The Depths

Part 7

He went completely numb with shock. He looked at the wounds in his thigh. He could see clean through his skin and feeble muscle, through torn tendons, down to the bone. Tears continued to flow from his eyes as his leg was pulled through the open trapdoor. He felt his backside slide across the rough wooden floor toward the trapdoor. His other leg slid through it. His backbone began to slide through it.

He returned to his senses and grasped the edges of the opening in the deck. He screamed for help. He begged an absent god for salvation. The thing began to pull harder. His hands gave way, and he felt his pelvis shatter as he hit the iron staircase. It began running as he screamed in horrible agony. He felt as if he was flying. He was barely touching the stairs as this terrible thing ran faster and faster down the steps. He reached down and planted the fingers of his right hand in the small perforations of the steps, desperate to stop this thing from taking him. He was moving so fast that he barely felt the fingertips shear from his hand. The iron had swiftly cut through them with a sound similar to that of a carrot being chopped.

He grasped his newly severed fingers in his left hand and cried out in shock. He went numb again. He became completely catatonic. He hardly noticed when the thing exited the lighthouse. He glanced at the shack, and saw that it was still burning. The roof was completely burned away, and the heat had shattered the windows. The wind and rain seemed only to exacerbate the fire. He felt the cold rain impact his body, but it felt muffled. He felt the cold, but not the impact of the raindrops. He didn't feel wet. He didn't feel dry. He barely felt a thing.

He looked up into the clouds, watching the lightning flash as the thing jumped into the water. He watched as the churning clouds in the sky was replaced by the churning water above. It was silent. It was calm. He felt the intense cold slowly begin to grind against his skin. He realized that he was holding his breath. He didn't remember contemplating doing so. He was impressed by the tranquility of the world beneath the ocean's surface. He saw the immense, jagged roots of the rock formation that formed the island of which he was just an occupant. He estimated that he was about five or six fathoms below the surface of the water.

The saltwater stung his eyes, but, once again, the sensation felt as if it had been dampened. At around ten fathoms below, the jagged white rock of the atoll had begun to change to a darker, grayish hue. His lungs began to burn. He saw fish of immense proportions, the likes of which he had never seen. They seemed to travel in concentric circles around the being which was dragging him down. At around twenty five fathoms, the rock became pitch black. It looked darker than the blackened waters themselves. He felt as if he was being crushed.

He couldn't count how deep he was any longer. The immense spire of black stone was his only source of orientation. He no longer felt cold. There seemed to be an intense warmth emanating from the darkness below. The blackness of the night's storm reached down through the water, entangling the underwater world in darkness. The only source of illumination was lightning, which reverberated off of the surprisingly reflective black stones. The stones pointed out in every direction, as if they were jagged teeth.

His lungs burned. He began writhing uncontrollably in the water, desperate for air. He coughed, and watched as the precious bubbles rapidly ascended towards the heavens. He couldn't stand it any longer. He fainted, and released his final breath. He inhaled uncontrollably, and felt as his lungs filled with liquid. He prepared himself for death. He closed his eyes. He waited for the cold embrace of death. It didn't come.

His eyes sprung open in terror and confusion. He inhaled more water. He exhaled. He tasted blood. The immense pressure of the depths pressed down on his feeble body. He realized that the liquid didn't taste like saltwater. He was breathing it as if it were air. Another flash of lighting reflected off the rocks, illuminating the area around him. He silently screamed as he saw dozens of the most nightmarish of creatures drift through the water around him.

As he slipped back into the blackness, he wondered just how far from the surface he had traveled. Suddenly he came to a stop. He felt the creature's claws slide out of his flesh. He still felt no pain. He felt its hand grasp his shoulder, and push him down further into the darkness. He hit an oddly flat surface.

A multitude of lightning strikes illuminated his surroundings once again. His eyes widened as he saw the immensity of the circular stone plate on which he had been placed. It was at least fifty feet in diameter, and appeared to be perfectly circular, with the exact same designs as the terrible stones which had destroyed his home. The reflective stones showed the base of the black stone spire. It had to be at least two hundred feet in diameter, with jagged, smooth-faced stones jutting out along its entirety. In the center, directly facing the smooth stone on which he stood, was an immense opening, a hundred feet wide.

A massive wave of water shot out from the mouth of the opening, knocking him backward a few feet. As the wave impacted him, he heard the same horrible sound as before, as the sound of the immense foghorn blasted through the darkness. His hands leapt to his ears once again. The vibrations of the sound seemed as though they would shatter the stone on which he stood. The incredible vibrations caused his fractured left femur to shatter completely. He still felt no pain.

The sound finally ceased. The old man's body had been destroyed. He tasted blood in his mouth. He sat, suspended in the water, as he waited for his death. A brief, immense rumble emanated from the mouth of the cave. A lovely green light gently rose through the darkness. The old man became entranced. He heard a single sentence whispered through the darkness in a deep, calm voice. He couldn't hear what it said. He stared deeply into the light. It repeated again, louder. He didn't care to listen. The light grew nearer. He could now see that that it had split into six beautiful, glowing green lights. They grew ever nearer. As he stared into them, his sense of calm mingled with a sense of fear. He heard the voice, clearly this time. It spoke in a tongue completely unknown to him. The lights were now almost at the edge of the cave. Each was aligned so that they formed the shape of a semi-circle. They looked as if they were each twenty feet long. They blinked. A final flash of lightning illuminated the scene.

The colossal immensity of the beast alone was enough to drive any man to madness. It was larger than any fish, any whale, any battleship he had ever laid eyes upon. Its eyes pierced into his soul. Its innumerable limbs writhed ceaselessly in the silent darkness of the black waters. The old man's mind shattered as he looked into the beast's eyes. It was utterly incomprehensible. The Leviathan moved closer. He tried to scream as one of the narrow feelers reached out toward him. As it wound around his body, growing ever tighter, he continued to stare into its eyes. He knew that his life was finally over.