Arrival

Each Man is in his Spectre's power
Until the arrival of that hour,
When his Humanity awake
And cast his Spectre into the Lake
~William Blake

A fish said to another fish, "Above this sea of ours there is another sea, with creatures swimming in it- and they live there even as we live here."
The fish replied, "Pure fancy! Pure fancy! When you know that everything that leaves our sea by even an inch, and stays out of it, dies. What proof have you of other lives in other seas?"

~Kahlil Gibran, Other Seas

Excerpt from A Vision of Dyplopia
by Abel Ryan

A jolt roused me first. My head slamming me from fugue consciousness. A warm fluid filled my ears and I had the sense that I was immersed and carried as if on a current. My eyelids so heavy,my consciousness uncaring of the strange womb. Fatigue permeated my body and I relented to it, letting my eyes remain closed and feeling the gentle rocking of the fluid around me. As I lost consciousness another jolt awoke me hard enough to be alarmed. I opened my eyes. They burned until the fluids in my eyes and the environment acclimated. There was only darkness and warmth. The pressure in my ear drums rose and they popped succinctly. Another crack against the hull jarred me. There was a cold draft or stream that could be felt against my backside now making its way into the chamber.


Groping around the container and my stomach sank. The walls were soft and fleshy. A tube of some organic material was trailing down my esophagus and must have been what was supplied my oxygen. Maneuvering in this tiny space took some effort and I was now concerned about dislodging or vomiting up the tube. I was calm for some reason about it all. Drugged? Hormones and neurotransmitters most likely. There was a dim light which illuminated the edges of the crack that I could see. But the exploratory phase of my awakening was short lived. Another tube and gut wrenching crack broke the pod open

Cold water and air rushed into the pod and I was tossed around the interior like a stone across the surface of water. My head spinning and I retched searing pain where the tube had been torn Probably all over myself. A salad shaker came to mind and I puzzled at the absurdity and passed out from the trauma.

I was not rocking anymore and the dislodged tube lie across my face and I wiped it away coughing up mucous and fluid clearing my lungs. I righted myself to peer out the crevasse and saw sunlight and sand. Early morning sunlight it seemed. But bluish purple in it's bright warmth. I could reach only my forearm from the crevasse and the coarse sand was warm to the touch.


I am unsure how long I lie there attempting to pry the damned thing open. But I fell asleep again for a bit in the exhaustion of it all and was quickly awoken by snorting and baying outside the pod. The pod was being prodded from the outside. I froze. The creature came nearer to the crack and I made out a rather massive hairy snout punctuated by sharp tusks and canines and rows of flattened teeth along each side. It's snorts became more frenzied as it found the opening. With a sense of imminent dread I knew I'd been found. Without wasting time the creature worked it's strange jaws into the crack. The tusks maneuvered into the opening, it's rancid breath filling the chamber. What could I do? I was naked, disoriented and about to be consumed by...what exactly?  Again, an absurd reality crept into those moments of rigid fear and I somehow realized I had trouble even recalling who I was. Who am I?



A loud crack punctured these thoughts. The beast had hefted the hull above it's massive head and I fell towards the opening.  My foot landed above the splayed snout, just between the creatures eyes. The black fist sized globes widened and I saw two more on each side, much smaller behind it. Not anticipating something living within it bayed again and the sound was deafening within the pod. With a snap of it's neck I was tossed downshore and I did not even realize I had been freed in the process. I ached but quickly scanned the area. I was facing a black sea and the beast stood several meters away easily the mass of a hippopotamus. "A hippopotamus?" I thought puzzled by the association and my inability to picture any such creature. But the beast was now lowering it's head, snorting and torn between gutting me or whatever it was interested in the pod. She made threatening squeals in my direction and charged forward. Posturing.  Understood, I backed away carefully. Behind me were some dunes and higher ground. The creature sniffed in my direction but was clearly more interested in the pod I had arrived in. It charged once more and I scurried even farther up the dune. It soon returned to it's prize. The pod was a hairy looking husk like a mottled dark coconut shell and skin. Organic clearly. The fluid I had been submerged in was a pussy, bloody color from what remained on me. The coarse sand had stuck to a good portion of my body and was so adhered that it appeared as I had clothing painted on my flesh.



The beast went to town. It cracked the hull even further and buried it's face in the egg. Gorging on the innards which now trailed from it's jowls like bloody afterbirth. Greedily it fed and I could only watch and marvel. When I took my eyes away from the sight I noticed the suns. Two of them in the distance trailing one another and a third in the other direction now barely discernible at the horizon. There stood few trees around the black sea, but a grove lie just behind me which I noted in case the beast decided to come for me after he had finished devouring my temporary womb.



The sea was like no other I had ever seen. Even the waves washing upon the sand were black and left traces of this blackness upon the sand it touched. As the water receded, the sand would dry and return to it's tan color. As I watched the waves rolling I noticed a disturbance further out, an enormous head just above the surface was floating. As if sensing I had detected it. It submerged quickly and without a ripple. I surveyed for another sign of it suspecting this was what had belayed my vessel and caused it to crack open in the first place. Then I saw it. Or not exactly, but a mass of tentacles just below the surface of the water. It was swimming quickly towards the boarish hippo on the beach. The beast was gorging itself unawares. I could only assume the water became shallower and the sea creature was forced to emerge and it did so stealthily. I quelled the urge to call out to scare away either beast with the thought of becoming a potential target. I had no idea what I was dealing with. Still in shock most likely.



Horrifying tentacles quivered and roiled around. The beast did not appear to even have a face, only 8 bright yellow eyes that encircled what looked like a maw. Octopi and squid have beaks, but what was centered there was only a blackness in which rows of flashing teeth flexed in as if the flesh which housed them were a curtain in an open window flapping into it's depths. The tentacles silently floated the beast within striking distance of the boar creature and lashed out around the beasts giant abdomen. It flailed and kicked and tentacles were sent out to restrain these limbs lest they cause any injury. The creature fought and sand was kicked up all around as it struggled. The predator was patient and it's reptilian eyes reflected only intent. And malice. It was enjoying this and only drew the boar closer once it had exhausted itself and given up. It was intelligent. It dragged the boar towards it's mass and rose further out of the shallows. The boar tried to struggle again as it felt itself being dragged into the water but it was short-lived. The creature with the ring of eyes plunged upon it with it's gaping maw and inhaled it with what appeared to be a single gulp.



The reaction was not immediate. The creature turned and I could tell it was observing me. For the length of time it stood in place my skin crawled. Only was my attention diverted by a voice calling behind me in a strange dialect and then a familiar one. I jumped to my feet and there was an old man making his way toward me.



“Forgive me.” He said. "It has been a long time since I have spoken in my old tongue." In his hand were some linens and he draped this around my shoulders and then stopped suddenly as he saw the beast towering in the waters behind me. His jaw quivered and he stopped enshrouding me and sunk to his haunches bringing me down to the ground with him. The beast had begun convulsing, striking out at the water with it's numerous appendages and slapping the black sand leading onto the shore. Great wet claps filled the air and the vibration was felt from where we sat atop the dunes. One and then another, and another of the tentacles slapped onto the sand and hoisted the creature aground. There it convulsed, flailing, some of the tentacle slaps struck the husk fragments sending them spiraling down the shore. Then the mouth began to constrict and dilate and the creature stopped flailing. All of it's energy now centered on this gagging reflex. It was retching, tentacles flailing with every effort. They whipped back and forth almost comically with each powerful heave; were the maelstrom of wind and sand not so violent.

The old man had my head to the ground. We peered through our forearms as the beast slowed again. The frenzy subsiding. Something appeared there in it's maw. White and bulbous. A single, giant fleshy sac was regurgitated onto the shore along with a ton of black and bloody water. The creature in a critical state, all of it's energy expended by this trauma began to shrivel, or so I believed at first. The maw widened and tentacles began to disappear, they were being drawn in as it struggled back to the sea. The gaping hole ringed by both panicked and venomous eyes was a singularity, a black hole. It was consuming the creature itself from the outside in and each tentacle ripped off of the Leviathan's frame with slurping, wet fleshy tears. The creature could it have made a sound out of it's mouth but for all the appendages filling it, too many thousands to count, may have bellowed. Instead we watched it's almost silent struggle until there was all but one squirming tentacle left and the maw snapped closed around it's base with a mighty blast that nearly buried us in sand. The creature, still somehow alive, eight eyes and one tentacle slithered into the black sea. A serpents pace. The old man's face was pallid, his mouth agape.



“Come. We must return tomorrow,” was all he said. My head swam and I only nodded and followed the stranger towards the tree grove whence he must have come. Who and where am I? What was the series of events I had just been borne into in this strange and otherworldly place? If a beast such as that lurked in the black depths of the sea I shuddered to imagine what else we might encounter.

Original Drawing by DillingerX http://goo.gl/UAsiVw