You meet the headlamps with a report that does not wobble.

“Echo delay three seconds, cliff. Fog at dew point, pressure falling. Lights are buoy and town in the Fresnel, plus looming. Clock was a jammed float. I stayed on granite and planks.”

Tess’s face does the thing faces do when pride and relief collide. Ruiz nods like a pier. Peck, if he is there, already has a badge in a box for a thing he calls junior keeper, which is a patch and a job: next summer, you come back and tell the visitors both columns.

You kept Tess’s rules. You counted. You did not answer the rocks. The station smells like salt and cocoa and a pencil that worked.

The dark is still dark. You are still in it. The report is a rope that does not need to haul your body, only your thoughts.

THE END

What you learned: junior keeping is counting, staying on the safe surface, and telling the true causes—echo, fog, optics, weather—without mocking the old names. Bravery can be a report you can say in a marine layer.