The Mother's Tale

Chapter Seventeen

It was a miscalculation on her end to not take the moment to determine if the dock was, in fact, unoccupied before her frantic scrambling out of the water, however such was the case with frantic scrambles. They so rarely left the space for thought around what one was actually doing before it was far too late to do anything else about it.  But given the fact that her alternative seemed to be certain death, the fact she managed to land in a situation of only possible death was about as reassuring as anything seemed capable of being for her at that moment. 
What a terrible sliding scale there was for poor Mia Winters' life! 

In her defence though, the dock had been empty moment's before she had found herself upon it, it was simply just very unfortunate that the very same abomination of what had once been a man had decided to join her there. Being able to see the creature at such a close proximity did absolutely reinforce the idea of him being abominable. The sheen of the fleshy pustules on its back, shiny not only from the lake water but also the excretion it oozed from its skin, shone rather unpleasantly in the light. This did nothing to make the smell of rotten fish and flesh and pond slime any more tolerable either. In fact, she was quite sure the Lord could have been dressed to the nines, all silks and lace and monocles and canes, and it would not have managed a more tolerable appearance than he wore now. Not that she was going to ask Moreau to stop trying to attack her and try a new style of clothes for her sake. 

"Don't come any closer." Mia warned, taking a staggering step backwards as she tried to gain her footing. She knew she had little hope of success if she outright chose to try and fight the fellow, but, she hoped, if she could think quick enough she could scoot past it to the perceived safety of drier land. 

She had never heard the laughter of a long dead sailor, body lost to the depths of the sea alongside his ship, but she did wonder if the odd garbled chuckle the amphibious creature let out might have been akin to the sound detailed in old tales of piracy and ghost ships of the damned. 

"The exit's underwater," the ghastly fellow declared far too gleefully, "You're done!" 

The time it took him to speak this landed him far too close for her comfort, even if each staggering, unsteady step did seem to cause him pain. This closeness allowed for her to see little details she would have rather preferred to remain unaware of. Nestled among the pustules were the occasional eye - she wondered if they were able to see any better than those that found themselves in the more traditional position could - and twitching, horribly writhing tendril, and even the tattoos that adorned his twisted form that had been likewise stretched and warped from their original designs. 

"You're too late," continued he, "Miranda's already preparing the ceremony!" He said this as if it should have been very good news indeed, and even believed this himself, but it was very much anything but good news. 

"You're trying to slow me down so she can finish, aren't you?" asked she, not even trying to hide the bitterness in her voice as she vocalised this. This was the most logical conclusion, and one she almost wished she had realised sooner considering how much emphasis the man had been placing on her being too late to do anything of significance.

Rather than reply, unfortunately Moreau began to convulse, his body rejecting a substance that seemed to be suitably foul for him. He seemed in pain as he rather violently expelled whatever it might have been onto the dock. It was no surprise it caused him pain, as it sizzled like a corrosive acid against the wood. This did offer her a chance to try and move around so that she could have a clear path to escape the moment he found himself distracted a second time.

"It's not fair," he lamented, seemingly more to himself than to the woman, "I should be with her, not you!" 

The aforementioned horribly twitching tentacles that she had observed suddenly, and without warning burst forth, revealing them to be a great deal longer than she had first assumed they would have been. One narrowly missed her injured shoulder - she was almost glad that the water had been cold enough to numb the area, or at least give her a distraction, otherwise she would have had one more thing to worry about than she could handle - but this didn't seem to be on purpose, the flailing seeming to be almost frantic and entirely independent of his will.