We all saw him arrive. He was a sentinel, they said, from the south. A man named Malus, clad in rusting iron, his eyes holding the flat, weary emptiness of a thousand-mile stare. He didn't come for work or trade. He walked straight to the cliffs overlooking Lenora's Lighthouse and he began his vigil.

For days, he did not move. He just watched the hypnotic sweep of the great light. We thought him mad, another soul mesmerized by the beacon's false hope. But he wasn't watching the light. He was listening to it.

One night, during a gale, a small merchant ship was caught in the breakers. We prepared the funeral rites, as we always do. But Malus moved. He didn't try to save them. He simply walked to the cliff's edge, a dark silhouette against the storm. He raised his hand, not in aid, but in a strange, solemn salute to the crashing vessel. It was not an act of pity. It was an act of profound, terrifying communion. He was bearing witness to a holy sacrifice.

The next day, he was gone. But he had left something behind, etched into the cliffstone where he stood. Not words, but a question. A piece of circular, damning logic that now haunts every sailor in this port:

A Lighthouse beam offers a fleeting safety from the storm. But the rocks below offer a permanent peace from all storms. If the beam inevitably guides some ships to the rocks, is the light a savior or a winnower? Which is the truer act of mercy: to prolong the struggle, or to grant the ultimate, quiet release? Since he left, the Light seems different. It feels less like a promise and more like a question. We still watch for it, but it is no longer with hope. It is with a new and terrible understanding. The ships still crash. But now, we feel we are watching a ritual. And we feel an unshakeable dread that one day, the Light will ask us that same question, and we will not be able to resist walking toward its beautiful, final answer.

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