Something had swam beneath and nearly sank us. The tide was not dark- there was something underneath the waves. A shadow that stretch across the entirety of the ocean. Larger- much larger than the Norman, than the greatest and largest ships in the world. In the wave underneath, I saw a great shadow. My physicians supposed that I had been too hard on myself with prescribed drugs and absinthe and that it had given me a case of drunken imagination. They said I was shell-shocked, that I was hallucinating. As my upper body was thrown outside the ship, I gripped tightly onto the rails and forced myself to pull my torso back.īut I saw it. The sudden motion threw me forward and I was nearly thrown overboard by unexpected velocity. To my imminent relief, the wave subsided and the ship began to tilt forward again. Sailors less fortunate than I screamed as those who were not in proximity to something to grab onto collapsed from the uneven elevation. I grabbed the rails and held on as I found myself stumbling. Captain Hill give a shout of alarm as he tumbled backwards, hitting the deck with a cry of pain. Was it Guam perhaps?Ī dark wave rose in front of the Norman and she tilted back accordingly. Under the present circumstances that had curtailed the human powers of observation, I had difficulty ascertaining island’s identity. I turned around to look at the fog, trying to catch a glimpse of the island behind. Jones hurried off, disappearing below deck. The captain had made quite the reasonable plan. We need to steer this ship away or at least ‘round the island or we’re damned out of luck.” “Jones! Listen boy, get down to the engine room and order the boys there to start throwing more coal into the furnace. He gestured at a nearby Sailor, Tommy Jones was his name. The Captain’s eyes followed where my fingers pointed and he frowned in annoyance. “Sir! Land ahead! The waves are pushing us towards the coast- it looks unsafe to land.” I threw the bearded man a salute and shouted. Water was up to my knees as I waded over to Captain Hill. A jagged coastal shape caught my attention briefly as the fog withered, them just as quickly, it was occulted behind the opaque ocean air. In the distance, I saw a dark shape loomed from within the fog. Sailors rush to and fro, hauling water that had flooded the deck to hurl them over the sides. The Norman was a fine ship, but she was old- her hulls were little more than wood overlaid with repurposed railroad steel. Our ship rolled up and down, tied to the waxing and waning of the dark tides. The downpour was heavy, as if God had intended to break his promise and drown the world in a great deluge anew to return the Earth to the Antediluvian age when primeval megafauna ruled the world. On this night, the sky was grey and rumbled with thunder. The USS Norman patrolled, expecting to see no true threat, but showing the flag- quite literally I might add. Imperial German ships were few and far between in this part of the vast world, but nonetheless present. The Norman was stationed in the Pacific, and saw virtually none of the terrible fires that had ravaged Europe and the Atlantic. The Allied navy had conquered island after island, seizing these colonies from the Germans who had not amounted to much upon the high seas- those Britishmen sure do work fast, do they not? It was a foggy night, the night of October 7th, 1914 to be exact. You’d remember the circumstances surrounding the sinking of the USS Norman- Your grandfather must have mentioned it, for it had caused quite the stir amongst the military circles and even the public imagination. You must wonder where I have gone on to, why I had suddenly abandoned my home, my family- perhaps you had even guessed at the truth. I had not merely gone on some mad venture, disappearing across the vastness of the ocean to parts unknown, as you may have heard from those who witnessed my supposed madness. I have been assaulted and hunted by fauna that should not have been born from the soils of this Earth. I have seen things, done things that no sane man should or could. The Truth is terrible, and so “Ignorance is bliss” as Professor Jack Harper was wont to say- had you talked to him perhaps? Had you traced my footsteps, attempting to discern a method to my madness? What is the truth? How could any man truly know of the truth? I know the truth. I write this now in the hopes that you may know that I had exhausted every rational venue of viable action- that I had only done what I have done in pursuit of the truth. One of many, that I had left behind me to record my journey lest what I know now, and have discovered, was lost forever in some foreign port. Ashley, if you are reading this, then you had found my journal.
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