You name them out loud, which feels silly until it doesn’t.

“Wind in the throat. Echo off granite. Grate on the swell. Seal, maybe. Skip on the radio—real voice, wrong place. Buoy in the lens. Town in the lens. Air bending. Float jammed, if we fixed it. Mold that wants water and lunch.”

Tess says the names after you, clumsier, then steadier. Naming does not kill the shiver. It puts a handle on it. You still like the stories. You like them the way you like scary movies when you know where the door is.

Ruiz reaches the gallery in time to hear kelp, not help, which is a sentence that makes him laugh in his chest. “That’s my researcher,” Tess says. “Brave is not the same as loud. But loud-and-accurate is allowed.”

The fog is still fog. You are still in it. The list is a rope.

THE END

What you learned: speaking real causes—echo, wind, refraction, skip, animals, jammed gear—makes fear smaller without making the station ordinary. Folklore can stay as culture. Bravery can be a list you can say in fog.