
Echoes From the Abyss
Selena Maeve · Completed · 19.7k Words
Introduction
The victim’s wife seems too perfect, and his mistress is too eager to confess. Buried records reveal seven ignored distress calls.
Then, the autopsy reveals that the symbol was carved by two people.
Now, the wife’s gentle mask shatters.
The tide pulls back to reveal what’s been hidden all along.
Chapter 1
November in Innsmouth never consults anyone.
The fog rolls in from the Atlantic, enveloping the entire town like a soaked gray blanket. At 5:40 a.m. on the fishing pier, old Harlan Baker stubbed out his cigarette on the gunwale. The white vapor he exhaled mingled with the sea fog, making it impossible to tell which was his own. His knuckles were thick, and the crevices of his fingernails held forty-seven years of fishy stench that could never be washed away.
The winch creaked.
The net rose from the black water, heavy beyond belief. Harlan squinted, his cloudy blue eyes fixed on the surface. He’d lived on these waters for sixty-nine years and had seen every damn thing—torpedo casings from World War II, a refrigerator from the ’80s, and a whole supermarket shopping cart hauled up the year before, rusted like an iron tree sprouting from the seabed.
But whatever was in the net wasn’t a fish.
A waterproof canvas bag was tangled in the net, encrusted with seaweed and barnacles, like a cocoon spun by some deep-sea creature. Seawater dripped from the folds of the canvas onto the deck; the color was off—not pure and clear, but tinged with a hint of brownish-yellow.
Harlan crouched down. His knees cracked like dry twigs snapping.
The fish knife sliced open a corner of the canvas. A smell burst out—not rot, but something else. Rust. Ink. Saltwater. And that scent of myrrh found in churches, clinging sweetly and cloyingly to the back of his nose. Harlan’s stomach lurched, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. He cut a larger opening in the canvas.
A man was curled up inside.
Naked. His limbs were arranged in a fetal position, knees pressed against his chest, hands clasped together in front of him, as if in prayer—the prayer of a dead man.
A symbol was carved into the center of his forehead—not with a knife, but with some blunt instrument, repeatedly chiseled until the skin and flesh were peeled back, exposing the whitish periosteum beneath. Three arcs encircled a dot.
His skin was smeared with a dark brown substance that had dried and cracked into a dense network of lines, like contour lines on an ancient map. Later, the coroner would identify it as a mixture of sheep’s blood and cuttlefish ink. The sheep’s blood provided a dark red base, while the cuttlefish ink produced a deep brown verging on black—
When mixed, the two liquids oxidized on the skin into a color resembling dried blood, yet darker and richer—like ink retrieved from the depths of the ocean.
His mouth was slightly agape, his lips secured with black thread—ordinary sewing thread, not surgical sutures. The corners of his mouth were pulled upward into a curve, not a smile, but a far older expression. Harlan shone his flashlight inside and saw a dark yellow object wedged between the base of the tongue and the roof of the mouth. Parchment.
He didn’t touch the paper. He was sixty-nine years old—old enough to know there were some things he shouldn’t touch. He also knew that once he touched certain things, they would stick to his hands forever.
Harlan stood up and pulled his cell phone from his pocket. His fingers hovered over the keys for a long time, not out of fear, but because he was trying to decide who to call. The police? The Coast Guard? Or the town priest?
In the end, he dialed three numbers. The police were the last.
Forty minutes later, the Insmouth Police Department’s patrol cars filled the pier.
Red and blue lights blurred in the fog, like the color seeping from a wound. Another two hours passed before the State Police’s black SUV arrived, its tires crunching over the broken shells on the pier with a fine, crackling sound.
Last to arrive was the FBI’s gray sedan, which pulled up silently outside the police tape; the sound of the door opening and closing was as soft as a sigh.
Denise Parker stepped out of the black SUV.
She was forty-one, divorced, and had no children. A member of the State Police Criminal Investigation Division with nineteen years of service. Some in the office called her “The Freezer” because she never smiled. In truth, it wasn’t that she didn’t smile—she had simply forgotten how. A smile was an expression that required practice, and she hadn’t had anyone to practice it with in a long time.
Her face was sharply defined, with high cheekbones and deep-set eyes; her brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail so tight it almost pulled the corners of her eyes upward.
She wore a dark gray suit and flat shoes, the soles of which made no sound as they touched the wet wooden planks of the pier. It was a habit—nineteen years of crime scene investigations had taught her one thing:
Before identifying the deceased, do not disturb anything, not even the air.
Chief McRae of the Innsmouth Police Department was waiting for her at the pier. He looked terrible—not the kind of terrible that comes from a sleepless night, but the kind where something is clenching his insides. The coffee cup in his hand was trembling.
“Brian Caldwell,” MacRae said, his jaw muscles tensing and relaxing as he spoke the name. “My deputy chief.”
Denise didn’t respond immediately. She crouched beside the body and stared at it for a long time.
Inside the crime scene perimeter, the forensic team was conducting a preliminary examination; camera flashes sliced every inch of the body’s skin into fragments before piecing it back together.
Denise’s gaze began at the ankles and moved upward, inch by inch. Restraint marks—on the wrists and ankles—were visible, though not deep. They weren’t caused by struggle; the victim had been bound after death, or while unconscious.
The symbol on the forehead—three arcs encircling a dot—was a variation of the Yellow Mark. She had seen something similar in the archives at Quantico. Fifteen years ago, in Louisiana, three college students had performed a pagan ritual in the swamps; one of them had been sacrificed by his companions, and the symbol on his forehead bore a seventy-percent resemblance to this one.
The parchment was carefully extracted by the coroner with tweezers and unfolded inside the evidence bag.
It was covered in a dense, bizarre script. Not English, not Spanish, not any alphabet system recognizable at a glance. The lines were twisted, like the trail of insects crawling across the paper, or perhaps a deliberate imitation of some ancient script. There was a certain pattern to the strokes; this wasn’t random scribbling—someone was trying to convey a message using this writing system.
It had the style of The Necronomicon. There was a similar case in the archives—in 1978, in Providence, a Brown University student filled an entire diary with his own invented “Arkhamite” script before jumping from the thirteenth floor. His suicide note, when translated, read: “I heard it. ”
Denise stood up. Her knees gave a faint creak, as unrelenting as the sea fog.
“The symbol on his forehead,” she began, her voice low, “was carved after death.”
The medical examiner looked up—a young woman in glasses named Chen, recently transferred from Boston. “Preliminary findings suggest so. There’s no active bleeding. If it had been carved while he was alive, the edges of the wound would have—”
“I know,” Denise interrupted. It wasn’t impatience; she simply didn’t need an explanation. What she needed was confirmation.
Something fell out of the bottom of the canvas bag and rolled to Denise’s feet.
A police badge. Brian Caldwell’s police badge. It was sent into an almost perfect circle.
Denise bent down to pick it up. She wasn’t wearing gloves, but she used the plastic lining of the evidence bag to cushion her fingers. There was a deep scratch on the metal surface of the badge, running through the center, like some kind of ritualistic act of destruction. The edges of the circle had been carefully smoothed so they wouldn’t cut her. Someone had spent a lot of time doing this.
She flipped the badge over. Engraved on the back was a line of small text—not machine-engraved, but hand-carved with a sharp tool. The letters were so small she had to lean in to read them—
The Seventh.
That afternoon, a single phrase appeared on The Boston Globe’s website: Cthulhu-style murder.
By evening, the phrase was trending nationwide.
Reporters swarmed into Innsmouth like sharks sensing blood.
CNN sent a crew; Fox News sent another. The two groups nearly came to blows outside the docks—not over the story, but over a vantage point to film the ocean.
The town already had a bad reputation—in the 1930s, the federal government had raided a local church, taking away dozens of residents; the files remain classified to this day.
It was no coincidence that Lovecraft named the port in his horror stories Innsmouth. The town’s history was like the water beneath the docks: so dark you couldn’t see the bottom, but you knew what lurked there.
Everyone believed Brian Caldwell had been sacrificed by some cult.
Denise didn’t think so.
That evening, she returned to her makeshift office—a conference room on the second floor of the Innsmouth Police Department, with windows overlooking the parking lot. She spread the crime scene photos across the entire table—the body from every angle, close-ups of the symbols, high-resolution scans of the parchment, and the bent police badge.
She studied them for a long time, then wrote a single line on a sticky note and pinned it to the edge of the desk:
The killer didn’t want the police to believe this was a ritual. The killer wanted us to believe it, and the killer wanted the police to believe it.
She stared at those words, then wrote another note:
The real question isn’t “Why did they stage it to look like a ritual?” The real question is—why did they want us to see that it was staged?
After writing that, she didn’t write a third. Because she knew that once she started asking the third question, she would ask the fourth, the fifth, until she asked the one question she couldn’t ask.
And that question was lying in a white house in North Innsmouth right now, waiting for her.
Last Chapters
#11 Chapter 11
Last Updated: 5/1/2026#10 Chapter 10
Last Updated: 5/1/2026#9 Chapter 9
Last Updated: 5/1/2026#8 Chapter 8
Last Updated: 5/1/2026#7 Chapter 7
Last Updated: 5/1/2026#6 Chapter 6
Last Updated: 5/1/2026#5 Chapter 5
Last Updated: 5/1/2026#4 Chapter 4
Last Updated: 5/1/2026#3 Chapter 3
Last Updated: 5/1/2026#2 Chapter 2
Last Updated: 5/1/2026
You Might Like 😍
Surrendering to Destiny
Graham MacTavish wasn't prepared to find his mate in the small town of Sterling that borders the Blackmoore Packlands. He certainly didn't expect her to be a rogue, half-breed who smelled of Alpha blood. With her multi-colored eyes, there was no stopping him from falling hard the moment their mate bond snapped into place. He would do anything to claim her, protect her and cherish her no matter the cost.
From vengeful ex-lovers, pack politics, species prejudice, hidden plots, magic, kidnapping, poisoning, rogue attacks, and a mountain of secrets including Catherine's true parentage there is no shortage of things trying to tear the two apart.
Despite the hardships, a burning desire and willingness to trust will help forge a strong bond between the two... but no bond is unbreakable. When the secrets kept close to heart are slowly revealed, will the two be able to weather the storm? Or will the gift bestowed upon Catherine by the moon goddess be too insurmountable to overcome?
Shattered Girl
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. Was that too much?” I could see the worry in his eyes as I took a deep breath.
“I just didn’t want you to see all my scars,” I whispered, feeling ashamed of my marked body.
Emmy Nichols is used to surviving. She survived her abusive father for years until he beat her so severely, she ended up in the hospital, and her father was finally arrested. Now, Emmy is thrown into a life she never expected. Now she has a mother
who doesn't want her, a politically motivated stepfather with ties to the Irish mob, four older stepbrothers, and their best friend who swear to love and protect her. Then, one night, everything shatters, and Emmy feels her only option is to run.
When her stepbrothers and their best friend finally find her, will they pick up the pieces and convince Emmy that they will keep her safe and their love will hold them together?
After the Affair: Falling into a Billionaire's Arms
From first crush to wedding vows, George Capulet and I had been inseparable. But in our seventh year of marriage, he began an affair with his secretary.
On my birthday, he took her on vacation. On our anniversary, he brought her to our home and made love to her in our bed...
Heartbroken, I tricked him into signing divorce papers.
George remained unconcerned, convinced I would never leave him.
His deceptions continued until the day the divorce was finalized. I threw the papers in his face: "George Capulet, from this moment on, get out of my life!"
Only then did panic flood his eyes as he begged me to stay.
When his calls bombarded my phone later that night, it wasn't me who answered, but my new boyfriend Julian.
"Don't you know," Julian chuckled into the receiver, "that a proper ex-boyfriend should be as quiet as the dead?"
George seethed through gritted teeth: "Put her on the phone!"
"I'm afraid that's impossible."
Julian dropped a gentle kiss on my sleeping form nestled against him. "She's exhausted. She just fell asleep."
Oops, Wrong Girl to Bully
My back hit the desk. Pain exploded through my skull.
"Girls like you don't get to dream about guys like Kai." Bella's breath was hot on my face. "You don't get to write pathetic love letters."
She shoved me again. Harder.
"Maybe if you weren't such a desperate little—"
I fell. My head cracked against the corner.
Warmth trickled down my neck. Blood.
Their laughter turned to gasps.
The door slammed.
I tried to stand. Couldn't. The room was spinning, fading to black.
Someone... please...
Angelina, the most powerful Alpha who conquered forty-nine packs, dies in a yacht explosion—only to wake up as Aria Sterling, a fifteen-year-old Omega's daughter who just died from bullying.
The original Aria's life was a nightmare. Humiliated when golden boy Kai Matthews posted her love letter online, then shoved to death by his girlfriend Bella Morrison. But that's not all her family faces:
"You got until Monday," the tattooed gangster sneered at Aria's mother. "Ten grand cash. Or I'm taking collateral—your kids' organs fetch top dollar. That pretty daughter of yours? She could make us money another way too."
Now Angelina's lethal combat skills awaken in this fragile body. No more hiding. No more fear.
Armed with an Alpha's ruthlessness and a mysterious blood-red pendant, she'll dismantle everyone who hurt this family—one calculated move at a time.
Goddess Of The Underworld
When the veil between the Divine, the Living, and the Dead begins to crack, Envy is thrust beneath with a job she can’t drop: keep the worlds from bleeding together, shepherd the lost, and make ordinary into armour, breakfasts, bedtime, battle plans. Peace lasts exactly one lullaby. This is the story of an orphan pup who became a goddess by choosing her family; of four imperfect alphas learning how to be better. Steamy, fierce, and full of heart, Goddess of the Underworld is a reverse harem, found-family paranormal romance where love writes the rules and keeps three realms from falling apart.
The Prison Project
Can love tame the untouchable? Or will it only fuel the fire and cause chaos amongst the inmates?
Fresh out of high school and suffocating in her dead-end hometown, Margot longs for her escape. Her reckless best friend, Cara, thinks she's found the perfect way out for them both - The Prisoner Project - a controversial program offering a life-changing sum of money in exchange for time spent with maximum-security inmates.
Without hesitation, Cara rushes to sign them up.
Their reward? A one-way ticket into the depths of a prison ruled by gang leaders, mob bosses, and men the guards wouldn't even dare to cross...
At the centre of it all, meets Coban Santorelli - a man colder than ice, darker than midnight, and as deadly as the fire that fuels his inner rage. He knows that the project may very well be his only ticket to freedom - his only ticket to revenge on the one who managed to lock him up and so he must prove that he can learn to love…
Will Margot be the lucky one chosen to help reform him?
Will Coban be capable of bringing something to the table other than just sex?
What starts off as denial may very well grow in to obsession which could then fester in to becoming true love…
A temperamental romance novel.
The Pack: Rule Number 1 - No Mates
"Let me go," I whimper, my body trembling with need. "I don't want you touching me."
I fall forward onto the bed then turn around to stare at him. The dark tattoos of Domonic's chiseled shoulders, quiver and and expand with the heave of his chest. His deep dimpled smile is full of arrogance as he reaches behind himself to lock the door.
Biting his lip, he stalks toward me, his hand going to the seam of his pants and the thickening bulge there.
"Are you sure you don't want me to touch you?" He whispers, untying the knot and slipping a hand inside. "Because I swear to God, that is all I have been wanting to do. Every single day from the moment you stepped in our bar and I smelled your perfect flavor from across the room."
New to the world of shifters, Draven is human on the run. A beautiful girl who no one could protect. Domonic is the cold Alpha of the Red Wolf Pack. A brotherhood of twelve wolves that live by twelve rules. Rules which they vowed could NEVER be broken.
Especially - Rule Number One - No Mates
When Draven meets Domonic, he knows that she is his mate, but Draven has no idea what a mate is, only that she has fallen in love with a shifter. An Alpha that will break her heart to make her leave. Promising herself, she will never forgive him, she disappears.
But she doesn’t know about the child she’s carrying or that the moment she left, Domonic decided rules were made to be broken - and now will he ever find her again? Will she forgive him?
Invisible To Her Bully
From Substitute To Queen
Heartbroken, Sable discovered Darrell having sex with his ex in their bed, while secretly transferring hundreds of thousands to support that woman.
Even worse was overhearing Darrell laugh to his friends: "She's useful—obedient, doesn't cause trouble, handles housework, and I can fuck her whenever I need relief. She's basically a live-in maid with benefits." He made crude thrusting gestures, sending his friends into laughter.
In despair, Sable left, reclaimed her true identity, and married her childhood neighbor—Lycan King Caelan, nine years her senior and her fated mate. Now Darrell desperately tries to win her back. How will her revenge unfold?
From substitute to queen—her revenge has just begun!
Alpha Twins' Mate's broken Human
A Lesson in Magic
Claimed by the Alpha's Love
Four years ago, Fiona's meticulously planned conspiracy turned me from an ordinary omega into a prisoner carrying the weight of a murder charge.
Four years later, I return to a world that has changed beyond recognition.
My best friend Fiona, who is also my stepsister, has become the perfect daughter in my mother's eyes. And my ex-boyfriend, Ethan, is about to hold a high-profile mating ceremony with her.
The love, family bonds, and reputation that I once cherished have all been taken by Fiona.
Just when I had reached my breaking point, questioning the very purpose of my existence, the legendary Alpha Lucas of Moonhaven suddenly appeared in my life.
He is powerful and enigmatic, a figure that all werewolves hold in awe.
Yet, he shows an extraordinary persistence and tenderness towards me.
Is Lucas's appearance a gift from fate, or the start of another conspiracy?












