XIX: Juan – Echoes from the Deep

The days passed heavily.

Juan remained in the hospital for over a week. The doctors said he was stable, physically fine. But no one could say the same about his mind.

He barely spoke. He stared at the ceiling or the window. Often, they saw him mumbling to himself, as if asking questions—but not to people.

When he was discharged, he quietly returned to the Cabins. Where it all began. Where it all ended.

The others greeted him cautiously. They didn’t ask many questions. They knew Juan had changed.

On the third night after his return, he left the Cabin alone. The moon was nearly full, and the sea looked like a silver field. The air was heavy, mysterious. Something was calling him.

He calmly made his way to the shore. He had no purpose, no thought. He simply knew he had to go.

He arrived at the spot of the attack. Where Sergio was lost. Where he himself had been reborn through trauma.

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Slowly, silently, he stepped into the water.

And then, everything began again:

The scream.

The blood.

The splash.

His brother’s eyes.

The void.

Juan dove in.

The sea embraced him.

He swam deep, with an inexplicable certainty.

Then a wave of memory and light surrounded him.

Time stopped.

Beneath his feet, a shadow moved. A massive, silent creature.

A Great White.

Juan froze. He was ready to face it, ready to die.

But the shadow didn’t attack.

Instead… it changed.

The shark’s body dissolved in the water, and in its place stood a figure.

Tall. Pale. With wet, heavy eyes. Scaled hands.

The jaws closed, replaced by a human face—frozen, pale, timeless.

A being between beast and man.

It spoke without words. The sound echoed inside Juan’s mind:

“Son of water. Mixture of silence and storm. The time has come for you to know.”

“Sandra… was daughter of the Throne of Mermaids. Your father, son of our King, of the Great Whites.”

“The union between them was not love. It was necessity. Fear. The Tritons ruled. They still rule. We serve them—not out of faith, but fear of extinction.”

“Your mother broke the pact. She left. She lost her powers… or so she believed.”

“But her children… her children inherited something stronger. Something ancient. You.”

Juan felt the sea holding him alive. He didn’t need to breathe. There was no panic. Only acceptance.

“But you lived. You saw. And you changed.”

“The sea wants you back.”

“You want answers? Come to the Deep. Where you were born. Where you belong. The Tritons are preparing a new order. And you are their weapon.”

Juan did not answer. But something inside him took root.

A power.

A responsibility.

A calling.

The figure sank back into the darkness and vanished.

Juan emerged from the water a different man.

Not just a survivor.

Not a victim.

Chosen.