Housing Words of Horror

The Consequences of Shipwreck

The Consequences of Shipwreck
Word Count: 1000
Frightful Fairy Tales | Day 1: The Little Mermaid

"Your Highness, please get inside!"

The prince stood on the rocky deck of the ship, spreading his arms to welcome the pounding raindrops. The ship groaned with each churn.

"Your Highness!" his servant yelled once more from the safety of shelter, cowering at lightning strikes.

"It's only a storm, Bastian," the prince said. "I'm sure the captain and his crew have it under control."

His confidence in the crew exceeded their ability to control the vessel in such foul weather, and perhaps it was because of this that tragedy struck. 

As the ship climbed an immense wave, it lurched forward. A forceful shower of water soaked the deck.

The prince stumbled back. Thunderclap followed a dangerously close flash of lightning. The crew shouted over the wind and rain.

As another wave subsided, sharp, jagged rocks emerged from beneath like the fangs of a viper striking its prey.

The captain steered away, but the forceful tides and relentless blast of the cyclone refused to give control to the helm. The hull twisted sideways, crashing into the merciless claws of earth that ripped into the wood. Loud cracks of splintering wood were ear-shattering even through the cacophony of rainfall.

Panicked shouts of the crew alerted Bastion. The servant fought the urge to release his dinner as he scrambled out of the captain's cabin and reached for his stumbling prince.

"Your Highness!" His shrieks were drowned out by the gush of water tumbling onto deck.

The ship went vertical, water filling its compartments at a rapid speed. Within a few minutes, the great vessel was underwater, and the merciless mouth of the ocean swallowed everyone on deck.

The prince struggled with distorted senses, swallowing mouthfuls of salty water. His eyes stung in the dark, and he wondered if he had opened them.

He desperately searched for something to grab. His lungs burned, his heart accelerated.

Help! His movements slowed down.

A slight glow caught his eyes. For a second, he thought it had been lightning. 

Then, a luminescent shape began to grow from the distance. A glowing, beautiful woman swam towards him. The flare of her dark hair swept back to reveal her face.

She propelled to him with a powerful tail that reminded him of whales. His heartbeat slowed, calmed by the presence of this ethereal, underwater being.

Her beauty struck him greatly; he wondered if he had died. Then, fiery pain flared out from his lungs, prickling the tips of his fingers and toes.

The need to breath overrode his admiration. He clawed at his throat. His vision dimmed, reducing the the soft glow coming from the woman to a blur.

"Let me help you, my prince." Her ghostly voice gave him solace and he closed his eyes, letting the darkness take his pain away.

When he awoke, the prince lay on a beach with tattered clothes. He coughed, feeling unbelievably parched from his underwater endeavour. Debris from the shipwreck surrounded him, but he could find none of his men.

He pressed a hand to his throbbing head.

He remembered the panic in the black water, then the beautiful glowing woman who saved his life. His eyes snapped open. The woman.

He scrambled up, ignoring the sharp pain it brought to the back of his eyes.

"Hello!" he called out. "Is anyone here?"

He walked along the water, searching for someone — anyone. The sky still held the dreary grayness that had plagued his pleasure trip to the sea.

A slight breeze filled his lung with delicious air, and with it, he heard a faint melody. He followed the music until he reached a rocky part of the secluded beach — a possible location of the shipwreck.

His throat constricted when he saw the woman who saved him sitting on a large rock with her tail curled and braiding her hair while singing the wistful tune that filled his heart.

"Excuse me!" 

The singing stopped. She smiled, beckoning him over with a delicate wave. He tread into the water, pushing against the tide. The large rocks gave him support.

"Hello! What is your name?"

The mermaid merely giggled, urging him to join her. The water reached his waist, but it did not deter him.

He stepped closer.

A sharp stinging pain shot into his leg; he gasped. Tears blurred his vision, and he stepped back in agony.

"W-what?"

The mermaid's giggle seemed to grow sinister. For a second, he thought he saw her small, beautiful nose disappear into a flat gill-like slit. He shook his head.

"Can you help me? Please." He didn't want to take another step forward, but her soft humming clogged any rational thought. He stepped forward once more, feeling the sharp pain on his leg. He wanted to turn back, but his body didn't listen.

He cried out in pain until he finally came close enough for her to touch him.

"Join me, my sweet prince," she sang. "I have been waiting for you for so long."

She touched his cheek, and in that moment, transformed. The prince watched in paralysed horror as the woman's face distorted into a monster's. Her perfect skin turned into a pale, scaly blue, her ears grew into fins. Her pupils dilated until the whites of her eyes disappeared into pure blackness, and her nose flattened into the slits he had glimpsed before.

Her lips curled into a horrendous smile as she revealed rows of sharp, serrated teeth.

"It's been so long since I've had a good meal."

Grabbing the prince by his head, the mermaid lifted him off the ground and pounced into the cold water. The prince couldn't struggle as he went deeper into the ocean, back into the depths that failed to claim him before.

As his vision blackened and his ears popped from pressure, he witnessed one more horrifying image.

Myriads of human skeletons lying in the sand to form a massive graveyard; or, he thought grimly, closing his eyes, a pile of bones picked clean by monsters.