Strange things brood in the night, toiling away in cyclopean lairs, plotting feverishly the demise of the unwary. Vast underground chambers host horrors incomprehensible to the human mind, wriggling, writhing, gelatinous terrors so foul that to lay eyes upon them is certain madness. They thrive in a world apart from our own. Sometimes, however, that world crosses over with ours.
Randall Crowley awoke in the cabin of a ship crossing the great Pacific. Mildewed wood creaked around him as the ship swayed in the tumultuous waves of an oceanic storm. He fumbled in the dark for his matches and lit a candle mounted to the bedside table. Flickering shadows danced around the room as the light struggled to tackle the darkness. The ship lurched and he held tight to the sides of his cot until it settled enough for him to stand up. A knock came at his door. He pulled his overcoat on and pulled the door open. The captain was standing on the other side, soaked through to his undergarments. “We approach. Landfall soon,” the captain said, and with that, he strode away.
Randall pulled out a rolled up parchment and spread it out on the table. The crackling candlelight revealed a map of the Pacific Ocean. It was faded and scarred with use as if it had passed through many hands. Along the top, in a flowing script, was penned Etablissements des français en Océanie. The French Establishments in Oceania. There were several island groupings plotted near the middle of the ocean. North of the Marquesas Islands, in the middle of a vast expanse of nothing, was marked a strange symbol. It was a faded serpent, but it coiled back and forth over itself as it moved. Randall touched his finger to the spot of the symbol and then made the sign of the cross over his body while muttering to himself.
Randall gathered his things and went to the deck. Wild winds thrashed rain against his uncovered face as soon as he left the relative comforts of the ship’s interior. He pulled his hood up and strode to the bow of the ship, stopping to brace against the tilt of the ship as a huge wave beat against it and the resulting wash of storm water carried at least one person overboard. A gargled scream barely carried to his ears as some unlucky soul made the journey to Davy Jones’ locker. He reached the rail and turned his gaze up to peer through the downpour. In the distance, through the haze of rain and seaspray, he saw a mass of smooth land rising steeply out of the crashing waves. The water beat upon the strange foundation incessantly. As they neared, Randall saw pillars of unnaturally smooth stone, spires of darkly glittering obsidian spiraling towards the heavens, and, strangest of all, obelisks rising along the cliff-face of the island.
Before he had a chance to contemplate the view, a cry from the crow’s nest made him turn around. “Monstre des mers!” Aft of the ship a large shape had been seen beneath the roiling waters. Randall held onto the rail tightly as he looked towards the other end of the ship hoping to see what was out there. Shapes moved in the low light and he heard a muffled screams through the wind. Slowly the moving shapes resolved in the storm as flailing tentacles. The ship lurched downwards sharply in the direction of the monster and Randall heard screaming as one of the tentacles snatched up a victim from the ship. “Aidez-moi!” the helpless sailor called shrilly before the tentacle carrying him pulled under the surface. Wood splintered and one of the masts crashed into the ocean as the tentacles wound their way around the ship, hacking through anything in their path. Randall crossed himself and whispered, “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti,” and the ship broke in half.
——
Randall Crowley was sliding in a daze, having rapped his balding head on something more solid than it. Where he was sliding he was not sure. Around him a great cacophony was pressing in, trying to break through the fugue. A wet sensation covered him. He could see flashes of wooden beams shooting past him as vision faded in and out. He was suddenly enveloped with jarringly cold water, which rejuvenated his senses. He was being pulled under the surface by something, a tentacle of the great sea beast that had destroyed the ship. The slimy suckers were wrapped around his leg, dragging him farther and farther from the surface. The turbid swirling water around him gave him fleeting glimpses of wooden wreckage and bodies. He sank further from the air he so desperately needed. Every second that passed brought more pain into his lungs. Panic was trying to settle in as he flailed out in search of something to grab that could halt his descent, but they found nothing solid. He thought solemnly, will this be my grave?
At last, when he was on the verge of giving up hope, his hand grabbed onto a splintered chunk of wood. Ignoring the new pain in his hand from the splinters, he reached down and stabbed it into the tentacle that sought his demise, but it did not loosen it’s grip. He stabbed it again and again until he felt it contract and dart away from him. Randall took his newfound freedom and began to swim towards the faint light of the surface. Wreckage was everywhere, and he knew there was no chance any of the ship had survived. His chest was so tight with the desperate need for air that he wasn’t sure he would make it. As he swam on, the edge of his vision grew soft. The muscles in his arms and legs burned with a ferocity he had never experienced. This will not be my grave! He pushed on, dodging debris until he was sure he would faint, and when all seemed lost, when he could no longer move his arms or pump his legs, when a watery death seemed inevitable, someone grabbed him and hoisted him the last few feet.
He gasped at the air, the sweet, sweet air. It filled his lungs and he could feel it surge through his body, the effects of the claustrophobic underwater crisis slowly ebbing away. He looked around and saw one of the crew of the ill-fated ship pulling himself onto a large piece of flotsam. Rain drizzled lightly all around them. The moon cast it’s subdued rays through the breaking cloud cover. More voices some distance away told him that they were not the only survivors. He hoisted himself up next to the man who saved him and sputtered, trying to thank him. The man looked confused and Randall realized he probably didn’t speak English. The captain was one of the few people on the ship who spoke anything but French. Randall smiled at him and patted him on the back. He was just glad to be alive. As the chunk of wall they floated on spun in the water, the cliff face he was examining before the attack came into view and the exhilaration he felt at surviving vanished.
A gaping black maw had appeared at the water level of the cliff, a cave he hadn’t noticed before. Was it there? Randall wondered. Have I missed it in my awe at what I saw atop the cliff? Despite the hectic situation that was taking place when he first looked at it, he could not convince himself it was there before. Moreover, the great sea was pushing them inexorably toward it. The other group of surviving sailors was closer than he. There were three, and they all watched the cave grow closer with trepidation. With a surge, the water pushed them into the blackness. Randall and his savior would be there shortly behind the other sailors. A few moments passed as they grew closer and closer to the mouth of the cave, and then Randall heard the echo of a single scream from within. A minute later, darkness enveloped him.
No light shone in from outside to give his eyes something to adjust to. The darkness seemed to be complete. It pushed in on Randall. He felt it move past him as he was carried deeper into the passage under the island. The sound of the water he rode upon was strangely muffled in the chilly dark air around him. He reached over to touch the shoulder of the sailor who was with him and found empty air. He felt a panic rising in him as he continued to search for the other man. Randall had never been prone to a panglossian attitude in even the best of circumstances, and this adventure he had embarked up was beginning to take it’s toll on him already. Suddenly, the wreckage which stood as the only barrier between him and whatever lurked in the strange dark waters below him shuddered as it slid over top of something solid. He warily grasped out behind the wood and felt for what he had gone over and touched something like wet clothed flesh before retreating from further attempts. Time passed slowly and his panic began to subside. The pressure of the dark cave and the dull far away rhythm of the water lulled him into drowsiness.
He was not sure how long he stayed in that lethargic state. It ended abruptly as he realized that there was a dim light glowing farther down the cave. He realized that the air was no longer trying to suffocate him and that the sound of the water was no longer muffled. As he drew nearer the light, he saw the undulating reflection cast off the surface of the water. Anticipation grew in him, though he knew not of what yet. What strange things could reside under this long lost land in the middle of the ocean he could not be sure, but that was the reason he was there. The current moved him inexorably toward to the light.
Randall noticed something strange about the water as he grew closer to the source of luminescence. The water was not just undulating, it was writhing. He gave a frightened shout as he realized that the surface of the water was covering in snakes. Glistening scaled bodies glided over the surface of the water, heading straight towards his makeshift raft. He scrambled back on the wood in horror and was tumbled into the frigid water as the front of his raft shot up into the air. It came crashing back down with a splash on top of the snake infested water. He frantically tried to turn around and swim away from the scaly reptiles, but they coiled around him until he was unable to move his limbs. He struggled against them in vain as they began to drag him towards the light, slithering around him as they went. He was pulled under water and bobbed above the surface intermittently. The snakes did not seem to notice that he needed to breathe as he gasped deeply for air every time he surfaced. Hundreds of snakes were moving around him and over him. He felt their repellent scales sliding over his face. He tried moving his arms and the snakes tightened their hold on him. He was sure they were going to snap his bones. He was dragged under water again and this time he was sure they were not going to bring him to the surface again as they dragged him deeper and deeper into the water. The muted light that was beaming through the convoluted water around him faded away and he lost his sense of bearing. For the second time that night, his lungs began to scream in painful protest for air. This time he found no respite, and lost consciousness.