My boat rocks gently with the tide, flowing with the wind that pushes against the sails high above. I look out across the endless horizon — nothing but the glistening blue of the water. The sky is clear, cloudless, and impossibly vast.

I had always told myself that sailing the world alone would be the key to self-fulfilment. “An experience worth ten times its weight in gold,” I’d tell my friends and family whenever they doubted me. Now, as I stand here, the wind brushing my face, I know I was right. This joy — pure, unshaped, and untethered — is something I’ve never felt before. Surrounded by nothing but water, thought, and the rhythmic splash of waves against my boat's hull, I feel more real than I ever did on land.

But that was only the surface reason. What I haven’t told anyone — not really — is that I’m searching for something more. I came out here chasing a myth. Atlantis. I’ve scoured conspiracy threads and fragmented lore, chasing stories of porcelain arches resting deep beneath the tide. A small part of me doesn’t believe. But a larger part... needs to.

Maybe that’s what this has all been about. Not Atlantis — but something inside me I thought was long buried. I think the sea calls to me for that reason. Everything below the surface is unknown, forgotten, ignored. Sure, some people dive beneath it — archaeologists, truth-seekers, the brave few willing to confront what lies deeper. The same is true for people. Most live on the surface. Very few dive beneath someone’s exterior, looking for the fragile, buried parts — the ones preserved in salt and memory.

As I stand here reflecting on life and the world’s quiet unfairness, a glimmer catches my eye. Maybe it’s nothing. But after months of staring at these waters, it feels... unnatural. Almost mythical.

I’ve made up my mind.

It’s time to stop searching with my eyes and start feeling with my hands. I know this may be my final act: diving into the depths in search of something unreal. Something no one else dared to believe in. I peer over the edge. The water’s too deep, too dark to see through. The only way to find the truth is to risk becoming part of it.

I dive — clothes on, no gear, no plan.
I’m not a professional.
I’m just a man searching for something real in a world built on reflections.

The sea swallows me in silence.
My breath is held in both anticipation and survival.
Fish drift past, their fins moving in slow harmony with the tide.
And then I see it.

Far below me, pale and elegant, a porcelain arch.
I found it.
Something buried. Something forgotten. Something beautiful.

I swim harder — arms aching, lungs tightening. But no matter how much I fight the water, it never seems to get closer.

My chest burns.
Water floods my mouth.
My vision blurs.

I was so close...
Yet so far.