The Lighthouse in Many Realms
No one could say exactly when the old lighthouse began to shift. At dusk, its stark tower loomed against copper skies, as any lighthouse would. By midnight, though, sailors who passed swore they glimpsed it vanish and reappear, its lantern blinking like a beacon from another age. Some who lived in the nearby fishing village told tall tales of a caretaker inside, a figure who rarely came to shore, yet somehow guided lost vessels to safety in every season, every century.
They called it Evershift Beacon, though few understood what the name implied. If you found yourself watching at just the right moment, you might see a faint distortion in the waves, like time itself folding outward. For a split second, the tower’s beams lit not the present ocean, but a phantom horizon dotted with sails from eras never recorded. Merchants traveling by night claimed they heard voices on the breeze—soft warnings in languages now forgotten—carried across centuries of brine and salt. Most shrugged these stories off as delusions of the sea.
Within the lantern room, a lone keeper moved through a half-lit world of polished brass and swirling sparks. Every midnight, he felt a strange hum from the device hidden beneath the floor—a remnant of watchers who once manipulated reality for their own ends. If anyone peeked inside, they might notice the old watch on a table, quietly pulsing in time with the rotating light. But the villagers, awed by nightly illusions, never ventured that far. The caretaker, head bowed in silent devotion, guarded the beacon as it drifted from one realm to the next, steadfastly shielding passing ships from the darkest edges of possibility. He alone bore witness to the seas no mortal eyes were meant to see—and in each flicker of the lamp, he glimpsed reminders that even the strongest illusions sometimes could not hide the larger forces at play.
Micro stories are a content feature offered by $TIME's dev Woj. Handwritten and accompanied by art, they serve to deepen the story world we're creating here. Enjoy!
