The Box Beneath the Waves
Part One – Driftwood and Daisies

The sea was quieter in the mornings.

It hummed low and gentle, like a lullaby half-remembered. Mishthi stood barefoot on the cold sand, her café apron knotted at her waist, coffee beans still stuck to her skin. The waves touched her toes and pulled back like they were shy.

This was her first week at Café Driftwood.

Perched at the edge of the beach like it had grown out of the cliffs, the café was almost invisible to tourists—hidden behind wild vines and washed-out signs. It was the kind of place that felt like a secret, like the world had forgotten it, and Mishthi… liked that.

She had taken the job to escape. Her parents thought it was a phase. Her friends thought she was rebelling. But really, she just wanted silence. Something different. Somewhere the world wouldn’t ask her to be anything.

Inside, the bell above the café door jingled softly.

“Mishthi,” a voice called—low, steady. Familiar now.

Vyom.

She turned and saw him behind the counter, wiping down mugs with long, careful hands. He never rushed anything. Always quiet, always composed—like he belonged more to the sea than the land.

“You’re late,” he said, not unkindly.

She shrugged. “I was here before you noticed.”

“Mm.” He gestured at her feet. “Barefoot again?”

She grinned. “Shoes are for cowards.”

He cracked a rare smile.

That was the thing with Vyom. He didn’t talk much. But when he smiled, it felt like the sun came out just a little. Mishthi found herself chasing that expression more than she’d like to admit.


---

That afternoon, the café was nearly empty. A sleepy breeze came through the open windows. Somewhere, a wind chime clinked lazily. Vyom sat at the counter with a notebook open, sketching something in the margins.

Mishthi leaned on the other side. “You draw?”

“Sometimes.”

“Can I see?”

He slid the notebook toward her. It was a rough sketch of the beach—the rocks, the tide lines, even the crooked seagull that always limped around the café trash bins.

“This is… good,” she said, genuinely surprised.

He shrugged. “It passes the time.”

“Do you ever draw people?”

“Only when they stay long enough.”

She met his eyes.

It felt like something passed between them then. A thread tightening.

She looked away first.


---

Over the next few weeks, they slipped into rhythm.

Mishthi cleaned tables and snuck sugar cubes into her pocket. Vyom showed her how to pour a perfect heart in foam. Some nights they stayed late, listening to records while he counted coins. Other nights, they sat by the sea in silence, trading thoughts in fragments.

“Do you believe in fate?” she asked once.

“No,” he said. “But I believe in patterns.”

She tilted her head. “Patterns?”

“Things repeat. History. People. Mistakes.”

She smiled. “Sounds like someone’s been hurt.”

Vyom didn’t smile back.

“Sounds like someone hasn’t.”


---

It was during one of those nights, sitting on the sand while the café lights flickered behind them, that she asked, “Why do you run this place? It feels like you’re always waiting for something.”

Vyom stared at the waves. “Maybe I am.”

“For what?”

He didn’t answer.

And she didn’t press.

But something about the air felt heavier then.


---

Later, in her room above the café, Mishthi woke to the sound of the sea roaring louder than usual. Her window was open. The wind had knocked over her stack of notebooks.

She bent to pick them up—and paused.

A single daisy rested on her windowsill.

Fresh.

She didn’t remember picking one.

Or anyone bringing it.

She didn’t think much of it… at least not yet.

But something inside her stirred


---

The Box Beneath the Waves
Part Two – Low Tide Secrets

The next morning, Mishthi found Vyom already at the café—before the sun, before the birds, before the sea even stirred.

She stood in the doorway, still rubbing sleep from her eyes. “Do you ever sleep?”

He looked up from the espresso machine, eyes shadowed but sharp. “Only when I have nothing to wait for.”

She frowned. “Still mysterious, huh?”

Vyom didn’t respond. He handed her a mug—steaming, perfect foam heart on top.

Mishthi hesitated. “This isn’t the cinnamon-vanilla thing, is it?”

His lips curved. “You remembered.”

“You made it once without asking. It felt like drinking a memory I didn’t know I had.”

He studied her for a second. “That’s what I was trying to do.”


---

They started walking together after shifts.

Not far—just down the beach, toward the jagged rocks where the waves crashed harder. Mishthi had always avoided that side of the shore as a teen. Something about it felt… too ancient, too still.

But with Vyom, even the sea felt different.

One evening, they found a tide pool glowing faintly in the dusk.

“Bioluminescence,” Vyom said, crouching beside it.

Mishthi knelt next to him. “Why does everything sound romantic when you say it?”

He glanced sideways at her. “Maybe because you want it to be.”

That silenced her.

The moment stretched.

Her fingers were close to his on the wet stone. Close enough to touch. But neither of them moved.

Instead, she whispered, “Do you remember the first thing I said to you?”

Vyom’s eyes stayed on the water. “You asked if we serve pancakes.”

“And you said—”

“We serve silence.”

She smiled. “You were so weird.”

He looked at her then. “I still am.”

“Good.”


---

By the end of the second month, she stopped calling it a part-time job. It was her world now—slow mornings, coffee-smudged afternoons, moonlit beach walks, and Vyom.

Always Vyom.

One night, they stayed behind after closing. The café was empty, except for their laughter and a low jazz record playing through a crackling speaker.

He handed her a notebook.

“You always doodle on receipts. Thought you might want something real.”

She opened it. The first page had a sketch—her, sitting on the café steps, laughing.

“You drew me?”

“You stayed long enough,” he said simply.

Her throat tightened.

“Mishthi,” he said, voice softer now, “why did you come back?”

She looked down. “Because I wanted to see if anything still belonged to me.”

He stepped closer. “Do you feel like you do?”

She looked up.

And said, very quietly, “Yes.”

He didn’t kiss her.

Not yet.

But his fingers touched hers—and that was somehow worse.


---

That night, she dreamed of the ocean pulling her under.

And of a wooden box floating just out of reach.

When she woke, her skin was cold.

And her windowsill held another daisy.

Fresh. Still wet from the sea.


The Box Beneath the Waves
Part Three – Salt in the Wound

The storm rolled in fast.

By late afternoon, the clouds were thick and low, bruised purple across the horizon. Rain tapped the café windows like an impatient guest. Customers cleared out early. Mishthi and Vyom were left alone, the world shrinking to wood, warmth, and the sound of the storm.

He lit the old lantern near the register—just like he did when the power flickered.

She stood by the counter, hugging her arms. “It’s cold.”

Vyom wordlessly pulled the cardigan off his chair and handed it to her.

It smelled like him. Coffee. Cedarwood. Rain.

She slipped it on and said nothing.

Outside, lightning split the sky like a scream no one heard.


---

That evening, after closing, they stayed longer than usual. There was a hum in the air—something restless, unspoken. The storm had passed, but it had left something behind. The world didn’t feel quite right.

Mishthi dried the last of the mugs and glanced toward the window.

“Do you believe in signs?” she asked.

Vyom, wiping down the espresso machine, raised an eyebrow. “Signs?”

“Like... little things. Daisies that show up out of nowhere. Dreams that feel too real. Stuff that follows you even when you forget about it.”

He paused.

“Sometimes signs are just memory in disguise,” he said. “Things we’ve seen before, twisted into something new.”

She didn’t know why, but that gave her chills.


---

Later that night, in her room above the café, Mishthi opened the notebook Vyom gave her.

She flipped past the sketches, looking for a blank page to draw on—but something strange caught her eye.

Near the middle was a page she didn’t remember seeing before. A rough pencil drawing of a box.

Small. Wooden. Detailed.

Her stomach twisted.

She stared at it, fingers going numb.

She hadn’t told Vyom about the box from her teenage years. She barely remembered it herself. It had vanished after that summer—she’d assumed it got lost or tossed during a move.

But this sketch… it was exactly the same.

She ran her thumb over the pencil lines.

In the bottom corner, written faintly:

“We always find what we bury.”

Her pulse spiked.

She shut the notebook.


---

The next morning, the sea had swallowed the shore up to the dunes. The tide had come in unusually high.

She stepped outside barefoot, drawn by something she couldn’t name.

The wind was colder than usual. Sharp. Heavy.

She walked farther than she normally did, down to the place near the jagged rocks—the place Vyom rarely followed her to.

And then…

She saw it.

Half-buried near the waterline.

The box.

The exact same box from years ago.

Her knees buckled slightly as she approached it.

She opened it slowly, her breath fogging.

Inside—

“Hey little one, escape.”

The note again. The same words. The same shaky handwriting.

Hers.

She stepped back, the box clutched in her hands. Her brain couldn’t keep up. Had it always been this box? Was this the same one?

Or was it… another?

She turned to run—only to find Vyom standing behind her.

She hadn’t even heard him approach.

He looked calm. Too calm.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, eyes flicking to the box.

“You—" she started, but couldn’t find her voice. "How long have you known about this?”

He stepped closer. “Known about what?”

“The box. The note. The…” Her voice cracked. “Vyom, did you draw this in the sketchbook?”

He studied her. “You said you believe in signs.”

“That’s not an answer.”

He tilted his head. “Then maybe you don’t want to hear it.”

Something in her chest went cold.

For the first time, she couldn’t read him.

And it scared her.


---

Back at the café, she tucked the box beneath a loose floorboard in her room. Somewhere safe. Somewhere he wouldn’t see.

But that night, her dreams came in fragments.

Flashes of ocean.

Screams muffled by water.

Vyom’s face—half in shadow.

Her own voice, whispering:

“Run. Run. Run.”

Alright.
We’re deep in now, Pia. This part peels the skin of reality back—just a bit.
Time begins to bleed. Mishthi starts to remember things she shouldn’t.
And Vyom? He’s no longer just the quiet café boy.
Here’s Part Four. Get ready to feel it.


---

The Box Beneath the Waves
Part Four – The Echo in Her Bones

The box stayed under the floorboard.

But it didn’t stay quiet.

Mishthi tried to forget it. She went to work. She poured coffee. She smiled at tourists and played old records when the café emptied out. She told herself she was imagining the shift in Vyom’s voice… the way he stared at her sometimes, like she was a memory he couldn’t place.

But each night, when she lay in bed, she heard the softest sound from the floor:

tap. tap. tap.

Like someone—something—wanted out.


---

One evening, after a long, heavy rain, Vyom handed her an old photo he found tucked behind the café register.

“This place used to be a library,” he said. “Long before I took over.”

She stared at the picture.

Dusty walls. A row of old books. And in the corner—barely visible—a teenage girl wiping down a table.

Long dark hair. Slim shoulders. A familiar posture.

She frowned. “That… looks like me.”

Vyom’s voice was low. “It does.”

Her throat tightened. “It can’t be. I’ve never—”

“You sure?”

She looked up sharply.

He met her eyes. “Sometimes the sea brings things back we don’t want.”


---

She took the photo upstairs and stared at it for hours.

Something buzzed in her blood—like her body knew something her mind couldn’t name.

She dreamed again that night.

But this time, she wasn’t drowning.

She was watching someone else drown.

A girl with her face, younger. Hair slicked to her skull, eyes wide with terror, clutching—

the box.

Mishthi jolted awake with a scream caught in her throat.

The floorboard was slightly open.

She reached down with shaking hands, heart racing.

The box was still there. But something was different.

A second note.

This one in fresher ink, still damp at the edges.

“You left him once. You can’t again.”

She stumbled back, breath ragged. “What the hell…”


---

Later, at the café, Vyom watched her from across the counter.

“You look tired,” he said.

“I didn’t sleep.”

“Nightmares?”

Her fingers curled. “How did you—?”

“I’ve had them too.”

He stepped out from behind the counter. The tension between them was no longer warm. It was brittle.

“Mishthi, do you trust me?” he asked, voice so quiet it almost dissolved in the air.

She stared at him.

Once, that question would’ve been easy.

Now?

“I don’t know,” she whispered.


---

That night, she walked the beach alone.

The tide was low.

Moonlight poured over wet sand like spilled silver.

And then—she saw her.

A girl.

Kneeling near the rocks.

Same hair. Same build. Wearing the old café uniform from fourteen years ago.

The girl turned her head slowly.

It was her own face. Younger. Confused. Eyes wide with terror.

The younger Mishthi stood, holding a box in her arms, clutching it like it was the only thing keeping her alive.

And then she mouthed something:

“Run.”

A wave crashed—and she was gone.


---

Mishthi stood frozen, the wind cutting through her like knives.

She turned and ran.

Not back to the café.

But to the box.

She pried open the floorboards, grabbed it with shaking hands, and ripped it open.

Inside—

More notes.

Dozens. All in her own handwriting.

Smeared, scratched, some ripped halfway through.

Some repeated the same phrase:

“Escape before he remembers.”
“Don’t trust his smile.”
“You loved him once. That’s what damned you.”
“You wrote this. You always did.”

Mishthi screamed.

She staggered back, gripping her hair, her chest tight.

Because suddenly—

She remembered writing them.

All of them.

Years ago.

Or years from now?

She remembered the knife. The blood. The café lights flickering. The voice whispering, “Why did you leave me?”

She remembered running.

She remembered dying.


---

Behind her, floorboards creaked.

Vyom’s voice.

Soft. Close.



---

The Box Beneath the Waves
Part Five – The Last Note

Mishthi didn’t remember walking back into the café.

She only remembered the way Vyom had stood behind her, voice soft as silk, saying things no one should ever know.

You left him.
You chose another.
You always come back.
And I always forgive you.

But she didn’t feel forgiven.

She felt trapped.

And as she sat on the wooden floor of her room above the café, surrounded by scattered notes written in her own handwriting—notes she barely remembered writing—Mishthi knew something irreversible had begun.

The box pulsed beside her. The wood was damp, warped by salt and time, but inside it felt… alive.

She ran her fingers along the lid.

Her voice trembled. “What are you?”

“You,” came Vyom’s voice from behind her, “already know.”

She spun around.

He stood in the doorway. Not smiling. Just… looking at her, like he had all the time in the world. Like he always did.

“I tried to stop this,” she whispered.

“You always do.”

She stood, backing away. “It doesn’t have to end like this.”

Vyom’s voice was quiet. “It always does.”

Her throat tightened. “Why are you doing this?”

His eyes glimmered, unreadable. “Because you were mine. And you stopped being mine. And I can’t live in a world where that happens.”

“I was seventeen, Vyom!”

“And I waited fourteen years, Mishthi. Since 2004 i am just waiting and waiting and waiting"

His voice cracked for the first time. That familiar calm splintered. And something darker poured through.

“You married him. You came back here with his name. You told me you remembered us—but you never asked if I survived what you did.”

Her hands shook.

She took a step toward the box—but Vyom moved first.

His hand struck her shoulder—sharp, sudden. She stumbled back, hitting the wooden wall behind her.

“I didn’t want to do this again,” he said. “I hoped this time would be different.”

She gasped, trying to stand, but he pinned her down.

“I loved you,” he whispered, and for a second—just one second—he looked like the boy she once knew.

Then the knife in his hand flashed.


---

The room went silent.

Mishthi’s breath came in wet, stuttering pulls.

Blood spilled onto the floor.

She slumped beside the box, her fingers trembling, mouth opening and closing as her eyes fluttered.

Vyom stood above her, chest rising and falling, eyes wet.

“I didn’t want to do it like this,” he said again.

She looked up at him, lips stained red.

Then—

With her last strength, she reached toward the box.

Her fingers curled around a scrap of paper. A pen from the café floor. Smudged. Barely working.

And she wrote, with a shaking hand:

“Hey little one, escape.”

She tucked the note inside.

And the world faded.


---

Another december 3 of 2004

The same beach.

Different sky. Lighter. Clearer.

A girl with sand-stuck flip-flops and a sea-glass bracelet walks near the rocks, kicking pebbles.

She spots something strange sticking out of the sand—half-buried, wood cracked, the hinges old with rust.

She kneels.

Lifts the lid.

Inside: a single note, weathered but intact.

“Hey little one, escape.”

She frowns, blinking at it. Shrugs.

“Creepy,” she mutters.

Closes the box.

Tucks it into her backpack.

Walks off toward the horizon.


---

And somewhere, in the hollow hush of the sea…

The loop begins again.
And again.
And again.