Saron stopped listening halfway through the pastor’s third “beloved.”

  Not because he was overwhelmed. Because it was bad.

  The pastor’s voice had that smooth, practiced bounce, the kind you learned by saying the same things often enough that they stopped meaning anything. Every pause was placed just right. Every sigh landed exactly where grief was supposed to be invited in.

  Which meant none of it landed at all.

  Saron’s eyes drifted down before he could stop them.

  Brand new Nikes. White. Bright enough to feel disrespectful. Not a scuff on them. Not a crease. Not even a little dust from the cemetery path.

  Interesting choice.

  He looked up and caught the flash of jewelry. Rings. A watch. Something gold at the wrist that caught the sun every time the pastor moved his hand. The kind of shine that did not belong anywhere near a grave unless you were trying to prove something.

  Saron wondered how much the watch cost.

  Then he wondered why that was the clearest thought he had managed all day.

  He forced his eyes back to the pastor’s face like he was being tested. Like looking away again would mean he was grieving wrong.

  The pastor talked about humility.

  Saron almost laughed. It made it as far as his throat and died there.

  He swallowed and stared past the man’s shoulder. Past the folding chairs. Past the line of cars. Past the relatives watching him the way people watched a glass they expected to crack.

  He was seventeen. Old enough that people expected him to carry it well. Young enough that they kept checking to see if he would fall apart just to make them feel useful.

  He did not feel like collapsing.

  He felt like leaving.

  His grandmother deserved better than this.

  Not because the pastor was saying the wrong things. He was saying all the right ones. That was the problem. The words were generic enough to fit any funeral. He could have swapped the name and no one would have noticed.

  She would have hated that.

  She had hated performance. She had hated people who talked like they knew the world while wearing proof that they did not.

  Saron pictured her sitting in the back row like she used to at church, arms crossed, eyes sharp.

  He pictured her looking at the pastor’s shoes.

  He almost smiled.

  The pastor finally asked everyone to bow their heads.

  Saron bowed his because it was easier than explaining why he did not feel like obeying a man in clean white sneakers.

  He kept his eyes open anyway.

  It was habit. He had always looked when people told him not to. Not out of defiance for its own sake. More like caution. If someone insisted you close your eyes, they usually wanted something.

  He watched the crowd. Heads down. Hands folded. Shoulders shaking softly. People wiping their eyes like they were aware of being observed.

  He should have felt something stronger.

  He felt tired.

  Detached, like he was standing just to the side of his own body, watching himself nod at the right moments. Watching himself hold a straight face while the pastor talked about celebrating a life.

  Celebrating. Right.

  The final amen came like permission to breathe. Chairs scraped. People stood. The pastor stepped down with the confidence of a man who believed he had done something important.

  Someone hugged someone else. A cousin sniffed and laughed nervously. Conversations restarted, quiet and practical, drifting toward food and logistics.

  Saron stood there a second too long.

  A hand landed lightly on his shoulder.

  “You okay, nephew?” someone asked.

  He turned and saw an older relative looking at him with concern mixed with expectation. Like he needed to either break down or reassure them so they could move on.

  Saron nodded.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’m good.”

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  It was the answer people liked. The one that let them stop worrying.

  They patted his shoulder again and walked away.

  Saron watched them go and felt his mouth tighten. Not anger exactly. More irritation at the whole system. At the way everyone moved through grief like it was a checklist.

  He hated that he understood why.

  He also still hated the pastor’s shoes.

  He started walking before anyone could say his name again.

  Not rushing. Not dramatic. Just a steady pace that said he was done here, and that anyone who tried to stop him would make it uncomfortable for both of them.

  The cemetery path crunched under his shoes. Sunlight bounced off windshields like the day had not noticed anything missing.

  He kept his face neutral. Shoulders loose.

  From the outside, he probably looked composed. Mature. Handling it well.

  If they only knew.

  He reached his grandmother’s house and stopped at the steps.

  It looked the same as always. Same paint. Same cracks in the concrete. Same potted plants she had kept alive through stubbornness alone.

  But the house felt like it was holding its breath.

  He walked inside.

  The quiet hit him immediately.

  Not peaceful. Not comforting. The kind of quiet that made you realize how much sound a person added to a space just by existing. The kind that felt like arriving right after someone left forever.

  He stood in the entryway and stared at the living room.

  Family photos. A woven mat folded neatly on the couch. A small table with a bowl that usually held keys or coins or whatever she had decided was important that day.

  The bowl was empty.

  It should not have mattered. It did.

  He stepped forward and felt his throat tighten in a way he found deeply inconvenient. Like his body had decided this was the moment to try grief now that no one was watching.

  He did not want to.

  He walked into the kitchen.

  No simmering pot. No warm rice. No sound of her moving around, muttering about people who did not know how to do things properly.

  He opened the fridge, stared at it, then closed it again.

  He did not know why he did that.

  Maybe he expected her to be inside. Maybe he expected the world to fix itself for one second. Maybe he was just proving this was real.

  He leaned against the counter and pressed his palms to his eyes.

  Make peace, he told himself.

  People loved that phrase. Like grief was a negotiation and if you signed the right paperwork, everything would settle.

  He tried.

  He thought about her smile. Her laugh. The way she would call him over just to feed him something, like food could solve everything.

  He waited for the rush of sadness.

  It did not come.

  What came instead was emptiness. A hollow that was not dramatic enough for how large it felt.

  “Okay,” he said quietly. “So that’s where we’re at.”

  He walked out the back door.

  The air was cooler. The wind had picked up. The world was still functioning. Birds did bird things. Cars passed down the street. Somewhere nearby, someone laughed.

  Of course.

  He stepped onto the path behind the house.

  The sand worked its way into his shoes almost immediately.

  He looked down, sighed, and kept walking. Taking them off would feel symbolic, and he was not in the mood for symbolism.

  The trees closed in. Branches brushed his shoulders. The smell of salt grew stronger.

  His mind ran ahead because it did not know where else to go. College. Finals. An unfinished essay about ancient wars and why people kept repeating the same mistakes.

  He liked history because it was honest. Brutal, but honest. People wanted power. People wanted safety. People wanted to be remembered.

  Simple.

  He could understand simple.

  He could not understand why the world still looked normal when something important had been removed from it.

  The trees thinned and the beach opened up.

  The ocean stretched wide and calm, sunlight scattered across its surface like it was enjoying itself.

  Saron stopped.

  “Oh, you’re kidding,” he said. “You’re peaceful today.”

  The ocean did not respond.

  He walked out onto the sand. The monument stood near the treeline, tilted slightly toward the water. Its surface was worn smooth, carvings softened into suggestions.

  He slowed.

  Up close, it looked bigger than he remembered.

  “Of course you are,” he muttered. “Everything old gets more intimidating when you come back.”

  He rested his hand against it.

  Cold.

  Of course.

  Everything old was either cold or sharp.

  He leaned against it anyway because not leaning felt like giving in. He slid down until he was sitting, staring at the water.

  He tried to make peace again.

  He felt disconnected. Like he had been living between worlds for a while now. School and phones and deadlines on one side. Family and expectation on the other. Somewhere in between, a thin thread of culture he did not know how to hold without feeling like he was pretending.

  He hated that most of all.

  He looked at his hands.

  They looked normal. Smooth. No scars. No calluses that meant anything.

  All that training. All that discipline. All those hours learning control and breath.

  For what.

  So he could sit at a rock and feel nothing?

  “Cool,” he muttered. “Great return on investment.”

  The wind shifted.

  His shoulders adjusted without permission. His breathing slowed.

  He frowned.

  He had not trained in years. Not seriously. But he knew the feeling of something about to move.

  The ocean pulled back farther than it should have.

  He leaned forward.

  “That’s not…” he said, then stopped.

  The water receded again. The air felt heavier, like the world had inhaled and forgotten to exhale.

  Saron stood.

  The light near the monument changed.

  Not sunlight. Something else.

  A flash of dark green. Sudden and wrong. Not bright. Heavy. Ancient. The color of deep jungle where light did not belong.

  He froze.

  “What,” he said.

  The green flashed again.

  The air snapped.

  The world tilted. His ears rang. The beach blurred, cold and unstable.

  No.

  He turned to run.

  The wave hit him like a wall.

  Cold slammed into his back and knocked the breath out of him. He went down hard, sand and water ripping away direction. His mouth filled with salt.

  He coughed. Choked. Tried to stand.

  Another wave crushed over him.

  He kicked. Found nothing solid. Swallowed more water.

  Move, his brain screamed.

  He fought to stand. His feet slid out from under him.

  He went under.

  The water roared. Pressure crushed in. Green flashed behind his eyes. He tried to orient himself and failed.

  He surfaced for half a second, gasping.

  The shore was there. Then not.

  The monument flickered in and out of view, the green pulsing like a heartbeat.

  He tried to yell.

  A wave shoved him under again.

  His chest burned. His limbs grew heavy. The cold bit deep.

  This is stupid, his brain supplied.

  He had walked out here to avoid people.

  Now he was dealing with the ocean.

  He surfaced again, barely, sucking in air and panic.

  The green was closer now. Or he was.

  He tried to swim away.

  The water dragged him sideways.

  Something slammed into his shoulder. Pain flared and his vision went white.

  He thrashed.

  The sea did not care.

  The green flashed.

  The world lurched.

  For one ridiculous moment, he thought his grandmother was going to be mad at him. Not because he was dying. Because he was dying in the dumbest way possible.

  He tried to laugh.

  He swallowed water instead.

  The cold took hold. The roar faded. The green smeared into darkness.

  And the sea carried him.