Seashore Story - By Monika Rennick

Written By: Monika Rennick

Category: Short Story (Sci Fi/Horror)

Competition: Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026

Monika Rennick's submission, "Seashore Story," is a haunting short story featured in the Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026. In the Sci Fi/Horror category, this narrative explores themes of friendship, trust, and the eerie mysteries of the sea. Rennick's tale invites readers into a world where childhood bonds are tested against the backdrop of the ocean's unknown depths, weaving a story that is both captivating and chilling.

About the Work

"Seashore Story" delves into the complexities of friendship and the respect for local lore. Rennick crafts a tale layered with suspense and an unsettling atmosphere, where a carefree childhood encounter with the sea turns into a harrowing experience. The story's vivid imagery and emotional depth create a gripping narrative that lingers with the reader, exploring the fine line between curiosity and caution.

Seashore Story

Original Submission by Monika Rennick

I had always told Alana to be more careful in the water. It wasn't because I was scared. It was because I was respectful.

"I've been coming here since I was born," she'd tell me, laughing as she floated on her back. "The sea is cruel, but not to me."

Yeah, she talked like that. Alana was rich, and even though we were both only twelve she tended towards the poetic. Maybe it was because she was rich and all the titles on her parents bookshelves had colons in them, unlike the collections of comics on my dad's coffee table, which was milk crates tied together.

It didn't make sense to anyone that we were friends, because we spoke so differently and thought differently, too. I grew up going out on my dad's lobster boat, getting wind-chapped skin and tousled hair and earaches from the cold. Alana was prim in a way that unsettled most of the kids at school, who lived somewhere in the middle of the two extremes that she and I represented.

We were friends anyway, because when you're a kid (and I mean really a kid, because we met in kindergarten) you don't care about any of that stuff. You just want to look in someone's eyes and feel like they understand you. That's how I felt with Alana, and I guess it's how she felt with me.

Her family owned a cottage a little ways down the coast, closer to one of the towns in which none of the houses had chipped paint and a cup of coffee at one of the fancy restaurants would cost you more than a burger at Gertie's Diner back home. That made sense to all of us at school, because Alana seemed like one of the kids that would come up with their parents for a day of "exposure." Alana didn't quite belong in our shithole town, so of course she had come from somewhere fancier, somewhere she belonged.

And belong she did. I always felt self-conscious of things I never noticed back home; the way my hair poofed at the ends, the redness that never left my cheeks, the deep cracks in my lips. They felt wrong, somehow, here in this cottage that was fancy on the outside and fancier on the inside. There was more space in the dining room than Dad and I had in our whole trailer, and it didn't make me bitter like it made Sophie from our class who once came over there to work on a group project. It just made me feel wrong, like a fish out of water or a seashell on a shelf.

The fancy house perched on the edge of a rocky bank down which Alana and I would scurry to the somewhat sandier beach. It was still strewn with stones, because what beach isn't in our part of the world, but we could toe our shoes off and slip into the water.

I liked swimming, which was good because it was one of the only activities available to me. Alana, though, loved it.

"This is the best, Sam," she would say, peering up at me from where she was up to her ears in saltwater. "Isn't it the best?"

I would agree that it was the best, and I would also feel a little uneasy when the sky started pinking at the corners. There were rumours about the things that could snag you if you weren't

careful around the water after the sun went down. No one knew why. No one needed to. Everyone knew that you pull your boat in before it gets dark, and you never stick your toes in if you're going for a sunset walk by the water.

Alana thought this was ridiculous, because she was new. Her parents hadn't lived in town for even five years. They didn't know the ways of things, the importance of paying attention to rumours just in case they were true. All they knew about the world was whatever was contained in the hardcover books on their coffee table, which were probably very smart but didn't quite cover everything you needed to know if you were going to stick around in our town.

She'd always listen to me, though, on account of me being her best friend. When I started fretting she'd roll her eyes and, with a longsuffering sigh, climb out of the water.

"You're being superstitious," she'd tell me, like it was a bad word. "When we go to visit Gramps and Gran, we go for midnight dips all the time."

Her Gramps and Gran lived in Florida, and it's none of my business nor any of ours what the water is like in Florida after dark. It's my business what the water was like twenty feet away from the back porch, and I felt responsible for keeping Alana out of it, even though I was young.

"I know," I said. "I bet it's great. It's just not safe here."

She'd grumble about how "there aren't even any gators." I'd tell her that there are worse things than gators, and then feel embarrassed and bumbling when I couldn't provide an example of one.

"I just know it," I told her helplessly. "I just do."

Well, we went to the cottage one weekend. Dad was off to visit his girlfriend who lived in the city and Alana's parents offered to take me. I resented the implication that I needed to be taken care of, but I did want to spend time with Alana, and I also liked her parents, even if they felt a little stuck-up and superior. They lent me lots of books on history and philosphy, in which I was pretty interested, and they'd have long conversations with me about what I was reading while Alana played solitaire on the coffee table, which was made out of an enormous old stump with glass balanced across the top.

Their generosity was expansive, and I knew enough to be thankful for it. But that generosity is also what doomed Alana in the end, because I started to think more of the books than I did about the local knowledge that everyone took for granted. One night, during a period in which I was particularly fond of Simone de Beauvoir, Alana struck me and my superstitions with a blow I couldn't withstand.

"Simone would go in the water with me," she said. "She knew that reason is king, and reason says there's nothing to be scared of in there, except sharks."

"Sharks aren't anything to be scared of," I said. "Pop 'em in the eye and they leave you alone."

(I did not have the experience to have earned the right to deliver this speech in anything near the matter-of-fact tone I used but I had heard my dad say it once, over the edge of a beer mug, and as his flesh-and-blood I felt entitled to repeat it.)

"Okay, jellyfish, then," Alana said, in a low blow. She knew I didn't like jellyfish.

"I get the point," I said, not wanting to go over my fear of jellyfish stings. I didn't like something small and insidious. I vastly preferred something large and violent. Like a shark bite, I suppose.

"So you'll go?" Alana said, excitement audible in her tone.

I hesitated. I didn't want to go, even a little bit. I still had a healthy respect for the wisdom of the old folks in my community, and I also had a healthy fear of stepping in the water when I couldn't see the bottom of it. On the other hand, Alana had invoked Simone.

"I'll watch," I said finally, "but I'm not going in."

Alana squealed, jumping up and down. I remember smiling, and thinking that even though she was stupid she was very endearing. She hugged me, and I rolled my eyes like she always would when I wanted to get out of the water.

"You won't regret this," she promised, which in hindsight I've decided no one should ever promise. You can never know for sure.

Anyway, she had been wriggling into her bathing suit while we were having this conversation, so as soon as I acquiesced she opened her bedroom door and led me down the hall. As we emerged into the living room her mother and father looked surprised.

"What are you girls up to?" Mr. Singh asked, sounding surprised. "You can't be going for a dip this late, can you?"

"Oh, yes," Alana said, preening. Then she glanced at me. "I am, anyway. Sam is still worried."

"About the monsters?" Mrs. Singh asked sympathetically. Her psychology degree meant that she always thought my fear of the water was related to some mental issue in which my subconscious couldn't shake the belief that there was something in the water. And I guess that was true, but not in the sense of, like, Jaws or whatever. I was scared of something much less honest and more clinging.

"I just don't think it's a great idea," I said, "but Alana is determined."

Even then I was hoping, at least a little, that her parents would stop her from going. The closer we got to the water the more that I felt quite certain that this was a bad idea and, in fact, one that would in the end cause deep regret, maybe in more people than me.

Obviously, I was right.

Her parents didn't suspect anything of the kind, though. They were too well-educated, and chuckled at Alana's eagerness.

"We'll put a fire on for you," said her father. "Enjoy yourselves, girls."

The beach felt weird in the moonlight, which was fairly dim. The moon was waning, right in the middle when it looks like an orange slice turned sideways, and Alana told me I was smart for bringing a flashlight.

"Thanks," I said. My teeth were chattering even though it wasn't really that cold.

We got to the water's edge, and something stirred. It wasn't close to the shore, but it was something, and it sent a shiver crawling up my spine. Any commitment I had to logic and reason as theories were gone, and all my logic and reasoning and instinct was combining to tell me that we needed to go back inside.

"Oh," said Alana, peering into the darkness. "What was that?"

"I don't know," I said, "but I think we should go back inside. We can watch a scary movie or something, you can get your rush that way."

Alana scoffed as if I were crazy. "This isn't about scary," she said. "I mean, not really. It's about peace. The moon, and the waves..."

"Then we can listen to ocean noises," I said. "Look, Alana, something doesn't feel right." "It's your societal training," she sniffed. "You know better."

"I don't," I said. "I mean, I think it's wrong. I mean, everyone knows you don't go in the water after dark, and something just splashed. That doesn't make you feel weird?"

"It was probably a bird," she said dismissively. "What is a seagull gonna do, poop on me?"

We were seventh graders. It made me laugh, and she laughed too, and by the time I'd started trying to think about another argument her feet were already in the water.

So I tried, okay? No one can say I didn't try. That I didn't succeed is obvious. Everyone can stop bringing it up.

"I feel fine," she said, and kept walking in, up to her knees, up to her waist. "Alana," I gasped. Fear was cold in my hindbrain and my skin was prickling. "Get out of there."

"I'm fine," she said, and she floated on her back. The water around her started to glow an eerie blue-green, which would have been cool if that was normal. This was the first time I'd seen bioluminescence. My heart throbbed in my ears.

"Alana!" I cried. My voice was shrill.

She bobbed up, out of her float, and noticed the glowing.

"Cool!" she exclaimed, and ran her fingers through it.

"Don't!" I said, but it was too late. A long dark tendril wound itself around her finger. "Ew!"

She lifted her hand and tried to shake it off, but all she did was pull the stringy blackness, a shadow in the water, which was glowing around Alana in a diameter of three feet. "Sammy," she said. She sounded like she was starting to panic. "It won't come off."

"Get out of the water," I said. "Get out of the water, now."

Maybe if she'd listened to me everything would have been fine. I don't know for sure, and it's not like we could conduct any studies afterwards. It doesn't matter, because she didn't listen, and instead stayed in the water, looking both disgusting and fascinated as the water illuminated her face.

"It's moving," she said. "It's—"

And then the dark thing on her finger moved like a tide, rolled into Alana's eye. She moaned, a horrible sound with a lot of pain in it, and her head shot back. She stared sightlessly at the sky as the thing slithered into her face, and then I didn't know where it had gone and she was staring at me, breathing heavily.

"What," she said, "the fuck was that?"

"I don't know," I said, too shaken to care about anything but going home. "Come out of there now."

This time she listened, and I grabbed her hand as soon as she was close enough, yanking her the rest of the way. We stood there, both shaking, looking at each other.

"Well," she said, and I remember being so furious that she was so matter-of-fact, "I guess you were right."

"No shit," I said, because she had cursed and I didn't like to be outdone. "Are you okay?" "I think so," she said, lying.

I didn't know she was lying until later. That night we went back into the cottage, shaking but trying to hide it from her parents. We played checkers in front of the fireplace and drank hot chocolate.

Alana acted like everything was fine. When I tried to ask if she felt different she laughed at me. Distance from the event had created a false sense of security, or maybe she thought if she ignored the gnawing in her head it would go away.

The next day I went back to my dad's. I was working on an essay for school. He was untangling nets. We both jumped when someone started banging on our door with a series of furious and messy knocks.

"I'll get it," said Dad, probably thinking that it was someone drunk and looking for a fight. The person at the door was neither of those things. Obviously, it was Alana.

"It's for you," Dad told me, looking slightly unsettled by the fact that such a tiny girl was apparently in such a rush to talk to me. I thanked my dad and dragged Alana to my room.

"What's happening?" I asked, feeling terrified and also, strangely, excited. I think it was a sense of validation, for all the times that Alana had mocked me for believing the wisdom of the old biddies in town.

"My head hurts," she whispered, looking uncomfortable. "And... And I keep hearing her."

My skin crawled. I couldn't tell if terror was overtaking excitement, and that unsettled me, because I was pretty sure I was supposed to be scared.

"Who?" I asked. My throat felt tight. Alana looked at me and in her eyes was something I have never understood, and, God willing, never will.

"Her," she said. "I don't... I don't know who she is. But she's angry."

"What does she say?" I asked, fascinated in a sick way.

"She doesn't talk," Alana said, and her eyes were filling with tears. That's when I started to be scared for real, I think.

After that, I just hung around Alana. I didn't try to ask her any more questions. I was too scared of whatever voice Alana was hearing that didn't use words. She kept telling me things, even though I didn't ask, like the fact that the voice was more like a growl. I dove under my duvet and covered my ears. This wasn't very good of me; Alana was the one actually living this whole thing. I was just around.

Kids at school started avoiding her. I get why; she smelled like the beach at low tide, or the crab carcasses we used to bring into the house and mourn when our parents threw them out. The smell didn't bother me, but that was because I loved her so much, I guess. She herself was miserable.

"Nobody gets it," she scowled when I went over to her house. Her mother subtly suggested that she ought to take a shower before we watched a movie. She promised that she'd do it afterwards, but she and I both knew—and her mother probably suspected—that it wouldn't do any good. She scrubbed and lathered to no avail.

And it just got worse. In addition to the smell, her skin became scaly looking. It was almost pretty—it glittered in the sunlight—but no one appreciated it. The doctor didn't know what to say.

"It's... It's like nothing I've ever seen," he told her parents in hushed tones. "Has the little girl been picking at her skin?"

She hadn't. It was like she was miserable in her own body, like she'd rather be anywhere else. She didn't touch herself if she could help it; no tucking her matted hair behind her ears, no folded arms. She lay on the floor like a starfish, limbs stretched as far from her body as she could reach.

She only told me I was right once.

"I should have listened to you," she said. Her monitor was beeping. The doctor had told her parents that Alana ought to go to the hospital. They didn't listen until it was too late, and I've never faulted them for it. I think we all knew that nothing could be done. My father had given me the okay to spend all my free time there, knowing that it wouldn't be long.

"Such a shame," he'd say, shaking his head. I tried not to cry, because that wasn't something I did in front of him if I could help it, but often I couldn't help it.

"You were right," Alana said, and it didn't even matter. It was awful to see her like that, so small, in the end. I couldn't say "yes, you should have." I couldn't say, "no, we couldn't have known." I couldn't say anything, and she didn't understand.

"You're not even going to speak to me?" she demanded, raising herself onto her elbows with difficulty. She coughed, and a hermit crab crawled out of her mouth. I leaped up. She watched it crawl across the stark white covers with wide eyes.

I called the nurse. I should have known better, but I called the nurse. Alana was coughing and seaweed was falling out of her mouth. The nurse stared.

"Do something!" I begged. I should have known better than to do that, too. I was young and frightened.

The nurse ran forward, and Alana bit her hand. The nurse drew back, swearing, and Alana crawled out of bed and down the hall. She wasn't moving right—too jolty, like she was forgetting how to walk.

There's been debate, after what happened, that we ought to move the hospital somewhere further away from the water. I don't think it would have mattered if she'd had to stagger miles

to meet the shore; she would have made that awful trek, leaking saltwater and minnows, however far it had been.

When we reached the sand I reached for her.

"Please don't," I said, which was silly. She didn't respond, and walked into the water. I sort of expected her to start swimming once she got deep enough, as I had seen her do a hundred times, but she never did. She kept walking until she was entirely submerged, and then I watched a trail of bubbles mark her path down, down, down into the water of the harbor. Eventually the bubbles disappeared and I was left to stare numbly at the setting sun.

About the Competition

The Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026 by Hashtag Kalakar is a prestigious platform that celebrates the power of the written word. This competition gathers talented writers from around the globe, offering them a stage to showcase their unique voices and creative visions. It is a testament to the enduring impact of storytelling and the diverse narratives that resonate with audiences worldwide.

We extend our heartfelt thanks to Monika Rennick for sharing "Seashore Story" with us. Her participation in the Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026 enriches the tapestry of voices that make this event truly special. We look forward to witnessing her continued journey in the literary world.

About Hashtag Kalakar

Hashtag Kalakar is a creative platform dedicated to providing artists, writers, singers and other creative talents with opportunities to showcase their work and reach wider audiences through competitions, features and creative initiatives.