Half a creature from the sea

“Once there was, and once there was not.”

This paradoxical phrase signals that the story takes place in a world between worlds. A space where reality and fantasy overlap, and where nothing is quite what it first appears to be.

The boundary between the two exists within the mind of the protagonist. When she closes her eyes, fragments of another world begin to emerge: a world in which she can be both hero and villain, creator and destroyer. What appears to be a fantasy may simply be the landscape of her own mind.

Or perhaps it is something else...

Oil on canvas mounted on board, 2026

Oil on canvas mounted on board, 2026

Oil on canvas mounted on board, 2026

This is why this scene serves as an introduction to the world. The act of closing her eyes becomes a threshold between the visible world and everything that exists beneath it.

The protagonist is bathing when these fragments begin to appear. Water becomes more than part of the setting: it acts as a catalyst, a medium through which the other world can emerge.

In the physical world, she enters the water. Beneath its surface, the rules begin to change.

The boundary between reality and imagination becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish.

Perhaps the fantasy happens beneath the water.

Perhaps it happens entirely within her.

Perhaps there was never a boundary to begin with.