Fragility

8 Pieces of the Past

For the better part of the night, we hiked for some miles until we found an old cave on a hillside in the forest. Here we camped and dried off our clothing. But none of us slept well that night, as we were on high alert after witnessing what that monster beneath the deep did to the ship. We were too scared to even venture outside the cave to gather firewood and make a fire to keep warm. We couldn't help but wonder if other monsters were lurking in the dark of this cave, waiting for us to sleep, and they could come upon us in our most vulnerable moment.

"I'll take point, Edgar; you go get some rest," I spoke to Edgar; he got up from his spot in the cave entrance and walked into the back, disappearing into the darkness.

It was calming to sit there all night, my eyes scanned the darkness. My eyes have developed a natural night vision. It came to me when I had to stay up all night in foxholes, forward of the trenches, keeping my eyes fixed on the Huns. The air was cool, smelled of sea salt and pine trees. The waves were hypnotic, crashing upon the rocks of the seaside cliffs and swelling again, only to crash once more. My eyes grew heavy; I felt the need to sleep but fought it off. I took a couple of cocaine tablets and just felt hyperactive all night, that I paced back and forth at the entrance to keep my overactive mind busy with taking action and running through thousands of thoughts in just a single second.

At dawn, Captain Jethro woke up first and he kicked the sides of his crewmates to get up, "Get up ya lazy gits!" he ordered in a cranky tone as Santos groaned and slowly rose up from his spot. The effect of the cocaine tablets were wearing off, but I am still wired.

"Lancy, ya gots anythin ta eats?" Jethro asked, pointing to the duffle bag I carried.

"Yeah, sure," I dropped the bag and opened it up and took out two Spanish sardine cans pickled in olive oil.

"Hey, guys! Look at dis!" Then suddenly, Calvin called out to the group as he stepped back into main entrance of the cave.

We all gawked in horror at what we beheld. It was some kind of stone shrine, a pillar of sorts, standing over a dozen feet in height and smeared in a dried black substance. The surface of the stone, facing us, had a bas-relief, depicting in rudimentary detail a gigantic-size monster of some kind peering out of an open vortex. The monster was designed with menacing eyes that sting with a hateful glint as it reached out one of its hands towards other figures of people standing before it, their hands and arms raised above their heads as if worshipping the being coming out of whatever realm it was in.

But it isn't the only thing that was there. Around the strange shrine and upon its stone table altar, covered in black botches, are bones, many bones of various sizes. Yet, what all made us fearful was the various child-sized skulls, cracked open at the top, and left around the cave ground like broken pieces of pottery.

"This be that damnable demon Ostermann be worshippin." Jethro grunted with disgust as he breaks the still, uneasy quietness of the cave.

I calmly approached the grounds around the shrine; tiny bits of light from outside illuminate the place so that I have a better understanding of what I am looking at. It didn't help matters that my whole head is throbbing, and I felt a sharp pain like a spike being driven between my forehead as that thing drawn on the stone of the shrine looked at me with malice.

"Des chillin bones or somethin?" Calvin asked in disbelief at first, picking up a femur bone of a child.

"Yea, these are indeed the bones of children," I answered back coldly, seeing as Calvin quickly dropped the bone; his face filled with utter horrific disgust as he makes the pattern of the Christian cross upon him.

"Lordy, have mercy on me! The hell these people doin to der chillins?" Calvin's whole body shivered in fear.

I took a moment to examine one skull of a child; it looks to be that of a girl, no more than three years of age. The whole back of her skull was cracked and shattered.