Adamastor (3)

(Like it says on the tin, this is part 3. Do read the first 2 for some much-needed-and-refreshing lemona- context.)

That old sea dog's words didn't sit well with me. I refused to stray from scientific fact, but they filled me with dread. I dared not let any of my fellow researchers know, so I didn't bother to idle and chat after, and headed straight back to my charts.

But that dread, it stayed with me, and very soon I'd see it validated.
It had been days since we'd seen the blue of the sky, to a point where observing the underwater was impossible from the boat. In this darkness, the fog rolled in, we must not have been a day off from the much dreaded cape. Sailor's whispers turned to cries. Rumbling in the lower decks, screaming and then an explosion. The power went out, and we were forced to leave the safety of our chambers to investigate. Arriving first to the boiler room, I got to see the carnage the clearest. From what I could gather, one of the crew must have been trying to sabotage the boiler, either to leave us stranded, or to blow, and take our lives with it. Others discovered this act and tried to stop both him and the sabotage. They managed to lessen the explosion, but were left as nothing but charred bodies and parts, with our assumed saboteur seemingly having been killed instantly.

That's when we felt it. The wind had picked up. It seemed to sudden, like we'd passed a threshold of a wall. It was so violent that all it did was confuse both scientist and sailor, howling deeply and coldly through an already dark and dreary ship. Doors slammed, glass broke on impacts, kitchenware and pots had fallen. And like a careless mother with a cradle, the ship began rocking to a point where anything not bolted down had started moving.
Shocked by such a sudden change in weather, most of the men rushed to the bow, and our collective dread had just turned to terror. We found our ship, now cleared of fog, stranded in between sharp rock, and the biggest cliff I have ever seen. Pitch black storm clouds adorned the once gray skies. Thunder cracked up high, and the lighting cast streaks of blue light down to the horizon and painted the ocean for a flash. It happened so often, that we could see the waves move underneath us, and the underwater life. Glimpses of large shapes underwater, clouded by panic and awe, they bared the shape of monsters, gigantic and animal shapes, some maybe as big as 50 feet, lurking underneath us. We were near the coast, but we couldn't see the ocean floor, just shades of circling creatures, drawn to the violent rocking of our boat.
As people screamed in panic, men fell overboard, and the captain struggled to keep his ship afloat, I stared. Not into the ocean I had so carefully analyzed and studied just hours before. I stared at the sky, my gaze locked to it's bright flashes.
That's when I saw it. That's when I saw him.

Above the tall cliffs we had found ourselves trapped, there laid a giant figure. It's hair flowed long like the wind, violently thrashing around his gigantic visage, skin almost the color of the very rocks we found ourselves between, arms long and flowing down the cliff and into the water. It's face, looked like the very cliff wall it stood above, deep yellow lights for eyes, cracking and closing to the thunder, giant wide mouth, blowing the very winds our ship had been caught on, and a long green beard, made of thick and tied up seaweed. I could look away from him, both in incredulity and in fear, that should my I hide my gaze from him, he would strike me down with his lighting vision, or blow me away from the already rickety vessel. Whoever hadn't fallen overboard, or was too busy grabbing on for life saw me, saw my gaze looked at the cliffs, and before any of them could utter a word, they too saw it. After a minute every man left on board had glazed their eyes on his hideous form. And we stood there, staring, as he thrashed and blew our ship.
The captain was the first to speak, and between the wind in my ears, the crashing of waves, and the loud thunders, I heard him scream. ''I TOLD YOU'' he repeated ''I TOLD YOU, AND NOW HE WILL CLAIM MY SHIP''. Suddenly out of the corner of my eye, the boy ran to the tip of the bow, and with a voice I had never heard he made a wail, a reverberating tone, human, but like the sounds you'd hear a sea creature make into depth microphones. The captain saw the boy and ran to bring him back to safety. But He had heard him. Just as the boy finished his cries, the creature immediately shot his gaze at him, and not a second later, an arm of lighting struck the bridge, and we were all flung.

I woke up with a headache so severe, I thought myself a drunk. Slowly and with blurry eyes, I got up, and tried to make my way to the bow of the ship. I had apparently been knocked back down to the quarters, had hit my head on the way, and stayed knocked down on that same spot. The rocking had ceased, and I could hear seagulls and calm waves from outside. As I got up the stairs, I saw the bridge, or what was left of her, charred and collapsed, all the instruments lay destroyed on the floor. I looked around, but there were no bodies to be found. Only when stepping out into the sunlight did my head fully grasp the situation I had been left in. The ship was damaged beyond repair, left floating only due to mercy from God, and cause the lower part of her had lodged itself in between two big, sharp rocks. From bow to stern, all I could see was holes and charred wood. No one else. No old captain, no lead researcher, no team, no sailors. I was the single survivor of this almost dreamlike tragedy. My eyes turned to the cliffs that had brought me such misfortune. The creature was gone, no yellow eyes, no hair, and no wind.
I came back into the research cabin, thankfully left undamaged, ignoring all the destroyed equipment and debris on the floor. As I sit here, writing this, hoping it will be seen in case of my death, I'm left feeling dread once again.

No bodies can be seen anywhere. There are no signs of life. Except for a light stepping. I first thought it the sound of the ship on the rocks, but no. It's rhythmic, it's human. But it's so faint. What could be light enough to be making such a noise?

...

(Thank you for reading. This should be the end. As always feedback is very welcome, so kudos and comments are appreciated. And I do mean it, thank you so much for reading my terrible writing, your continued patronage is always very flattering.)