrative.’ I could not hear his laugh anymore, only the scratching.

Dawn came, but it brought no light. The fog had turned the color of old paper, and the inn’s windows were covered in a film that blurred the outside world. The others had gathered in the common room, pale as the pages they clutched. Their voices were thin, as if they were being erased. ‘We have to leave,’ I said, but Morwen blocked the door. ‘The tide is coming in,’ she said. ‘It always does. And it always writes its own end.’ She opened the book to the final chapter. There, in letters that shimmered like wet stone, was a list of our names, each one followed by a blank space. Morwen’s finger hovered over mine. ‘Choose your last sentence,’ she whispered. ‘Or I will choose it for you.’

I do not remember how we escaped. It was as if the world skipped a beat. I only recall running through the pines, our bare feet bleeding on the needles, while behind us the inn groaned and sank into the sand, swallowed by a tide that never rose on any chart. The rest of the group scattered, but I carried the manuscript out of pure terror. It still sits in my attic, chained to the floor, its pages multiplying each night. Sometimes I hear Elias’s laugh in the scratch of the pen. I have not opened it since. But I know, somewhere in its depths, a new chapter is beginning—and this time, the sea is in the ink.