After the sperm whale had completely vanished beyond the distant sea, police cars, fire engines, the Maritime Safety Administration, and the Fisheries Administration finally arrived at the scene from both land and water.
"Where's the stranded whale?"
"It was saved?"
"The tide came in?"
"The tide carried the sperm whale back into the sea?"
"Are you kidding me?"
"Show me the video!"
"Holy shit, it really did?"
"That's impossible! How much does a sperm whale weigh? How could this little bit of tide move it? That isn't scientific!"
"And it's only five o'clock, still during low tide. The waterline should only be getting farther away. How could the tide rise and carry the sperm whale away?"
"Look at the place you pointed out where the sperm whale was stranded. Does that water look like it could have carried away a whale?"
When everyone looked back toward the beach, they found that the seawater had already receded. The place where the sperm whale had just been stranded had turned back into a beach.
Only, thanks to the rise and fall of the tide, what should have been a large pit had been smoothed flat again.
"Holy shit?"
"The seawater really carried the whale back just now, right? The tide was huge!"
"Yeah, yeah! There's video evidence!"
The tourists and relevant personnel had no choice but to watch the video again, and only then did they finally notice the eerie details they had previously overlooked.
It was five o'clock in the afternoon in April, clearly during low tide. At the beginning of the video, the seawater line was obviously getting farther and farther away.
But suddenly, the seawater began surging fiercely toward the shore, each wave higher than the last, as though the tide had started coming in again.
Then the tide