Alina Lopez [verified] -

You are the first one who tried to organize the chaos. You brought order to my randomness. You moved my book. You made me smile.

“You came,” Margot whispered.

If not, leave a letter on the basement steps. I’ll understand. I’ll go back to the silence, and you’ll never hear the hum again. alina lopez

But on the fifteenth day, the first anomaly occurred. You are the first one who tried to organize the chaos

I’ve been here, in the ‘between,’ for over a century. I can see you, but you can’t see me—unless I choose it. I’ve watched every keeper, every visitor. Most are boring. You are not. You made me smile

She woke with the sun, brewed her single-origin coffee, and worked in the round, whitewashed room of the lighthouse’s former keepers’ quarters. The letters were from a 19th-century naturalist, and Alina felt a kinship with him—a man who preferred the logic of beetles and tide pools to the chaos of society.