It was twenty years to the day that five hundred white horses washed up on the shore of Cape Joy. Among them was a man. The horses had drowned and could not be saved, but the man could be—in every way a man can be saved.

Cape Joy was nestled on a foggy coast in the middle of nowhere, smack dab on the edge of the entire world and an ocean that seemed to stretch into blue infinity. This is where August had spent his entire life, all fifteen crummy years of it. It was a place where people went to be forgotten. August never had that privilege. He didn’t believe anyone had taken the time to remember him—so there was nothing to forget.

As the sun set over the water, he pulled on the drawstrings of his hoodie to ward off the bite of the cold ocean wind. Kneeling down, he scooped up a handful of sand and let it slowly slip through his fingers until only a stone remained—worn smooth by ocean currents. With a dejected sigh, he dropped the stone into his backpack, heavy with others just like it.

He closed his eyes and did his best to recall the story as his father had told it to him.

It was a gray, overcast morning. That’s how his father always began. August often imagined a color-sapping sunrise, and the memory played to him like a grainy black and white film. Noticing a sky filled with swarming seagulls, a group of half-drunk fishermen went to investigate. They found the horses first, and the fishermen were certain that they must be hallucinating. They soon discovered the tide had also delivered a man, half-buried in the sand. Although his breath was shallow, they were relieved to find that he was alive. They tended to him, offering whiskey and dry clothes. Once he came to his senses, the man revealed that he had no memory of who he was or where he came from. The fishermen joked that they had caught a most peculiar fish that day. So that’s what they called him—their John Doe became John Fish.

August shared his father’s last name, and was born August Fish five years later. He had also been told that he shared his nose, his jaw, and his temper. August had been working on the temper, but the others he had come to accept—a mostly square jaw and a slightly crooked, oversized nose.

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His father gave him other things before he left. August was given a wooden train when he turned three, at eight his father gave him a set of fine colored pencils, and the last gift his father gave him was a compass when he turned ten. It was an old, burnished thing hung from a brass chain with a dark patina and a praying mantis etched into the back. His father had said it would help guide him home.

August didn’t want to return home. He didn’t plan to return at all.

As dusk was gulped up by night, the stars emerged, and August peered up from under his hood and picked one. The brightest one. And he cursed it. Standing on that shoreline all alone in the twilight, he took all his hate, all his sadness, and he shot it towards that star. August begged for the hurt and loneliness to leave his body and land on some place a hundred trillion miles away.

The star, seemingly responding to the imagined insult, grew brighter. Fiercer. Then it fell from the sky.

August couldn’t believe it. He wiped his eyes with his sleeves. No, not a star, he thought.

As it grew closer it expanded in size, challenging the moon itself. A beacon streaming across a stationary night sky. Its swelling, pulsating glow did not come from the twinkle of starlight, but a fire. It was a ship, and it was falling to earth, and it was burning.

August raised his arm to shield his face as the fiery ship was cast down like a firework. It plunged violently into the water, erupting with an enormous splash that sent a wave high up onto the shore, forcing August to take a step back in the sand to keep his sneakers dry.

As the ship sank in a furious roil of churning steam, a figure emerged in the water. It was human in shape, but also somehow unfamiliar. It seemed to glide through the water towards where August stood. As it drew closer it rose to its feet where the water grew shallow, walking towards him through the waist-high waves. It was roughly the size of August, having two normal arms and legs, but its head was something alien. It locked its gaze on August. Its skin seemed to glow in the moonlight, and August could see that its eyes were deep black, unfathomable things, and in place of its mouth was an orgy of writhing tentacles.

“August,” it said from no mouth and without speaking. “Wake up, sleeper.”