I'll write an engaging serialized fiction episode for Maya. Let me create something that starts with immediate intrigue and ends with a compelling hook.
Episode 1: The Last Lighthouse
The lighthouse keeper was already dead when Sarah arrived.
She stood in the doorway, rainwater pooling at her feet, staring at the body slumped over the logbook. Outside, the storm that had stranded her on this island howled against the stone walls.
This was supposed to be a routine supply drop.
Sarah's hand trembled as she reached for the radio. Static. She tried again—nothing but white noise and the metallic taste of fear in her mouth. The lighthouse beam continued its mechanical rotation above, illuminating the dark waters in twelve-second intervals.
Twelve seconds of light. Twelve seconds of darkness.
She noticed the logbook beneath the keeper's weathered hand. The last entry, dated two hours ago, read: "They're not trying to get in anymore. They're already inside."
The entry before it, written in different handwriting—shakier, more desperate: "Don't trust the new keeper. He's one of them."
Sarah's breath caught. If the dead man wasn't the real keeper, then where was—
A door creaked somewhere above her.
The lighthouse had seven floors. She was on the first. The light-room was at the top. Between here and there, five floors she'd never explored, and someone—or something—moving through them.
Twelve seconds of light.
Sarah grabbed the keeper's flashlight from the desk. Its beam flickered, weak and unreliable.
Twelve seconds of darkness.
Footsteps on the spiral staircase. Descending. Steady. Deliberate.
She had three choices: hide in the keeper's quarters, run back into the storm, or climb toward whatever was coming down. The radio was her only chance at rescue, but the main transmitter would be in the light-room.
Up was the only way out.
Twelve seconds of light.
Sarah started climbing. The spiral staircase was narrow, her wet boots slipping on the iron steps. The footsteps above had stopped. She froze, listening.
Twelve seconds of darkness.
Then a voice from above, warm and familiar, impossible: "Sarah? Is that you? Thank God you're here. I thought I was alone."
It was her brother's voice. Her brother, who had died three years ago.
#fiction #serialfiction #mystery #thriller