. . .
“Until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore, you will not know the terror of being forever lost at sea.”
–Charles Cook
. . .
“Hey Den… are you feeling okay now?” Wilson asked when he stumbled upon Denise frowning over at her camera much later that night, “Don’t you want to take a break?”
She hummed, distractedly, “What for?”
He pointedly glanced at the wall clock.
…it’s 3:17 am.
Denise only shrugs.
They should be back by land hopefully before morning rises so Wilson really couldn’t understand why on earth Denise’s workaholic tendencies have to act up now, of all times (especially with her suddenly passing out on them because yeah, that was real freaky and he didn’t want that happening ever again) and in such a godforsaken hour.
“…For real?”
“No, it’s just… well, I had a bad dream,” she muttered in a voice so low he almost didn’t hear her over the distant roar of the waves, still not looking up at him from her camera.
“Oh,” he leaned on the railing, “…wanna talk about it?”
For a moment, Wilson thought Denise is not going to answer him because she suddenly went quiet for a long while with only the sounds of the sea breaking the definitely awkward silence that was now hanging between the two of them.
“I… I think I saw something under the sea,” her voice was still so quiet, like she was confessing a terrible secret, “It was… w-well, it felt so, so angry. Like someone had done it a great wrong.”
Wilson blinked and immediately decided to place his large mug of coffee beside her at hearing that. He figured she’s going to need it more than him, “Alright. Now you are officially creeping me out. Denise, are you high? What on earth are you talking about?”
Denise opened her mouth as if to answer, but in the next second, out of nowhere, Wilson’s world quite literally turned black because… something… was wrapped around his face.
It was wet, slimy and quite frankly, it felt gross.
If Wilson had been able to open his mouth, he would have definitely been definitely screaming his head off like Denise was currently doing somewhere in the background, effectively alerting everyone else if the racket he’s faintly hearing is a result of their coworkers waking up and coming to the rescue.
But one of the… the thing’s–or is it apt to call it a sea monster? What the hell, are those really a thing now?–hand (or was it a tentacle? Because it definitely feels like a tentacle) was wrapped so tightly right over his face, making him see nothing but black and the weird, squishy feeling of what felt like a hundred suction cups brushing right over his eyes, his nose, wriggling as if it was trying to get past his mouth and it was seriously making him kind of feel wriggly in his own skin.
Wilson tried to raise one of his hands to claw or punch, maybe slam his elbows in behind him but a few more wet and slimy appendages suddenly clamped right over his arms, forcefully holding them still over at his sides. What the fuck, how many tentacles does this thing have?!
As if mocking him, another wrapped around his neck like a noose, not enough to choke him, but the two-second squeeze was more than enough of a warning for him to stay still.
Gulping, Wilson froze.
They both know who’s in control here.
Then, he… it… walked.
Or at least, Wilson thinks it was walking right now because it felt like they were moving, slowly, so slowly as though it had all the time in the world. Like a predator prowling around its prey…
And maybe it was.
Because right now, Wilson was honestly no better than hovering dangerously over thin ice, just one wrong move and the surface beneath him will crack and he will be plunged into a freezing, watery death.
Not a lovely thought.
“What the fuck is that thing?!” Daphne screeched.
“Hey, Mrs. Squid–HEY, FISH FACE!”
Wilson’s shoulders jolted.
That was Lance…
Oh, fucking shit THAT WAS LANCE! “Let our buddy go or I’ll fucking throw this thing right at you–I mean it!”
Strangely enough, as if it could understand, it…
… It just paused.
Then, whatever was wrapped around his face was removed while Wilson hissed under his breath in discomfort at the sudden appearance of a light bulb blaring literally right over his face and he coughed and sputtered as though he was a man on the verge of drowning gasping in sweet, sweet oxygen after hours of being held underwater.
Embarrassingly enough, it also took him a few more seconds to realize that it was–whatever the fuck the thing was–holding and swaying him lightly right above his friends like he was live bait.
The first thing Wilson sees and focuses on is Lance who was holding on too tightly on the remains of the strange, sea-animal they didn’t even know what kind of species it was supposed to be, the man poised as if Wilson’s hard find was a baseball meant to be thrown around like that with the twins hovering worriedly on either side of him and Allen… who was gawking at the thing behind Wilson.
“Wilson, are you okay?!” Daphne cried out.
Wilson’s feet are way too far up from the floor.
Not too far up that should it suddenly decide to drop him he’ll die on the impact, but far enough to know that if it lets go, it’s definitely going to hurt like a bitch.
And no, Wilson decided, he is definitely not okay.
As if to drive his point home, Wilson gagged as he choked when the appendage still wrapped around his neck tightened for a few seconds again, as if reminding him of its presence.
He really should get his priorities straight.
“It… it l-looked like that… that thing we found…” Allen was mumbling in the background, horror and disbelief blending in his usually no-nonsense voice as he continued to stare, slack-jawed.
And Wilson blinked, trying to remain unruffled at Allen’s lack of composure, trying to look behind him now to see if that were true. In the back of his mind, his fight or flight instincts were screaming danger, DANGER, DANGER, and his reason was screeching, scrambling to make sense of this insanity the longer this went on.
Because if thing does look like the remains of what they just found under the sea, if any of that were even true–so what?!
What, in some fucked-up way, Lance was actually right with his assumption? That they really discovered a new type of species? Or was it something definitely way much worse? Could that knowledge help him in this situation?!
HE COULDN’T EVEN GET THE FUCK OUT OF ITS GRIP!
This is not a fucking cheesy horror story where they somehow found a strange, creepy alien baby only to be hunted down by its angry mama around the sea, in the middle of nowhere. Wilson’s life is literally at stake here. There is no way that it could all possibly end because of something so… SO STUPID–!
When Wilson eventually managed to turn his head to the side, craning a bit more to look behind his shoulder, he… he finally caught a glimpse of what seemed to be a vaguely elongated face with a pair of abnormally large, black eyes that faintly reminded him of what a giant squid’s looks like.
Its face though… it looked kind of human (if you decided not to look below the waist) it even has a human-looking neck and torso. But the eyes are far too large for its face, far too dark and it has no visible irises even in the dim light, no nose (oh wait, it has gills. Wait a minute, ARE THOSE GILLS?!)–…or even ears.
And from what he can tell, the thing doesn’t seem to have a mouth and… and Wilson takes it all back, it looked too much like a monster straight out of a child’s worst nightmare to even consider it anything like human.
It tilted its head at him, almost curiously.
…As if considering something.
Then, clear as day, something blue flashed behind it for a split-second but he saw it. Wilson was sure he saw that same glow again even as the slit-like maw on its stomach suddenly opened up.
…wait, what?
It suddenly pulled him closer.
Oh.
Oh, God–
It’s going to eat him.
It’s SERIOUSLY GOING TO EAT HIM!
Wilson narrowed his eyes into a thin glare even as helpless tears began to gather in the corner of his eyes, gritting his teeth hard enough to hold back a horrified scream that was threatening to burst out his mouth that it actually hurt but he couldn’t bring himself to move or look away from what was happening, his mind too numb with fear, disgust and adrenaline, his blood was running cold in his veins and this isn’t happening THIS COULD NOT BE HAPPENING!
His mind was whirling with too many thoughts all at once but he couldn’t bring a single limb to move. He was frozen in fear, and he didn’t want to die.
Oh god, he didn’t want to die, not now, not now, not when his family was waiting for him to come home, not when he promised his little sister that he’s going to teach her how to swim, how to fish, he’s going to bring his mom lots of sweets and all the good stuff he got for them, and he still had so many things to say to them, so many things he wanted to do in his life.
God please, he didn’t want to die.
Not now. Not now...
NOT LIKE THIS!
It felt like his dinner was going to worm its way out of his throat any moment now at the way that horrifying mouth continued to move dangerously close to him, that mouth could be his death literally staring at him in the face.
Rows and rows of jagged, yellowing teeth formed in a circular motion within its stomach flashing here and there and it seemed to be… it seemed to be…
He blinked, baffled.
Is it him or… or does it seemed to be saying something?
But Wilson had no idea what it just said, what it could possibly mean. He couldn’t hear anything other than the faint screams behind him but he was pretty sure his ears are bleeding right now.
When it seemed to realize that Wilson (or any of them, really) couldn’t understand what the hell it was talking about, it suddenly yanked its body out of the corridor, pulling itself right over the railing Wilson had been leaning on not even a few minutes earlier.
The speed and fluidity of its movements alone was alarming, combined with an animalistic sort of grace that shouldn’t be even possible with something so large and so grotesque-looking and to Wilson’s horror, he soon realized it wasn’t planning on releasing its grip on him, wasn’t going to let him go anytime real soon because it was pulling him along right into the open water–
He flailed, screaming, “NO!”
“…I told you to FUCKING LET GO!”
Wilson only had half a second to realize that the bones were suddenly sailing straight to his face (Lance, YOU FUCKING TOOL–!) but before it could even hit him square on the face, the tentacle that had been wrapped around his neck not even a second prior suddenly surged forward and grabbed it mid-air, crushing the bones into many pieces only a few inches away from his face.
Before any of them could react, could even realize what the fuck just happened–what was still happening–the same tentacle suddenly struck the water harshly in front of its bulging body like a whip and right before his very eyes, a large wave rose, as if in answer, the sound making his ears ring and it hurt while the sea roared all over around them as it swallowed the entirety of their small ship in one go… with his coworkers… all of his friends still right along with it.
And for a long while, Wilson can only gawk in sheer disbelief as he stared and stared at the water, waiting for (…for what? He didn’t know) a miracle, maybe, for their little ship to float right back up again, for his friends to miraculously swim up, gasping for breath but very much alive–
A minute passed and another.
Oh, God.
“Please…” he croaked out to the stillness.
There was nothing.
With the stars as its witness, there was nothing.
And Wilson didn’t know for how long he was crying nor when did tears even start to pour out of his eyes.
He didn’t even realize he had been actually screaming and cursing at the monstrous squid-thing out loud, this… this god damned demon… for what seemed to be like hours on end until a tentacle suddenly shot forward to wrap around his face, stuffing his mouth with it, abruptly cutting the sound off into muffled sobs and shrieks as he flailed about in its grip like a useless piece of worm dangling on a hook. And maybe in its eyes, he was no better than that, really.
Wilson could barely see a thing through the haze of his tears as he squirmed as hard as he can, but the being just tightened its grip hard enough that he heard something crack behind him.
Then, the pain came.
White-hot and awful, he howls.
The sudden wave of helplessness and the cold tears streaming on his face felt distant, murky… for one blessed moment, like his mind was shielding him from the worst of it all because it seriously felt like he was only seeing his body being twisted this way and on someone else, but the pain felt real, it was all too real.
This felt like something straight out of a nightmare he had no idea how to wake up from but the burning pain on his back felt so real, more so when he feels his ribs slowly cracking one by one, giving way to the horrifying, continuous pressure that never lets up.
And it was laughable, really, at how easily it probably was going to kill him now just as it did with his friends.
In just a single slam from one of its many, many tentacles, it had managed to singlehandedly destroy a small ship in one go, make it sink down hard enough to leave no trace behind and no one could possibly survive such an intensity of such a blow because none of his friends even resurfaced for air even until now and yet…
And yet–!
Here he was… he was all alone, at its mercy, and it could just crush him like a bug instead of messing around but the thing is, he didn’t fucking care anymore.
Wilson was afraid sure, but he so fucking hated this thing for messing with him and his friends’ lives like this and he’ll make sure it will bloody know that even if it’s the last fucking thing he’s ever going to do in his goddamn life!
The sun was rising now, making its wide eyes of fathomless black glint almost ominously as it continued to stare down at him in cold apathy while he desperately tried to claw and thrash around in its relentless grip as much as he can and Wilson–in a bid of rage and rebellious clarity–without looking away, suddenly sank his teeth hard enough on its appendage until he tasted something that was probably its blood.
…It didn’t taste like blood though.
It tasted like fire and ashes.
It stung.
It hurt.
And Wilson must have angered the monster more than he had caused it pain because it still didn’t loosen its grip even as it steadily crushed his arms and legs with some of its other tentacles, the maw in its stomach suddenly ripping open into a large slit until it was…. roaring… something at him, in a language he couldn’t even make sense of, the words are probably meant to be hurtful, older.
It sounded like a curse.
But strangely enough, the sound… it somehow reminded him of the waves crashing on the shoreline from home.
And as Wilson gagged and choked in its grip with his mouth full and at the seemingly never-ending pain in his throat as though it had been set on fire, it snarled at his desperate attempts of freeing himself before it dove down to drag them both deeper into the water despite his useless flailing.
Until he couldn’t see anything but a darkness that seemed to stretch on and on, almost endless, until the pressure proved far too much that he literally couldn’t breathe but still didn’t destroy his already mangled body despite the constant aching in his lungs for his body, no matter how broken… had started to change, had already been cursed with its strange blood that was not blood now settling deep inside him as agony continued to shred his mind into pieces.
But he was still alive because no matter how painful, how much he wished he was dead–it was not going to kill him.
Just like its god, it would not kill him now.
…Because there are fates far worse than death.
Down and down they go, down to the ruins of a fallen god’s unholy court where not even a speck of light or salvation could ever hope to reach them… and it never even occurred to the person whose name was once Wilson Blanc, too lost and too far gone in his fraying mind to even comprehend what he was looking at.
All he knows is that he’s never going to get back home.
The very idea makes him want to weep.
In fact, he thinks he might start crying again.
But really… who could tell under the sea?