I dreamed the ocean was a library

I was walking down aisles made of coral, shelves stacked with books bound in kelp and whalebone. Each title was a name—some I knew, some I didn’t. I pulled one out: What He Said Before the Last Signal. The pages were wet. When I opened it, the ink bled into my palms. No one else was there. Just the sound of waves breathing between the rows. I woke up with salt on my lips and the taste of someone else’s silence.