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The Dead Sea Part 6

By Glenn Riley and Lady Eckland

Part Six: Tides of Damnation and Temporal Ghosts

With her hull crudely patched and her spirits lower than the crushing depths beneath her keel, The Ironclad once again weighed anchor, pulling away from the bleak solace of the island. The glacier clinging to its peaks seemed to watch them go, a cold, indifferent eye in the perpetual grey twilight. They had found no edible sustenance, only brackish water and the grim confirmation that this realm nurtured horrors both ancient and newly spawned. Their supplies dwindled further – hardtack was rationed to dust, the salted meat crawling with weevils, the water tasting of despair. And still, the compass spun uselessly, the fog pressed in, and the graveyard of lost ships stretched endlessly before them.

Adrift in this hopeless sea, the fragile bonds of discipline, strained by constant terror and loss, began to fray. The murmurs started again, louder this time, less cautious. Men gathered in tight knots in the forecastle shadows, their faces mutinous, eyes gleaming with desperation. Hunger gnawed at their bellies, fear at their souls. Young Seaman Boyle, whose closest mate had been torn apart by the giant crabs, became a focal point for the dissent.

He stood before Bosun Davies on the main deck, flanked by a dozen other desperate men, their expressions ranging from sullen defiance to outright hostility. "We can't go on like this, Bosun!" Boyle exclaimed, his voice raw. "Sailing blind, starving, waiting for the next thing to crawl out of the fog or from inside our own mates! Where is the Captain taking us? Deeper into this Hell?"

"Aye!" another man chimed in, Jasker, a burly foretopman. "Chasing ghost stories from that alien wreck! Trying to work magic with heathen devices! He's lost his mind, and he's taking us all down with him!"

"There’s talk of turning back," Boyle pressed, lowering his voice slightly but his eyes challenging Davies. "Trying to find the ice passage again. It’s madness to continue."

Davies, his face like granite, stepped forward, his presence still formidable despite the shared ordeal. "Turning back? Into what? You think that passage waits for us like a harbour mouth? You think the beast that attacked us won't be waiting? There is no turning back. There is only forward, through whatever awaits."

"Forward into oblivion!" Jasker spat. "We should seize the ship, try our own luck!"

The word 'mutiny' hung unspoken but thick in the air. Davies clenched his fists, ready for violence, but before blows could fall, Captain Thorne emerged onto the quarterdeck, Abernathy close behind him. Thorne had heard the commotion, seen the dangerous energy coalescing on the deck below. His face was gaunt, his uniform stained, but his eyes held an unyielding fire.

"Mutiny?" Thorne’s voice cut through the tension, sharp as arctic ice. "You speak of seizing the ship? Of turning back into the jaws of the horrors we've barely survived?" He descended the steps slowly, deliberately, his gaze sweeping across the fearful, angry faces.

"We face starvation, Captain!" Boyle cried out. "Madness! Death!"

"We face the unknown," Thorne corrected, his voice resonating with command. "As we have since we entered this cursed sea. We have lost good men, brave men. We have faced terrors that would shatter the sanity of ordinary sailors. But we are not ordinary sailors. We are men of the Royal Navy! We are crew of The Ironclad! And we have endured!"

He paused, letting his words sink in. "Turning back is suicide. Remaining passive is suicide. Our only hope lies forward, and it lies…" He gestured towards the quarterdeck where two sailors carefully unveiled the alien artifact, its blue light pulsing softly against the grey backdrop. "...with this."

A murmur went through the crowd. Abernathy stepped forward. "This device," he announced, his voice carrying across the deck, "recovered at great cost from the vessel that fell from the stars, is unlike anything known to man. It manipulates energy, space itself. I believe… I am certain… it is a form of transporter. A gateway."

"To where?" Jasker sneered. "The Devil's parlour?"

"Perhaps," Abernathy admitted gravely. "The risks are immense. It could destroy us all. But it is the only technology we have encountered capable of potentially breaching the barriers of this realm, of bypassing the fog, the distance, the very wrongness of this place. It is our one, desperate chance to return home."

Thorne stepped forward again. "We must work together. To understand this device, to harness its power. To survive long enough to use it. Every hand is needed – for repairs, for defense, for the very calculations Mr. Abernathy must make. Yield to fear and division now, and you condemn us all. Stand together, face what comes with courage and discipline, and we may yet see England's shores again."

He stared them down, his will a tangible force against their despair. Slowly, reluctantly, the mutinous energy subsided. Boyle lowered his gaze. Jasker shuffled his feet. The desperate hope offered by the alien device, however terrifying, was more potent than the certainty of slow death or another monstrous attack. Thorne had quelled the immediate fire, but the embers of unrest still glowed beneath the surface.

The Ironclad sailed on, deeper into the graveyard. The character of the wrecks continued to shift, becoming ever more bizarre. They passed vessels that seemed wrought from fused bone and coral, emitting faint, ethereal music. Others appeared woven from living, dark wood that seemed to writhe subtly as they passed. Crystalline structures, impossibly delicate yet intact, drifted like frozen sculptures, hinting at builders who knew nothing of timber or iron. They saw ships shaped like spirals, like impossible knots, vessels whose very geometry seemed to mock the laws of physics. It was as if they were sailing not just through a collection of lost ships, but through the flotsam of countless failed realities, each more alien than the last.

In the relative quiet of the Captain’s cabin, Abernathy, assisted by a surprisingly adept Sutton whose grief now manifested as focused intensity, worked tirelessly on the alien artifact. Using scavenged copper wiring and improvised insulators, they carefully attempted to draw power from the ship's auxiliary steam generator, rerouting it through a complex series of junctions Abernathy had devised based on his observations within the starship. The device hummed louder, its blue light intensifying, the symbols within swirling faster. Strange energy fluctuations caused the lanterns to flicker, the remaining compasses nearby to spin wildly.

"Careful, Mr. Sutton," Abernathy cautioned as Sutton adjusted a connection, sparks showering briefly. "The energy patterns are unstable. One wrong coupling could overload it… or worse."

"Almost there, sir," Sutton muttered, his brow furrowed in concentration. "The conduits… they seem to be aligning with the primary matrix…"

Suddenly, the ship's bell clanged frantically. A lookout screamed, "Boarders! Boarders off the port bow! They're coming out of the water!"

Thorne, Abernathy, Davies, and the others rushed on deck. The sight that greeted them was sickeningly familiar, yet different. Figures were clambering up the sides of The Ironclad, using ropes, anchor chains, even scaling the hull itself with unnatural strength. They were humanoid, but horribly decayed – waterlogged corpses clad in the tattered remnants of sailors' garb from a dozen different eras and nations. Their flesh was sloughing off, revealing bone and rotten sinew. Their eyes were vacant sockets or glowed with a faint, phosphorescent green light. They moved with a relentless, jerky purpose, heedless of injury, emitting low, gurgling moans. Dozens more were visible in the water, swimming towards the ship with eerie silence, emerging from the half-submerged hulks nearby. Zombies. The animated dead of the graveyard's victims.

"Repel boarders!" Thorne roared, drawing his sword. "Gunners, load canister! Sweep the decks!"

The crew, already on edge, reacted with a mixture of terror and battle-hardened fury. Muskets roared, pistols flashed. Cutlasses hacked at rotting limbs, axes bit into decaying torsos. The zombies were strong, their rotting flesh absorbing bullets unless aimed directly at the head, which seemed to disrupt their animation. They swarmed onto the deck, overwhelming the defenders through sheer numbers and relentless advance.

A zombie in the tattered uniform of a Spanish conquistador grabbed a sailor, its teeth sinking into his shoulder before Davies cleaved its head off with his axe. Another, looking like a Viking berserker with seaweed tangled in its beard, swung a rusted axe, felling a man before being riddled with pistol balls by Sutton. The deck became a charnel house, slick with blood, gore, and foul-smelling water draining from the undead attackers.

BOOM! BOOM! The cannons opened up, firing canister shot at point-blank range across the deck, shredding groups of zombies into flying fragments of bone and putrid flesh. More shots boomed into the water, blasting apart the swimming corpses, creating expanding circles of churned water and floating remains.

The battle raged for agonizing minutes. The crew fought desperately, pushing the invaders back towards the rails. The relentless cannon fire took a heavy toll on the swimmers and those attempting to board. Then, as suddenly as it began, the attack ceased. The zombies still on deck paused, their heads turning almost in unison towards the surrounding fog, then, with the same jerky determination, they began slipping back over the side, disappearing into the grey water, returning to the sunken hulks from whence they came.

Panting, bleeding, the surviving crew stared at the carnage, at their fallen comrades. Why had they attacked? Why had they stopped? Before anyone could formulate an answer, a new shape began to coalesce in the fog off the starboard beam.

It was colossal, far larger than The Ironclad, larger even than the Cyclops. A behemoth of white steel, multiple decks rising high into the mist, studded with balconies and windows. Though dark and silent, its lines spoke of modern luxury, utterly incongruous with the ancient wrecks surrounding it. Faintly, through the fog and grime, gold lettering could be discerned: MAJESTIC EMPRESS. A cruise ship. Relatively intact, yet clearly derelict, adrift in this sea of the lost.

Thorne stared at it, his mind racing. A modern vessel. Supplies? Food? Clean water? Medicine? Technology that might help Abernathy with the artifact? The potential rewards were enormous. The risks, after their experience on the Cyclops, were equally terrifying. But desperation gnawed at him.

"Mr. Davies," Thorne said, his voice firm despite his exhaustion. "Prepare the longboat. I'm leading a party aboard that liner. Yourself, Mr. Abernathy, Mr. Sutton, Dr. Maxwell – if that ship holds supplies, especially medical, we need your eye. Hawkins, Peters, Jones – you're with us. Armed to the teeth. Extreme caution."

Davies hesitated. "Captain, after the Cyclops… is it wise?"

"We have no other choice, Bosun," Thorne replied grimly. "Our supplies are nearly exhausted. That ship may be our last chance for survival before we attempt to use Mr. Abernathy's device. We go."

The remaining longboat was lowered, carrying the small, heavily armed party across the still water towards the towering white hull of the Majestic Empress. Reaching its flank, they found an accommodation ladder still deployed, hanging precariously just above the waterline. They climbed, finding themselves on a wide promenade deck.

The silence was profound, broken only by the drip of water and the distant sigh of the fog sea. The deck was deserted. Lounge chairs lay overturned, glasses lay shattered near an empty outdoor bar. A swimming pool nearby was filled with black, stagnant water, coated in a film of iridescent slime. It felt less like an ancient wreck and more like a place abandoned in haste, yet overlaid with the creeping wrongness of the graveyard. Pale fungus grew in shaded corners, and the faint, metallic tang of the island lingered in the air.

"Looks like everyone left in a hurry," Sutton muttered, scanning the empty deck, pistol ready.

"Or they were taken," Maxwell added quietly, his eyes troubled.

They moved cautiously, checking deserted lounges filled with dust-covered furniture, exploring a silent casino where cards lay scattered on felt tables, chips spilled across the floor. No bodies. No zombies. Just an eerie sense of frozen time, of luxury abruptly curtailed.

"We need to go below," Thorne decided. "Engine rooms, stores, infirmary – that’s where supplies might be found."

They located a stairwell leading down into the ship's interior. Darkness greeted them, thick and smelling of stale air, mould, and something else – a faint, unpleasant sweetness, like overripe fruit. Lanterns were lit, casting flickering beams down long, carpeted corridors lined with cabin doors.

Here, the true strangeness began. As they moved deeper, the ship seemed to become… unstable. One stretch of corridor was pristine, the carpet plush, the lights functional (if flickering erratically), the cabin doors showing modern keycard slots. They turned a corner, and the corridor ahead was suddenly different – the carpet was faded and water-stained, the wallpaper peeling, the light fixtures older, brass instead of chrome, the doors possessing traditional keyholes. It was the same ship, yet decades older.

"What in God's name?" Davies breathed, touching a peeling section of wallpaper. "It's like… it's changing."

Abernathy shone his lantern beam around, his expression a mixture of fear and intense scientific curiosity. "Temporal instability. Or perhaps spatial superposition. This vessel… it seems to be oscillating between different points in its own timeline. Or perhaps multiple versions of itself are coexisting."

They pressed on, navigating the shifting maze. A corridor would end abruptly in a wall that hadn't been there moments before. A staircase would change from modern steel and glass to rotting wood and back again. Sounds echoed strangely – distant music from one era, followed by the jarring klaxon of a modern alarm, then silence. It was profoundly disorienting, eroding their sense of direction and reality.

Suddenly, Jones, one of the sailors bringing up the rear, cried out. He stumbled forward, clutching his arm, where three parallel slash marks had appeared, bleeding freely, as if raked by invisible claws.

"What was that?" he gasped, looking wildly around the empty, flickering corridor.

"Something's here," Thorne snapped. "With us. Stay alert!"

A wave of intense cold washed over them. A stack of linen fell from a nearby trolley, scattering across the floor. A cabin door slammed shut further down the corridor with a bang that echoed unnaturally. Abernathy noticed the air shimmer violently in a corner, the light bending as if around a lens, accompanied by the strange, sweet smell becoming stronger.

"There!" Sutton yelled, firing his pistol at the distortion. The shimmer vanished. The cold spot dissipated. Whatever it was, it seemed repelled by the sudden violence or noise.

"Some kind of… phased entity?" Maxwell wondered aloud. "Tied to the temporal flux?"

"Keep moving," Thorne ordered, unnerved. "Find the main stores or the infirmary."

They pushed deeper, the corridors becoming ever more confusing, shifting between states of pristine modernity and advanced decay. They passed a grand ballroom, frozen in two states simultaneously – one half set for a gala with glittering chandeliers (flickering), the other half flooded, filled with drifting debris and rotting furniture.

Finally, drawn by a steady, incongruous yellow light from beneath a door that looked surprisingly solid, they paused. Thorne signalled for silence. He could hear voices inside – faint, muffled, speaking modern English.

He banged cautiously on the door. "Hello? Is anyone there? We are British sailors."

A silence, then a startled male voice, laced with fear. "Who… who are you? How did you get here?"

"We boarded from our ship, The Ironclad. We are seeking supplies. Are you… survivors?" Thorne asked, his heart pounding.

A tense pause, then the sound of locks being undone, a barricade being shifted. The door opened a crack, revealing a young man with wide, terrified eyes, holding a makeshift spear fashioned from a floor lamp. Behind him, two young women peered out, equally frightened. They were all dressed in clothes utterly alien to Thorne and his men – synthetic fabrics, bright colours, strange designs.

"Sailors?" the young man stammered, looking at their 18th-century naval uniforms in disbelief. "You… you look like something out of a museum. What year do you think this is?"

Thorne frowned. "It is the Year of Our Lord 1798. Now, who are you? And how did you come to be here?"

The young man stared, then exchanged a horrified glance with the women. His voice trembled as he replied, the words dropping like stones into the impossible reality of the fog sea.

"1798? No… no, that can't be right. We… we were on the Majestic Empress. Our cruise left Miami… two weeks ago." He swallowed, his eyes reflecting the madness of their shared predicament. "It's April… 2025."

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glennriley49 · 2 months ago

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The Dead Sea Part 5

By Lady Eckland and Glenn Riley

Part Five: The Corruption Within and Without

Aboard the crippled Ironclad, time moved differently. Not with the strange, temporal distortions hinted at by the ship graveyard, but with the agonizing slowness of dwindling hope and back-breaking labour. Repairs proceeded at a snail's pace. The crew, gaunt and haunted, worked with a grim determination born of sheer survival instinct. They cannibalized timber from the island's skeletal wrecks, pried rusted iron fittings loose, patched the hull with clumsy, tar-sealed planks, and struggled to reinforce the strained mast. The pumps remained their constant companions, wheezing rhythmically as they fought the relentless ingress of the cold, grey sea. They had found a source of water inland – a seep trickling from beneath the ancient glacier, brackish and tasting faintly of minerals, but drinkable. It was a small victory in a campaign increasingly defined by loss.

The deepest shadow, however, lay not in the damaged hull or the dwindling supplies, but in the makeshift infirmary below decks. Seaman Hawkins, wounded during the escape from the Cyclops, was fading, but not in any way Dr. Maxwell’s Chirurgeon’s Mate, a young man named Alistair Finch, understood. Confined to his bunk, Hawkins thrashed with fever, his skin unnaturally cold and clammy, taking on a greyish, translucent quality. Strange, dark blue veins pulsed visibly beneath the surface, forming intricate, spidery patterns. He rarely spoke coherently, muttering instead about chitin, skittering legs, and an overwhelming hunger.

Finch, visibly distressed, sought out Captain Thorne on the quarterdeck where he oversaw the precarious repairs. "Captain Thorne, sir, it's Seaman Hawkins," Finch began, his voice low and trembling slightly. "I… I don't know what to do. It's no fever I've ever seen. His temperature is dropping, yet he burns to the touch. His skin… it's changing, sir. Becoming like… parchment stretched over hard ridges." He swallowed hard. "I think… I think what Dr. Maxwell feared, about that creature on the metal ship… it's happening to Hawkins. Whatever wounded him, it left its seed. I believe there's something… growing inside him."

Thorne’s face, already grim, darkened further. "Can you help him?"

Finch shook his head helplessly. "I could try surgery, sir. Try to excise whatever… parasite… is responsible. But I'd need him insensible, deeply anaesthetized with laudanum, and even then… I don't know what I'd find. Or if cutting into him would only make it worse, unleash it somehow. Dr. Maxwell would know better, but…" His voice trailed off, looking towards the desolate interior of the island where the exploration party, including Maxwell, had vanished days ago.

"Do what you can to keep him comfortable, Mr. Finch," Thorne said wearily. "And keep him restrained. Post a guard outside the infirmary. Let no one enter but yourself. Pray that Dr. Maxwell returns soon with better counsel." He didn’t voice his deeper fear: that Hawkins was already lost, another victim destined for monstrous transformation.

That prayer for the shore party’s return became more desperate as the days crawled by. Four days had passed since they ventured inland. Four days of back-breaking labour, dwindling rations, and gnawing anxiety on the crippled ship. Then, the island unleashed a new horror upon them.

It began without warning. The black sand near the waterline erupted. Not with water, but with shapes – hard, scuttling things emerging into the grey light. Giant crabs, monstrously large, some the size of sheepdogs, others as big as sea chests, boiled up from beneath the surface. Their carapaces weren’t the familiar reddish-brown of common crabs, but a sickly, pale grey, mottled with the same fleshy fungus that plagued the wrecks. Many bore hideous mutations – clusters of twitching eye-stalks, extra scuttling legs, claws grotesquely oversized or twisted into barbed hooks. They moved with an unnatural speed, charging the startled work parties on the beach.

"Crabs! Giant crabs!" The cry went up, followed by screams of pain.

Men dropped tools and salvaged timber, grabbing muskets, axes, boarding pikes, anything that could serve as a weapon. The initial volley of musket fire cracked, balls smacking against the thick carapaces, some finding purchase in joints or eye-stalks, but many ricocheting harmlessly. More crabs surged from the lapping waves, their claws clicking, pincers snapping with lethal force.

A man screamed as a crab seized his leg, its massive pincer crushing bone with an audible crack. Another was dragged down by two creatures, disappearing beneath a flurry of scuttling legs and snapping claws. Chaos reigned on the beach. Axes rose and fell, cleaving through chitinous shells with wet crunches. Cutlasses flashed, hacking at legs and eye-stalks.

"Form ranks! Volley fire!" roared the ship's gunner, Mr. Evans (no relation to the deceased), who was overseeing the mounting of a small 6-pounder field gun salvaged from a wreck. His men frantically loaded the cannon with canister shot.

BOOM! The small cannon bucked, spewing a hail of musket balls into the thickest concentration of crabs. The effect was devastating. Several creatures were shredded instantly, their mutated bodies torn apart in sprays of ichor and splintered shell. But more kept coming, driven by a mindless, voracious hunger.

The fight became a desperate melee. Men fought back-to-back, stabbing with pikes, swinging heavy hammers salvaged from the wrecks. The air filled with the crack of muskets, the clang of steel on shell, the hideous clicking of claws, and the screams of the wounded and dying. The black sand grew slick with human blood and the foul-smelling haemolymph of the monstrous crustaceans. Slowly, agonizingly, the crew began to gain the upper hand, their discipline and desperation overcoming the sheer ferocity of the attack. The cannon fired again, blasting another group into oblivion. Finally, the remaining crabs, perhaps sensing the tide had turned, scuttled back into the sea or burrowed frantically back beneath the sand, leaving the beach littered with their grotesque remains and the bodies of fallen sailors.

Exhausted and bloodied, the survivors surveyed the carnage. At least six men were dead, horribly mutilated. More were wounded. Precious salvaged materials lay scattered and broken. The brief respite the island had offered had proven cruelly illusory.

Miles away, in the island's bleak interior, the returning exploration party knew nothing of the battle on the beach. They were engaged in their own struggle against mounting dread. The journey back from the crashed starship was proving far more taxing than the outward leg. They were weary, burdened by the loss of two more comrades, and carrying the alien device – a crystalline lattice structure housed within a heavy, metallic casing Abernathy had managed to partially detach from the alien console. The device pulsed with a faint warmth and emitted a low, almost subliminal hum that grated on their nerves.

For three days, they had trekked across the desolate landscape under the oppressive grey sky, and for three days, they had felt watched. It started subtly: a sense of unseen eyes tracking them from the jagged ridges, shadows that seemed too large or moved too quickly in their peripheral vision, the snap of rockfall from slopes where no wind blew. At night, huddled around meagre fires fed by driftwood scavenged from high-water marks in the ancient riverbeds, they heard sounds – low guttural calls that seemed to echo from impossible distances, the slithering scrape of something immense moving over rock just beyond the firelight.

"Something's following us," Sutton stated flatly on the third night, his hand never straying far from his pistol, his eyes constantly scanning the darkness.

Davies nodded grimly. "Been feeling it since we left the crater. Big. Whatever it is, it's letting us walk, for now."

"Perhaps it is drawn to the device," Abernathy suggested, glancing uneasily at the covered artifact lying beside him. "Its energy signature, though faint to us, might be a beacon to whatever indigenous life persists here."

Chaplain Hemlock murmured prayers, while Dr. Maxwell documented the island's sparse, alien flora in his notebook, his scientific curiosity a thin veneer over palpable fear. The two remaining sailors stuck close to Davies, their faces tight with anxiety.

On the fourth day, exhausted and apprehensive, they finally crested the last ridge overlooking the cove. The sight of The Ironclad, still afloat despite her visible wounds, brought a surge of relief, quickly tempered by the obvious signs of recent conflict on the beach – overturned supplies, fresh earth marking hurried graves, the lingering stench of crab ichor.

"Trouble," Davies grunted. "Looks like they had a fight."

As they began their descent towards the beach camp, a shadow detached itself from the cliff face to their left. It wasn't a trick of the light. It was solid, immense, and utterly nightmarish. It unfolded itself from the rock face it had been clinging to, its colouration a perfect camouflage of grey and black volcanic rock. It was vaguely reptilian, but hideously distorted – a long, serpentine body supported on multiple, thick, clawed limbs that seemed capable of gripping sheer rock. Its head was broad and flat, dominated by a maw filled with needle-sharp teeth and milky, sightless eyes that seemed to sense pressure or vibration rather than light. It moved with an unsettling fluidity, slithering and climbing down the slope towards them, clearly drawn by the alien artifact Abernathy carried. It let out a low, hissing roar that echoed off the rocks.

"To the beach! Run!" Davies yelled, drawing his cutlass.

The party scrambled down the slope, stumbling on loose rock, casting panicked glances back at the pursuing horror. It was faster than its bulk suggested, closing the distance rapidly. Shouts from the beach indicated they'd been seen.

"Cannon crews! Target! High on the western slope!" Thorne’s voice, amplified by a speaking trumpet, boomed from the ship.

The creature was almost upon the stragglers of the party when the cannons of The Ironclad spoke. Two 12-pounders, their aim guided by observers on deck, fired almost simultaneously. The balls shrieked overhead. One missed, smashing into the rock face above the creature. The second struck true, hitting the monster squarely in its broad torso. The impact was immense. The creature convulsed, its rocky camouflage shattering, revealing pale, tough hide beneath. It stumbled, roared in agony, then another cannonball hit its flattened head, exploding it in a shower of bone and pale ichor. The massive body slid, crashing down the slope, coming to rest in a broken heap mere yards from where the terrified shore party had reached the relative safety of the beach perimeter.

Relief washed over them, potent but short-lived. As Davies helped Abernathy to his feet and the others caught their breath, a fresh wave of screams erupted, this time from aboard The Ironclad.

"Below decks! It's Hawkins! He's loose!"

Thorne, still on the quarterdeck, spun around, horror dawning on his face. "Seal the hatches! Armed parties below! Find him!"

Chaos unfolded within the confines of the wounded ship. Hawkins, his transformation complete, had burst from the infirmary. He was a grotesque parody of human form. His torso was still recognizable, but elongated, hunched. Four long, spindly, chitinous legs, like those of a monstrous spider, had erupted from his back and sides, clicking rapidly on the deck plates. His arms were thin, elongated, ending in sharp, bony claws. His face was stretched, distorted, his mouth split into mandibles, multiple simple eyes glistening above his human ones, which rolled wildly with madness and agony. He moved with unnatural speed and agility, skittering across the floor, onto bulkheads, even onto the ceilings, shrieking incoherently.

He tore through the lower decks, attacking anyone he encountered. The guard outside the infirmary was killed instantly, impaled by multiple limbs. Two men working on the pumps were cornered and butchered before they could raise an alarm. Panic spread as men realized the horror wasn't just outside, but within, wearing the face of a former shipmate.

Davies, Sutton, and the newly returned sailors grabbed weapons and plunged back onto the ship, joining the hunt. The lower decks became a deathtrap. Lantern light cast wild, confusing shadows. The click-skittering of Hawkins' spider legs echoed unnervingly. Men fired muskets wildly down corridors, the shots ricocheting dangerously.

Sutton, his face a mask of cold fury, seemed almost possessed. Seeing Hawkins, another man twisted by the horrors of this place, seemed to ignite a final, burning rage within him. He moved with reckless abandon, pistol blazing.

They cornered the Hawkins-creature in the cramped space of the galley stores. It clung to the ceiling, drooling viscous fluid, its multiple eyes gleaming redly in the lantern light. It screeched and leaped down, landing amidst sacks of dwindling flour, sending up white clouds.

"Fire!" Davies roared.

Muskets and pistols erupted. The creature staggered, riddled with balls, chitin cracking, but it kept coming, lashing out with its claws, impaling another sailor through the chest. Sutton, screaming incoherently, charged forward, emptying his second pistol into the creature's distorted face, then drawing his cutlass and hacking wildly at its limbs. Davies and the others closed in, overwhelming it with sheer numbers and firepower. Finally, riddled with lead and bleeding from multiple wounds, the Hawkins-creature collapsed, shuddering, and lay still.

Silence descended once more, broken only by the ragged gasps of the survivors and the ever-present groan of the ship's pumps. They stared down at the monstrous corpse of the man who had been Seaman Hawkins, horror and pity warring on their faces.

Later that day, under the perpetually grey sky, another somber ceremony took place on the black sand beach. Chaplain Hemlock presided over a mass burial for the victims of the crab attack and Hawkins' rampage, their bodies committed to the unforgiving earth of the island alongside those who had fallen before. The surviving crew stood bareheaded, their numbers significantly reduced, their faces etched with trauma and exhaustion. Captain Thorne spoke briefly, his voice heavy.

"We have faced horrors beyond imagining," he said, his gaze sweeping over the survivors. "We have lost brave men – shipmates, brothers. Their sacrifice demands that we do not yield to despair. We have endured the monster in the fog, the corruption of the graveyard, the terrors of this island. We have paid a terrible price. But we have endured." He paused, letting the weight of their survival sink in. "Mr. Abernathy's party returned not just with tales of new wonders and dangers, but with… this."

Later, in the dim light of the patched-up Captain's cabin, the 'this' lay upon the table: the alien device. It pulsed with a soft, steady blue light, its crystalline structure seeming to drink in the gloom. Thorne, Abernathy, Davies, Maxwell, and Hemlock gathered around it.

Abernathy, though exhausted, spoke with renewed intensity, gesturing towards the artifact. "Based on its location within the crashed vessel, the energy signatures I could barely comprehend on their console, the way the surviving alien guarded it so fiercely, and the patterns swirling within the crystal itself… I can only reach one conclusion." He took a deep breath. "This is not merely a power source or a communication device. I believe it manipulates the very fabric of space. Possibly time. It's an inter-spatial – or perhaps, given the nature of this sea – an inter-dimensional transporter."

Davies eyed the device sceptically. "Transporter? To where?"

"That," Abernathy conceded, "is the terrifying question. It was likely damaged in the crash. Its target coordinates, if any are set, are unknown. It could transport us anywhere – into the heart of a star, the vacuum of space, another dimension perhaps even worse than this one." He leaned closer, his eyes gleaming with desperate hope. "But it is also undeniably technology far beyond anything human. It warps space. If anything can breach the barrier that holds us here, if anything can cut through the fog and return us to our own world, our own time…" He tapped the glowing crystal gently. "It is this. It represents a chance, perhaps our only chance, to escape."

Thorne looked at the device, then at the faces of his remaining officers. They had faced down monsters, mutations, and aliens. They were battered, bleeding, stranded at the edge of reality. Escape seemed impossible. Yet, here lay a potential miracle, wrapped in inscrutable alien science and immense risk.

"Activate it?" Thorne asked quietly, the question hanging heavy in the air.

Abernathy nodded slowly. "I believe I can interface some of our auxiliary steam engine's power conduit to it, based on the energy couplings I observed. It might provide enough energy to activate its primary function. What happens then… is entirely unknown."

The decision rested on Thorne’s shoulders. Annihilation, or salvation? Madness, or home? He looked at the glowing artifact, the last, desperate gamble offered by a universe far larger and stranger than he had ever dreamed. The fog swirled outside the cabin window, patient, waiting. The choice had to be made.

#horror stories #cosmic horror #horror #howard phillips lovecraft #eldritch horror #dead sea #tim curran #scary #scary horror stories

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glennriley49 · 3 months ago

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The Dead Sea Part 4

By Glenn Riley and Lady Eckland

Part Four: The Island of Lost Stars

The mood aboard The Ironclad following the disastrous reconnaissance of the Cyclops was poisonous. Fear, thick and suffocating as the omnipresent fog, permeated every timber, every iron plate. In Captain Thorne’s cabin, the air was heavy with the ghost of Master-at-Arms Riggs and the chilling implications of Abernathy’s report.

Davies, his face etched with grief and fury, stood stiffly, recounting the encounter. "...Riggs bought us time. Engaged it hand-to-hand while we retreated. Didn't stand a chance against those claws, Captain. Cut down before our eyes." He slammed a fist onto the table, making the lamp jump. "Damn that ship! Damn this whole cursed sea!"

Abernathy, pale and holding the recovered journal as if it were contaminated, elaborated. "The journal entries are unequivocal, Captain. The entity encountered within the Cyclops was once human. Eleanor Vance, travelling with her husband aboard the yacht Wanderer. The text describes a parasitic organism, encountered deep within the derelict, initiating a rapid, horrifying metamorphosis. It suggests a biological assimilation, rewriting the host physically and mentally." He shuddered. "The creature we fought… it was her, twisted into something monstrous, driven by alien hunger."

Dr. Maxwell, carefully tending to the ragged gash on Seaman Hawkins' arm in the corner, added his grim findings. "The wound is… unusual. There's minor necrosis around the edges, far quicker than typical infection. And the tissue samples under the microscope show… intrusions. Cellular structures I cannot identify, almost crystalline yet seemingly mobile. Whatever inflicted this wound left something behind. It's as if the creature itself is infectious." Hawkins groaned, feverish sweat beading on his brow.

Chaplain Hemlock, who had remained silent, spoke now, his voice low but resonant. "This place is not merely a physical trap, Captain. It is a crucible of corruption. The great beast in the fog consumes the flesh, but the lurking evils within these wrecks… they consume the soul, twisting God's creation into mockery. This is a layered Hell, each circle revealing deeper damnation."

Sutton, who had stood rigidly throughout the debriefing, spoke for the first time, his voice hoarse, devoid of its youthful tones, replaced by a chilling emptiness. "My brother… Finn… Evans… Riggs… Miller… How many more? This place doesn't just kill you. It changes you. Like that… woman. Are we all destined to become monsters here?"

Thorne surveyed his officers, his crew. The horror of the colossal entity below was now compounded by the terror of parasitic transformation from within the graveyard itself. Paranoia spread like the strange mould on the derelict ships. Men eyed each other suspiciously, flinched at shadows, avoided the darker corners of the ship. Discipline, already frayed, threatened to snap.

"Enough," Thorne’s voice cut through the despair, sharp and commanding. "Riggs died bravely, serving this ship. We will honour his memory by surviving. Dr. Maxwell, tend to Hawkins, isolate him if necessary. Mr. Abernathy, study that journal, study the slime samples, find anything that might offer a defense. Mr. Davies, maintain order, double the watches again. Chaplain, offer what comfort you can, but remind the men that duty prevails even in Hell."

His words were a fragile dam against the tide of fear, but before his orders could be fully absorbed, chaos erupted from above.

A sound like thunder cracked overhead, but born of impact, not storm. The entire ship shuddered violently, timbers screaming, iron groaning. Shouts of alarm echoed from the deck. Thorne and the others scrambled up the companionway ladder into a scene of terrifying destruction.

Emerging silently from the grey shroud, immense tentacles, thicker and darker than the one that had taken Miller, slammed down onto The Ironclad. One crushed a section of the starboard bulwark and railing, sending splinters and twisted metal flying. Another slammed onto the forecastle, narrowly missing a cannon crew, pulverizing the deck planks. Panic ensued. Men scattered, screaming, firing muskets wildly into the fog.

"Gunnery crews! Fire at will!" Thorne roared, drawing his sword, the situation demanding immediate, violent response. "Aim for the source! Load chain shot! Double charge!"

The cannons, already loaded, erupted with flame and smoke. Balls ripped into the fog. The chain shot, designed to shred sails and rigging, whirred invisibly into the grey, seeking a target. A deafening, guttural bellow answered them, a sound so deep and resonant it seemed to shake the very air, vibrating through the soles of their boots. It was a sound of pain, perhaps, but mostly of colossal, inhuman rage.

The tentacles momentarily recoiled, but the assault wasn't over. Suddenly, huge objects began hurtling out of the fog, thrown by unimaginable strength. A massive chunk of rock, trailing weed and slime, crashed onto the quarterdeck, obliterating the helm, sending the helmsman flying overboard in a spray of blood and shattered wood. Then came a section of rotten mast, thick as a man's body, torn from one of the nearby wrecks, landing amidships with devastating force, smashing through the deck and into the compartments below.

"Port battery, fire!" Davies bellowed, directing the gunners as another tentacle snaked over the side, probing blindly, seeking purchase or prey. Round shot slammed into its flank, leaving bleeding, puckering wounds that oozed the familiar cold slime, but it barely seemed to register the impacts.

"Concentrate fire!" Thorne yelled, pointing towards the area where the bellow had originated. The remaining cannons roared again and again, a desperate, continuous barrage into the unseen. They threw everything they had – round shot, grape shot, chain shot – into the swirling grey curtain.

Another agonized, furious bellow tore through the fog, closer this time. Then, slowly, the tentacles withdrew. The bombardment of debris ceased. The monstrous presence receded, leaving behind a scene of devastation.

The Ironclad was crippled. The helm was destroyed, the rudder linkage likely damaged. Sections of the deck were smashed open, the starboard bulwark mangled. At least one mast showed signs of serious strain from the impacts, its rigging frayed. Water poured through the hole amidships. Pumps were already working frantically, but the ship was taking on water, listing noticeably to starboard. Casualties were still being counted, but Thorne could see bodies lying still on the deck, others being tended by Maxwell and his mates.

They had survived the direct assault, driving the beast back with the sheer fury of their cannons. But it was a pyrrhic victory. They were damaged, adrift, taking on water, lost in a graveyard sea ruled by an enraged titan and populated by parasitic horrors. Despair, cold and absolute, threatened to finally overwhelm the remaining crew.

Days turned into an indistinguishable grey blur. The crew worked relentlessly, driven by the primal instinct for survival. Pumps clanked non-stop. Repair crews, under Davies’s tireless supervision, patched the hull as best they could with salvaged timber and metal plates scavenged from their own damaged sections. Abernathy, when not assisting with repairs, pored over the journal and slime samples, his brow furrowed in concentration, finding nothing useful. Chaplain Hemlock moved among the men, offering prayers that sounded increasingly hollow against the backdrop of constant fog and the groaning of the wounded ship. Sutton worked with a silent, obsessive intensity, his grief channelled into hard labour. Thorne projected an image of unwavering resolve, but inwardly, he grappled with dwindling hope. Their food was running low, fresh water strictly rationed, ammunition depleted.

They drifted deeper into the graveyard, the current pulling them slowly but inexorably onwards. The fog remained their constant companion, their prison wall. Then, after what felt like an eternity of grey despair, the lookout’s cry startled everyone.

"Land! Land ahead!"

Through a momentary thinning of the mist, they saw it – an island, rising starkly from the lifeless sea. Jagged peaks of black volcanic rock clawed at the sky, partially shrouded in ancient, blue-tinged glacial ice. But the lower slopes, particularly on one side, were free of ice, revealing barren, dark earth. And like morbid jewels scattered upon its shores and slopes, lay more shipwrecks, dozens of them, bleached and broken.

A flicker of hope ignited. Land. Solid ground. A chance, however slim, for more substantial repairs, perhaps even fresh water. Thorne ordered the remaining sails set, using makeshift steering with tackles attached directly to the damaged rudder post, coaxing the crippled Ironclad towards the island.

He chose a small cove on the thawed side, sheltered from the open sea, where several ancient wrecks lay half-buried in the black sand. With painstaking effort, they nudged the wounded warship as close inland as they dared, dropping anchors that thankfully found purchase. The silence of the island felt different from the silence of the sea – heavier, more watchful.

"Mr. Davies," Thorne ordered, once the ship was secured. "Organise shore parties. We need water, first and foremost. And materials. Strip those wrecks on the beach for anything usable – timber, iron, canvas. Establish a defensive perimeter. We don't know what awaits us here."

Repair crews immediately set to work on the Ironclad's hull, benefiting from the relative stability and the promise of salvaged materials. Exploration parties fanned out cautiously along the shoreline, searching for streams or pools. The island was unnervingly desolate. No birds wheeled overhead, no insects buzzed in the damp air, no vegetation grew beyond patches of hardy, blackish moss clinging to the rocks and the ubiquitous, pale fungi seen throughout the graveyard. Skeletal remains, some recognizably animal, others disturbingly unidentifiable, lay scattered among the rocks.

Thorne decided a deeper reconnaissance was necessary. "Mr. Abernathy," he called. "Assemble a small party. Yourself, Mr. Davies, Sutton, Chaplain Hemlock for morale, Dr. Maxwell – I want your assessment of any biologicals – and four dependable men. Armed. Scout inland. Look for water sources away from the shore, assess the island's extent, and identify any potential threats. Stay alert. We know what horrors this sea can breed."

The party set off, moving inland from the cove. The terrain was rugged, sharp volcanic rock making footing difficult. They climbed slopes littered with the bones of ships and creatures, the silence broken only by the crunch of their boots and the low sigh of the wind moving through the jagged peaks above. The air was cold, clean, but carried a faint, metallic tang beneath the smell of brine and decay.

They found no fresh water near the coast. Following a dry, ancient riverbed upwards, they moved deeper into the island's barren interior. The landscape grew stranger, the rock formations more contorted. After several hours of difficult hiking, they crested a ridge and looked down into a hidden valley, a sort of natural crater shielded from the sea. And nestled within it, half-buried by rockfall from one side, lay the most bizarre wreck they had encountered yet.

It was unmistakably a vessel, but utterly alien. It bore no resemblance to any ship, whether from their time or the ancient past, nor even the futuristic strangeness of the Cyclops. Its hull was a seamless, flowing structure of a material that shimmered faintly with iridescent colours, even in the dull grey light. It lacked discernible decks, windows, or propulsion systems. Its shape was partly organic, partly geometric, suggesting principles of design beyond human comprehension. It had clearly crashed, violently, impacting the crater wall and embedding itself deep into the rock and earth. Strange, twisted spars of the same iridescent metal lay scattered around it.

"Good Lord," Abernathy breathed, raising his spyglass. "This… this is not of Earth. It cannot be."

Davies gripped his cutlass tighter. "Fell from the sky? Like a meteor?"

"A constructed vessel, Davies," Abernathy insisted, his voice filled with awe and trepidation. "Look at the lines, the structure… it’s technology, but unlike anything imaginable. A starship?" The word sounded absurd, yet unavoidable.

Chaplain Hemlock made the sign of the cross. "Fallen angels? Or something… else?"

Sutton stared, his expression unreadable. Maxwell simply looked baffled, shaking his head.

Curiosity and the desperate need for answers outweighed their fear. Thorne's orders were to investigate anything unusual. Cautiously, they descended into the crater towards the silent, alien wreck. Finding an entry point was difficult; the seamless hull offered few openings. They eventually located a jagged tear near the impact zone, where the strange metal had been ripped open like fabric.

Davies took point, peering into the darkness within, lantern held high. "Smells… strange. Like ozone, and… cinnamon?" He climbed inside, followed by the others.

The interior was even more disorienting than the exterior. Corridors curved at unnatural angles, defying Euclidean geometry. The walls glowed with a soft, internal light, shifting in slow patterns. Panels covered in intricate, unreadable symbols pulsed faintly. A low, resonant hum vibrated through the deck beneath their feet, despite the obvious crash damage. Gravity felt subtly lighter, their movements slightly floaty.

They moved cautiously, weapons ready, overwhelmed by the sheer alienness of it all. They found chambers filled with bizarre, incomprehensible machinery, some rooms lined with pods containing viscous fluids, others seemingly dedicated to the observation of swirling star fields projected onto curved walls.

Then, they found the crew.

In what might have been a control room or bridge, dominated by vast, dark viewing screens and chairs moulded into strange shapes, lay several bodies. They were desiccated, ancient-looking, yet clearly non-human. Tall, thin, with multiple limbs, their bodies were encased in a dark, chitinous exoskeleton. Their heads were elongated, dominated by huge, multifaceted eyes like those of insects. Their limbs ended in delicate, three-fingered claws. They lay slumped over consoles or sprawled on the floor, seemingly victims of the crash centuries, perhaps millennia, ago.

"Incredible," Maxwell whispered, kneeling beside one, careful not to touch. "Insectoid… yet clearly intelligent. Tool users."

Abernathy examined the symbols on a nearby console. "Their science… their understanding of the universe… it must have been staggering."

As they absorbed the shock of discovering extraterrestrial life, a subtle wrongness intruded. A flicker of movement caught Sutton’s eye in the periphery. He spun around. Nothing. Davies frowned, sensing something amiss. A low hum near Abernathy suddenly cut out. A small, metallic tool lying on a console clattered inexplicably to the floor.

"Did you see that?" one of the sailors whispered, aiming his musket into the shadows.

"Stay sharp," Davies ordered, his instincts screaming danger. "Something’s here."

Abernathy, examining the air near where the tool had fallen, noticed a faint distortion, like heat haze on a summer road. "Light… it's bending. Refracting around something…"

Before he could finish, the sailor who had whispered cried out, a choked gurgle. He collapsed backwards, clutching his throat, where a perfectly circular, cauterized hole had appeared, smoking slightly. Chaos erupted.

"Take cover!" Davies yelled, shoving Abernathy behind a console.

Another sailor screamed, stumbling back as a shimmering line of intense heat sliced through his musket barrel and continued into his chest. He fell, smoke rising from the wound.

"It's invisible!" Sutton shouted, firing his pistol wildly into the area where the attacks originated. The shot hit nothing but a glowing wall panel, which sparked and went dark.

Chaplain Hemlock began reciting the Lord's Prayer, his voice trembling but loud, a beacon of familiar faith in the alien nightmare. Davies and the remaining two sailors fired muskets into the air, hoping to hit something, anything.

Suddenly, Sutton, remembering the Cyclops creature appearing from nowhere, grabbed a pouch of spare gunpowder from his belt. With a roar, he flung its contents high into the air near where the attacks seemed to be coming from.

The fine black powder momentarily clung to a shape – a tall, humanoid silhouette, shimmering, indistinct, but definitely there. It seemed startled by the revelation, pausing its attack.

"There!" Davies roared. He fired his pistol, aiming centre mass of the powder-dusted outline. The shape convulsed violently. Abernathy saw the light-bending effect flicker and fail in patches, revealing glimpses of smooth, grey skin or perhaps armour, and a complex optical device mounted where a head should be.

The creature, partially visible now as a shimmering, distorted figure, raised an arm, pointing a slender, metallic weapon. Before it could fire, Sutton charged, tackling it low. They crashed to the floor. The cloaking effect failed completely as Sutton wrestled with the unseen limb holding the weapon. The creature was humanoid, but unnaturally thin and tall, clad in tight-fitting grey material, its face obscured by the complex optical mask. It hissed, a sound like escaping steam, and tried to bring another weapon, a short blade that flickered with energy, to bear.

Davies and the remaining sailors jumped in, cutlasses and pistols finding purchase now that the creature was visible and entangled. The fight was short, brutal, and desperate. The alien was strong and fast, but outnumbered and already wounded. A final pistol shot from Davies at point-blank range ended the struggle. The creature convulsed and lay still, its optical mask shattering, revealing a face surprisingly similar to the insectoid corpses, but less desiccated, clearly the lone survivor of the crash.

Silence fell, broken only by ragged breathing and Hemlock’s concluding "Amen." Two more men lay dead, victims of an invisible hunter from the stars. Maxwell rushed to check them, but it was futile.

Abernathy knelt beside the dead alien, examining its cloaking device, integrated into its suit. "Incredible… it bends light around itself. Perfect camouflage."

Davies nudged the energy weapon with his boot. "Nearly perfect."

Their attention was drawn to where the creature had made its stand. It seemed to have been positioned near a specific console, one that was still partially active, displaying a complex, shifting pattern of lights and symbols. Set into the console was a recess, and nestled within it, humming faintly and emitting a soft blue glow, was a crystalline device, roughly the size of a human fist, covered in the same alien script. It pulsed with contained energy.

Abernathy approached it cautiously. Unlike the rest of the dead ship, this device felt… alive. The symbols swirling across its surface seemed to shift and resolve into patterns that vaguely resembled star charts, constellations utterly unfamiliar, yet undeniably celestial. Energy readings spiked and flowed across the console connected to it.

"What is it?" Davies asked, keeping his pistol trained on it warily.

"I don't know," Abernathy admitted, mesmerized. "A power source? A navigational computer? Both?" He reached out tentatively. "The energy signature… the patterns… they suggest control over spatial coordinates, perhaps even temporal ones given where we are." He looked back at Davies, his eyes alight with a terrifying, desperate hope. "This technology… it's beyond comprehension. But if anything in this gods-forsaken place holds the key to escaping, to finding our way home…"

He gestured towards the glowing crystal. "...It might be this."

The survivors of the shore party stood in the eerie silence of the crashed starship, surrounded by the dead – their own comrades, the ancient insectoid crew, and the invisible hunter. They had faced another impossible horror and prevailed, at great cost. Now, clutching a piece of inscrutable alien technology, they faced the daunting task of returning to their crippled ship, bringing news of wonders and terrors beyond human understanding, and carrying the slimmest, most alien fragment of hope they had encountered since sailing into the fog.

#horror stories #cosmic horror #horror #howard phillips lovecraft #eldritch horror #scary horror #scary stories

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glennriley49 · 3 months ago

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The Dead Sea Part 3

By Glenn Riley and Lady Eckland

Part Three: Echoes in the Necropolis

The Ironclad drifted deeper into the maritime graveyard, a ghost ship navigating a sea of ghosts. The colossal silhouette that had momentarily revealed itself was once again veiled by the oppressive fog, yet its presence weighed upon them, a constant, unspoken dread that resonated in the unnatural stillness. Around them, the wrecks grew denser, a grotesque tapestry woven from the ambitions and failures of centuries.

Thorne, Abernathy, and Davies stood on the forecastle, peering into the gloom. The sheer variety was staggering, defying history as they knew it. Skeletal Viking longships, their dragon prows gnawed by time and strange growths, lay entangled with the high, broken castles of Spanish galleons. The elegant curve of a Roman trireme, its oar ports choked with pale, fleshy weeds, rested against the sturdy, barnacle-encrusted hull of what looked like a Hanseatic cog. Further off, the delicate, shattered remnants of Greek biremes mingled with the timbers of ships whose design predated any known civilization, their forms hinting at voyages undertaken when the world was young and the seas held different terrors. It was a museum of maritime nightmares, each vessel a silent testament to having breached the veil into this lost sea.

"By all the Saints," Davies breathed, his usual gruffness replaced by awe and horror. "How long has this place… been collecting ships?"

Abernathy, spyglass pressed to his eye despite the limited visibility, scanned the spectral fleet. "Centuries. Millennia, perhaps. Time… doesn't seem to flow naturally here. Look there, Captain." He pointed towards a shape looming larger than the others, distinct even in the mist. "That vessel… it’s unlike the others. And unlike anything I’ve ever conceived of."

Thorne followed his direction. Abernathy was right. This ship was vast, easily dwarfing The Ironclad, but built entirely of… metal? Not plates bolted onto wood like their own experimental hull, but seemingly solid iron or steel, its lines stark and utilitarian, lacking masts or sails, possessing instead strange, tower-like structures and massive, rusted booms. Its immense hull was streaked with weeping rust and coated in the same disturbing slime and fleshy, fungal growths seen elsewhere, yet its fundamental construction spoke of an alien technology, far removed from the age of sail.

"Iron," Thorne mused, his voice tight. "Completely iron? Or steel? And no masts… propelled by steam alone, perhaps? A design far bolder than our own." He lowered his glass. "It seems less decayed than some, though clearly derelict. An opportunity, perhaps?"

Davies looked sceptical. "An opportunity for what, Captain? To join this fleet of the damned?"

"Information, Bosun," Thorne replied, his eyes fixed on the metal behemoth. "Supplies, perhaps, though unlikely. But mainly, answers. What befell these ships? Is there a pattern? A way out? That vessel is an anomaly even within this graveyard. It warrants investigation." He swept his gaze over the terrified, exhausted faces on deck. "Remaining here passively means waiting to be picked off by the… entity below, or whatever dwells in the fog. We must seek knowledge, however perilous the path."

He made his decision. "Mr. Davies, prepare a longboat. Armed party. You will lead. Mr. Abernathy, you will accompany him – your analytical eye is needed. Riggs, Sutton – you’ve faced the darkness below, now face the unknown ahead. Take Hawkins and O'Malley too. Armed with muskets, pistols, and cutlasses. Extreme caution. Report anything, no matter how small. Your objective is reconnaissance, assess the vessel's state, search for logs or charts. Engage only if necessary."

Riggs nodded, his face grim but set. He checked the flint of his pistol, the trauma of the Bathyscope descent overshadowed by the need for action. Sutton’s eyes burned with a mixture of fear and vengeful energy. The other two sailors, Hawkins and O'Malley, looked terrified but gripped their weapons tightly.

The longboat was lowered into the still, grey water. Rowing was an eerie experience, the oars dipping silently into the thick, almost oily surface. They navigated between the ghostly wrecks, the silence amplifying the soft creaks of decaying timber, the sigh of water moving through skeletal hulls. On the deck of a nearby galleon, something white gleamed – bones, picked clean, lying amongst rotten ropes. Strange, shelf-like fungi, pulsing with faint bioluminescence, clung to the waterline of a half-submerged caravel. The air hung heavy, cold, and stagnant.

They reached the flank of the metal giant. Up close, it was even more imposing, its riveted steel plates stained dark red and black, pitted and scarred. A name was barely visible beneath layers of rust and grime near the bow: USS CYCLOPS. The letters meant nothing to the 18th-century sailors, but the sheer scale and alien construction filled them with unease. Finding a boarding point was difficult; the hull plating was sheer in most places. Eventually, Davies spotted a gash low on the waterline, possibly from grounding, where plates were buckled inwards, offering precarious handholds.

"Riggs, Sutton, give me a back," Davies ordered. With considerable effort, the powerful Bosun hauled himself up, finding purchase on the torn metal. He then helped the others scramble aboard onto what seemed to be a vast, open deck space, cluttered with enormous, rusted machinery – winches, cranes, strange covered hatches – all unfamiliar and menacing in their silence.

The deck was coated in a thick layer of rust dust mixed with the ever-present, greyish slime. The fleshy, fungal growths were even more prevalent here, clinging to every surface, some resembling deformed, bloated starfish, others like pale, veined sacs that seemed to contract slightly as they passed. The air stank of decay, metal corrosion, and something else – a faint, musky, animal scent.

"Spread out, cautious," Davies commanded, his voice low. "Abernathy, what do you make of this?"

Abernathy ran a gloved hand over a rusted bulkhead, his eyes wide with disbelief. "Steel, Captain Davies. Thick-rolled steel. The craftsmanship… it’s beyond anything I imagined possible. No forge we possess could produce such plates. And this machinery… its purpose is unclear, but the scale… This vessel wasn't built in our time. Perhaps not even in our century."

"Future ship?" Hawkins whispered, looking around nervously. "Or… something else?"

"Let's find a way below," Davies said, ignoring the speculation. "Logs, charts – that's the goal."

They located a heavy steel hatch, slightly ajar. Prying it open revealed a dark companionway ladder descending into blackness. The stench wafting up was overpowering. Davies took a lantern, checked his pistol, and led the way down, the others following closely, weapons ready.

The corridors below were nightmarish. Coated in the same pulsating fungal growths, slick with slime, they twisted at angles that felt subtly wrong. Lantern light flickered, casting deceptive shadows. Water dripped incessantly, echoing in the metallic confinement. They moved as a tight knot, muskets raised, the scrape of their boots loud in the oppressive silence. Abernathy occasionally stopped to examine the growths, muttering about cellular structure and parasitic symbiosis, but fear kept his analysis brief.

After navigating a maze of identical, decaying corridors, they found a section that seemed relatively intact. A heavy steel door, warped but still sealed, blocked their path. Working together, they managed to force it open, revealing what looked like an officer's cabin, surprisingly preserved. While rust and grime coated the metal desk and bunk, the strange fleshy growths were less rampant here. Scattered on the floor were oddments that made the sailors pause – remnants of brightly coloured synthetic fabrics, strange plastic containers, items utterly alien to their experience.

And on the desk, lying open beneath a cracked glass paperweight shaped like a dolphin, was a book. It was bound in faded blue leather, but its paper and print were clearly modern. Abernathy picked it up gingerly.

"A journal, Mr. Davies," he said, his voice hushed. "Written in English, but… the script, the phrasing… it’s recent. Very recent." He carefully turned a brittle page. "Listen to this."

He began to read, his voice echoing slightly in the dead air of the cabin.

"October 12th. Still no idea where we are. One moment, clear skies south of Bermuda, the next… this fog. Thick as soup, dead calm. Radio's silent, GPS dead. Arthur is trying to jury-rig the auxiliary generator, but the saltwater intrusion was bad. The Wanderer took a beating in that squall before the fog hit. We’re adrift."

"October 14th. Drifted into… God, I don't know what to call it. A graveyard. Ships everywhere. Old ones. Ancient. Like ghosts in the mist. Saw a Viking longship right next to a galleon. Arthur thinks we've somehow slipped through time. I just think we're lost. Found this huge metal ship, looks like a collier or something, derelict. Cyclops, the nameplate says. Seems marginally better than staying on our crippled yacht. We're going aboard."

Abernathy paused, looking grimly at the others. "This confirms the temporal displacement. This ship, the Cyclops… it vanished in the Atlantic, early 20th century, according to certain speculative Admiralty reports I once glimpsed."

"Twentieth century?" Riggs breathed. "God preserve us."

Abernathy continued reading, his voice growing more strained.

"October 17th. This ship is vast. And wrong. There’s this… growth everywhere. Fleshy, like tumours. It pulses sometimes. Arthur thinks it’s just some kind of deep-sea fungus, but it feels… watchful. We found some tinned food in a galley, surprisingly preserved. But the silence… it presses in. And the feeling of being watched never leaves."

"October 20th. Arthur went deeper into the engineering sections, looking for parts. He didn't come back when he said he would. I went looking. Found his flashlight… and blood. Heard something skittering in the darkness. Not tentacles. Something… chitinous? Fast. I ran. Sealed myself in this cabin."

*"October 21st. It found me. Got in through a ventilation duct. Small at first, like a… segmented crab made of shadow and bone. It didn't kill me. It… touched me. Punctured my skin. Injected something cold. I can feel it… inside me. Changing me. Oh God, the pain… but worse… the thoughts… not my thoughts…" *

Abernathy’s hand trembled as he read the next entry, the handwriting becoming erratic, looping, almost alien.

"October ?? Lost track of time. The change… is profound. My legs… so many legs now… move with such speed. The hunger… it overrides everything. Arthur… poor Arthur… he came back, finally found me. Didn’t recognise me at first. He screamed. He tasted… divine. The joining is almost complete. I am… We are… becoming."

The final entry was scrawled hastily, dated only hours ago, judging by the freshness of the ink.

"Fresh meat. Smelled them coming aboard. Young… strong… terrified. Such flavour. We are hungry. We are coming."

As Abernathy read the last words, a chilling screech echoed from the corridor outside the cabin door, followed by a rapid, clicking, skittering sound, impossibly fast, moving on metal.

"Barricade the door!" Davies roared, shoving the heavy desk against it. Riggs and Hawkins added their weight.

SLAM! Something heavy hit the door from the outside, the steel groaning. SCRAPE… CLICK-CLICK-CLICK…

"It's on the ceiling!" Sutton yelled, aiming his musket upwards, his face a mask of terror and fury.

Another SLAM against the door, harder this time. A thin crack appeared near the warped hinges. Through it, they could see a glimpse of movement – pale, multi-jointed limbs ending in needle-sharp points, scrabbling for purchase.

"Fire through the door!" Davies ordered. Riggs and Hawkins fired their muskets point-blank into the steel. The roar of the shots was deafening in the confined space. A high-pitched shriek answered them, followed by the sound of something heavy slumping down, then more furious scrabbling.

"It's still coming!" Abernathy shouted, drawing his own pistol.

CRUNCH! One of the chitinous legs punched clean through the weakened steel near the top of the door, flailing blindly. Sutton fired his pistol, shattering the limb in a spray of ichor that hissed where it touched the metal floor.

"Reloading!" Riggs yelled, frantically working with powder and ball.

The door buckled inwards further under a renewed assault. They could hear wet, guttural sounds now, mixed with the clicking – a voice, distorted, layered, hideously female and yet utterly alien. "Hungry… join us… become… more…"

"We can't hold here!" Davies shouted over the din. "Through the other passage! Move!"

There was another doorway at the back of the cabin, leading deeper into the ship. Davies kicked it open. "Abernathy, take the journal! Riggs, cover our retreat! Sutton, Hawkins, O'Malley, with me!"

They scrambled through the doorway just as the main cabin door burst inwards. Standing there, silhouetted against the gloom, was the horror described in the journal. Eleanor's upper torso and head were still vaguely recognizable, but grotesquely fused into a segmented, insectoid body made of glistening, pale chitin. Her arms ended in wickedly sharp claws, and she moved with terrifying speed on at least eight long, multi-jointed legs that carried her across the floor and onto the walls with equal ease. Her mouth opened in a screech, revealing rows of needle-like teeth.

Riggs fired his reloaded musket, the ball striking the creature's chest with a sickening thud. It staggered back, screeching, but didn't fall. He drew his cutlass as it surged forward again.

"Go! Now!" Riggs bellowed, engaging the creature, his blade scraping uselessly against its armoured carapace.

Davies and the others plunged into the dark corridor beyond the cabin. "Riggs! Fall back!" Davies yelled.

They heard Riggs cry out, a sharp yell of pain, followed by a wet tearing sound. There was no time to look back. They ran blindly through the twisting, fungus-coated corridors, the skittering pursuit echoing behind them, sometimes seeming impossibly close, sometimes fading as if the creature were taking shortcuts through vents or unseen passages.

Lanterns bobbed frantically, casting wild shadows. Hawkins stumbled, screaming as a sharp leg lashed out from a side passage, gashing his arm before O’Malley pulled him onwards. Abernathy clutched the journal, his face pale, gasping for breath. Sutton fired his pistol back into the darkness whenever the skittering sounded too close, the shots echoing endlessly.

They burst out of a different hatch onto the main deck, gasping in the relatively open, fog-filled air. The longboat was still where they left it, bobbing gently against the hull far below.

"Down! Quickly!" Davies urged, hustling them towards the torn section of the hull they'd used to board.

As Hawkins and O'Malley scrambled down, the creature appeared at the deck railing above them. It moved with unnatural fluidity, clinging to the vertical surface, its multiple eyes glowing faintly in the gloom, its distorted human face twisted in a rictus of hunger. It shrieked again, a sound that promised pain and assimilation.

Sutton, Abernathy, and Davies slid and scrambled down the hull plating. Sutton paused at the bottom, turned, and fired his last pistol upwards. The shot went wide, but the flash and bang seemed to make the creature hesitate for a fraction of second.

"Row!" Davies bellowed as they tumbled into the longboat, Abernathy landing heavily, clutching the journal. O'Malley and a terrified Hawkins grabbed oars, pulling frantically away from the towering metal hull.

The Eleanor-creature crawled down the side of the Cyclops with horrifying speed, reaching the water's edge just as the longboat pulled out of immediate reach. It shrieked in frustration, long claws scraping against the steel hull, leaving deep gouges. It glared after them, a promise of future torment in its glowing eyes, before retreating back into the shadows of the derelict vessel.

The row back to The Ironclad was made in terrified silence, punctuated only by Hawkins' pained groans and the frantic splash of the oars. They were hauled aboard, Davies quickly reporting the nightmare to a grim-faced Thorne.

Abernathy held up the journal. "Captain… the graveyard… it’s not just the entity in the fog we have to fear. The ships themselves… they harbour their own horrors. Things that… change people."

Thorne looked from the traumatised faces of the boarding party towards the looming shape of the Cyclops, now fading back into the fog. They had sought answers and found only deeper layers of horror. Not only were they hunted by a god-like entity from the depths, but the very resting place of its previous victims bred new abominations, parasites waiting to transform the unwary. There was no sanctuary here, not even among the dead. The Ironclad was not just adrift in a monster's lair; it was adrift in a sea of metamorphosing nightmares. The third part of their ordeal was over, leaving them facing not one, but multiple horrors, trapped between the colossal watcher in the fog and the festering evils within the graveyard itself.

#horror stories #cosmic horror #horror #howard phillips lovecraft #dead sea #tim curran #eldritch horror #lovecraftian

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glennriley49 · 3 months ago

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The Dead Sea Part 2

By Glenn Riley and Lady Eckland

The continuation of the tale of cosmic horror

Part Two: The Abyss Gazes Also

The immediate aftermath of Miller's abduction was a paralysis of terror. Men stood rooted to the deck, staring into the violated fog, the echo of the boy’s final scream seeming to hang in the thick, damp air. The bent iron stanchion stood as a monument to the impossible strength they had witnessed, the glistening slime a testament to its alien reality. Even the crack of Thorne's command, ordering the gun crews to stand ready, barely pierced the fugue state.

Reality, however, reasserted itself with the cold persistence of the fog. They were still adrift, still blind, and now, undeniably, prey. Thorne moved among the men, his presence a bulwark of grim authority. "Steady!" he barked, his voice resonating with command. "Load with grape! Aim for the source of any sound, any movement! Mr. Davies, get these men organised! Damage control, assess the hull near that… incident!"

Bosun Davies, shaking off his own shock, roared orders, the familiar cadence of duty a fragile anchor in the swirling chaos of fear. Men scrambled, finding solace in action, however futile it might seem. Yet, beneath the surface activity, a current of dread flowed, cold and deep. Eyes darted constantly towards the grey curtain, ears strained against the oppressive silence, listening for the tell-tale slither, the wet sound of something unnatural emerging from the mist.

The night deepened, marked only by the ship's chronometer and the changing of the watch. Lanterns cast a sickly yellow glow, reflecting off the wet decks and the swirling vapour, creating dancing shadows that frayed already raw nerves. Thorne remained on the quarterdeck with Abernathy, neither willing to seek the false comfort of their cabins. The navigation charts were useless, the sextant rendered impotent by the perpetual overcast, the compass still spinning madly. They were adrift in every sense of the word.

Sounds began to manifest in the suffocating silence. Far off, muffled by the fog, came a tremendous washing noise, the sound of immense displacement, as if an island were slowly shifting its position in the hidden sea. It was distant, yet carried a weight, a sense of scale that turned the blood cold. More terrifying, however, were the closer sounds. A soft, wet slithering noise seemed to pace the ship, sometimes from port, sometimes starboard, just beyond the veil of sight. Occasionally, a thick drip… drip… drip… could be heard, as if viscous fluid were falling from a great height onto the water nearby, or perhaps… onto the deck itself in the deeper shadows. Searches revealed nothing but more condensation, more fear.

The third disappearance occurred just before dawn, if such a concept held meaning in this eternal grey twilight. Seaman Evans, part of a work crew attempting to reinforce a section of the lower gun deck near where Finn had vanished, was gone. One moment he was working with his mates, prying at warped timbers; the next, he simply wasn't. His hammer lay on the deck. His companion swore he'd heard nothing but the creak of the ship and a faint, sucking sound, like mud releasing a boot, coming from the ventilation shaft above. The shaft grating, supposedly secured, was slightly ajar. Whatever hunted them could apparently bypass or manipulate simple locks, moving through the ship's own hidden spaces like a disease.

Panic threatened to boil over. Men spoke openly of desertion, though there was nowhere to desert to. Others huddled together, clutching makeshift weapons or Bibles, their faces pale masks of exhaustion and terror. Bosun Davies reported that several sections of the lower decks were effectively abandoned; seasoned sailors refused to go near them, particularly the areas around ventilation shafts or bilge access points. The Ironclad, designed as a fortress, felt increasingly like a trap.

Thorne knew he had to act, to provide some semblance of control, some direction, even if it was based on desperate speculation. He summoned his senior officers to his cabin – a space usually symbolising order and authority, now feeling cramped and besieged. Abernathy was there, his scientific curiosity yielding to grim analysis. Bosun Davies represented the crew's terror and eroding discipline. Dr. Maxwell, the ship's surgeon, a man of logic and scalpels, his face drawn and pale, struggled to reconcile what he was hearing with the laws of nature he understood. And finally, Chaplain Hemlock, a stern, ascetic man whose faith seemed both a comfort and a source of further dread, clutching his well-worn Bible.

The air in the cabin was thick with unspoken fear, the rhythmic thrum of the nearby auxiliary steam pump a counterpoint to the strained silence. Thorne stood before them, his back to the stern windows that showed nothing but swirling grey.

"Gentlemen," Thorne began, his voice low and steady. "The situation is… unprecedented. We are adrift in an unknown sea, plagued by fog that defies explanation. Our instruments are useless. And we are being actively hunted by an entity of unknown origin and immense power. Jenkins, Finn, Miller, and now Evans are gone. Taken."

He let the stark reality hang in the air. "The incident on the forecastle confirms we face a physical threat, possessing tentacles of enormous strength and capable of penetrating the ship itself. Mr. Abernathy, your assessment?"

Abernathy cleared his throat, laying a small, sealed jar containing a sample of the viscous slime on the table. It glowed faintly green. "Captain, the physical evidence is undeniable. The creature possesses appendages capable of exerting force sufficient to bend thick iron. It leaves behind this… substance. Cold, phosphorescent, organic, yet unlike any marine biology I am familiar with. Its ability to infiltrate the ship suggests either extreme dexterity, an ability to compress its form, or access points we are unaware of – perhaps through the bilge keel or ventilation systems, as evidenced by Finn's and Evans' disappearances. The scale suggested by the sounds in the fog, and the ease with which it took Miller… it beggars belief."

"It's the Kraken," Davies growled, slamming a fist onto the table, making the jar rattle. "The old legends, writ large and hungry. It's pulling us down one by one."

Dr. Maxwell adjusted his spectacles, looking uncomfortable. "Kraken legends speak of immense squid or octopi, Mr. Davies. While the tentacles align, the… manner of the attacks, particularly within the ship, the deliberate targeting, the apparent intelligence… it suggests something more than a mere beast. Though," he added quickly, "I confess, medical science offers no framework for such a creature. The psychological toll on the crew, however, is measurable and severe. Fear is as potent an enemy as any tentacle."

Chaplain Hemlock spoke then, his voice quiet but intense. "We have transgressed, Captain. Man was not meant to venture into such places. The Admiralty charts spoke of a 'Sea of Lost Souls,' a place beyond God's light. Perhaps this is Leviathan, woken from its slumber by our arrogance, by this vessel of iron and unholy steam. 'Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook?'" he quoted, his eyes burning with conviction. "This is a place of judgment, a trial of faith."

"Faith didn't stop that thing taking Miller," Davies muttered darkly.

"Judgment or predator, theology or biology," Thorne cut in, silencing the debate. "The practicalities remain. We are blind. We are vulnerable. We know it attacks from the water, likely from the depths, given the lack of bottom found by the sounding line. We need to see what lies beneath us."

Abernathy leaned forward, a flicker of his earlier scientific enthusiasm returning, albeit grimly. "Captain, The Ironclad carries experimental equipment beyond her plating. Do you recall the 'Bathyscope'? Commissioned by the Royal Society, included almost as an afterthought?"

Thorne frowned, searching his memory. "The iron diving bell? Meant for observing harbour bottoms, I thought."

"Yes, but reinforced," Abernathy clarified. "A small, spherical chamber, barely large enough for two men, with thick glass viewing ports and a winch system designed for considerable depths. It has a speaking tube for communication. If we could lower it, perhaps we could get eyes below this accursed fog, see what lurks in the depths from which these attacks originate."

The proposal was audacious, fraught with peril. Lowering men into an abyss stalked by a monstrous entity seemed suicidal. Yet, remaining passive felt equally doomed. Knowledge, however terrifying, was better than blind ignorance.

"The risk is enormous," Thorne stated flatly.

"The risk of inaction may be greater, Captain," Abernathy countered. "We need to understand what we face."

Davies shifted uneasily. "Sending men down there… it’s feeding them to the beast."

"Perhaps," Thorne conceded. "Or perhaps it's the only way to find a weakness, an escape. Dr. Maxwell, is the pressure manageable at depth?"

Maxwell hesitated. "The sphere is supposedly rated for two hundred fathoms, theoretically. But the pressures are immense. And the psychological strain on the occupants…"

"We need volunteers," Thorne declared, his decision made. "Men who understand the risk."

The Bathyscope was brought up from the hold where it had been stored under canvas. It was an ungainly thing, a sphere of riveted iron perhaps six feet in diameter, studded with thick, convex glass ports like bulging eyes. A heavy metal ring at the top allowed attachment to the winch cable, normally used for hoisting heavy munitions or anchors. Inside, it was cramped, smelling faintly of oil and stagnant air, with two small, padded benches and fittings for lanterns and the brass bell of the speaking tube.

Thorne addressed the crew gathered uneasily on the main deck, explaining the plan, omitting none of the dangers. He asked for two volunteers. A heavy silence fell. Men looked at their feet, at the fog, anywhere but at the Captain or the ominous iron sphere.

Then, a figure stepped forward. It was Riggs, a master-at-arms, a veteran of Trafalgar, his face a roadmap of scars, his eyes holding a weary resolve. "If there's seeing to be done, Captain, I'll do it. Better than waiting for that… thing… to pluck us off the deck like barnacles."

A moment later, another, younger man joined him. Sutton, one of the engine room crew, barely out of his teens, pale but determined. "My brother… was Evans," he said quietly, his voice trembling slightly. "I need to… I volunteer, sir."

Thorne nodded grimly. "Riggs. Sutton. Prepare yourselves. Mr. Abernathy, oversee the launch."

The preparations were tense. The Bathyscope was swung out over the side by a deck crane, its massive winch groaning under the weight. Riggs and Sutton, clad in heavy woollens, climbed through the narrow hatch, taking lanterns, the speaking tube mouthpiece, and flasks of water. Abernathy gave them final instructions, checked the seals, and the hatch was bolted shut from the outside.

On deck, men gathered at the rail, watching in silence as the winch began to turn, slowly paying out cable. The iron sphere dipped into the grey, unnaturally calm water and vanished beneath the surface with a muted splash. Abernathy held the speaking tube earpiece to his ear, his face taut.

Inside the Bathyscope, the world transformed. The sounds of the ship faded, replaced by the creak of the sphere settling around them and the rush of water past the glass ports. Lantern light reflected off the thick glass, revealing nothing outside but swirling grey-green water near the surface, rapidly darkening as they descended.

"Riggs? Sutton? Report," Abernathy's voice echoed tinnily from the speaking tube.

"Descending, Mr. Abernathy," Riggs replied, his voice strained by the confined space. "Visibility… poor near the surface. Getting darker now. Much darker."

Down they went. Ten fathoms. Twenty. Thirty. The light outside the ports became an inky, impenetrable blackness. The weak lantern beams seemed to be swallowed just feet from the glass. The pressure mounted, the iron sphere groaning subtly around them. Sutton fidgeted, his eyes wide, pressed close to a viewport.

"Anything?" came Abernathy's voice.

"Nothing, sir," Riggs reported. "Just… blackness. Utter blackness. And cold. Colder than the surface water." He paused. "There's no life down here, Mr. Abernathy. No fish, no weed, nothing moves. It's… dead."

Fifty fathoms. Eighty. One hundred. The depth was staggering, far exceeding the initial sounding which must have been inaccurate or taken in a shallower area. The silence outside was absolute, profound, pressing in on them. Sutton began to breathe heavily, the sound loud in the tiny space.

"Steady, lad," Riggs murmured, though his own knuckles were white where he gripped the bench.

"Mr. Abernathy," Riggs spoke into the tube, his voice tight. "One hundred fathoms. Still nothing but black. Requesting permission to halt descent. This feels… wrong."

"Hold position, Riggs," Abernathy's voice came back, tense. "Scan carefully."

They hung suspended in the infinite dark, two men in a tiny iron bubble, dwarfed by the crushing pressure and the sheer, sterile emptiness of the abyss. Sutton wiped condensation from a port, peering out, his breath misting the glass.

"Wait," Sutton whispered, his voice cracking. "There's… something."

Riggs pressed his face to another port. "Where?"

"Out there… far off. Lights."

Riggs scanned the blackness. At first, he saw nothing. Then, like distant, malevolent stars igniting in the void, two points of light flickered into existence. They were pale yellow, steady, and utterly devoid of warmth. As they watched, frozen, the lights seemed to grow slightly, or perhaps the Bathyscope was drifting closer. They resolved into definite shapes – vast, elongated ovals.

Eyes.

They were undeniably eyes, unblinking, ancient, and filled with a cold, calculating intelligence that transcended anything human or animal. They were spaced impossibly far apart, suggesting a head, a face, of utterly nightmarish proportions, hidden in the abyssal dark beyond the lanterns' reach. They weren't looking at the Bathyscope; they were looking into it, directly at the two terrified men trapped inside.

"Mr. Abernathy!" Riggs choked into the speaking tube, his voice frantic. "Eyes! Yellow eyes! Gods, they're huge! Down here in the dark! Watching us! Pull us up! Pull us up NOW!"

On deck, Abernathy's face went white as he heard Riggs's panicked shouts. "Heave! Heave for your lives!" he roared at the winch crew.

The winch strained, gears grinding, slowly, agonizingly slowly, beginning to haul the heavy cable back up. Every man on deck felt the watchers' gaze from below, an unseen pressure more terrifying than the deepest ocean trench. Minutes stretched into an eternity as the Bathyscope ascended from the crushing blackness towards the grey surface.

When the sphere finally breached the water and was hauled dripping onto the deck, the hatch was thrown open. Riggs stumbled out first, his tough facade shattered, his face slick with sweat, eyes wide with horror. Sutton followed, collapsing onto the deck, sobbing uncontrollably, pointing back towards the water.

"Vast…" Riggs gasped, leaning heavily on the railing. "Like moons… yellow… just looking… knowing…"

The terror radiating from the two men was infectious, confirming the worst fears of everyone present. Whatever hunted them owned the depths, and it was aware, intelligent, and ancient beyond comprehension.

As the crew recoiled from this horrifying confirmation, The Ironclad continued its slow, aimless drift through the fog. The current, the strange pull that had drawn them through the ice passage, seemed to be guiding them still. And then, the fog momentarily thinned ahead, swirling like curtains drawn back on a nightmare theatre.

Shapes emerged from the grey. At first indistinct, they resolved into the broken, tilted forms of ships. Dozens of them. They lay half-submerged, impaled on unseen rocks or simply foundering in the still water, draped in weed and the ubiquitous slime. There was a Spanish galleon, its timbers rotten, its forecastle shattered. A Dutch whaler, its hull breached. An English merchantman, its masts snapped like twigs. Further off, stranger shapes – vessels of designs so ancient or alien Thorne couldn't place them, their lines hinting at forgotten eras and lost voyages. It was a graveyard, a Sargasso of the damned, a collection of all who had stumbled into this cursed sea and never left.

The crew stared in horrified silence at the maritime necropolis surrounding them. This was their fate foreshadowed. But as their eyes adjusted to the slightly improved visibility, something else drew their collective gaze, silencing even Sutton’s ragged sobs.

Beyond the field of wrecks, dominating the vista, the fog shifted and thinned further, revealing, or rather, suggesting, a form of such cyclopean scale that it defied belief. It wasn't a mountain, nor was it land. It was… upright. Vaguely humanoid in its colossal silhouette, but twisted, asymmetric, with proportions that screamed of alien geometry and impossible biology. It towered over the ship graveyard, its base lost in the water, its upper reaches vanishing into the swirling fog ceiling hundreds, perhaps thousands, of feet above. It dwarfed The Ironclad utterly, rendering the mighty warship less significant than a child's toy boat floating before a giant.

It was indistinct, shrouded in mist, yet the sheer presence of it, the implication of its unthinkable mass and unnatural form, hit the crew with the force of a physical blow. This was not the Kraken. This was not Leviathan. This was the entity whose eyes watched from the abyss, whose tentacles probed their ship, the silent, ancient master of this fog-bound hell.

Captain Thorne stood frozen on the quarterdeck, the full, sanity-shattering scope of their predicament revealed not in sharp detail, but in that monstrous, looming outline. They hadn't just sailed into hostile waters. They had sailed into the very lair of a god, or a demon, or something for which human language had no name.

The fog began to close in again, slowly hiding the colossal shape, but the image was burned into every mind aboard The Ironclad. The hunt was far from over, and their hunter had just shown them a glimpse of its true, horrifying scale. Escape seemed impossible. Survival, improbable.

#cosmic horror #howard phillips lovecraft #scary horror #scary stuff #scary stories #horror stories

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glennriley49 · 3 months ago

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The Dead Sea

A Tale Of Cosmic Horror

By Glenn Riley and Lady Eckland

Part One: Into the White Silence

The year of our Lord 1798 was one of whispers and shadowed Admiralty meetings. War with the French raged, as constant as the tides, yet eyes in Whitehall turned south, towards the blank, frozen canvas at the bottom of the world. It was there, under conditions of utmost secrecy, that His Majesty's Ship The Ironclad was dispatched. She was a vessel born of rumour and radical design, her oaken heart sheathed in experimental plates of riveted iron – a behemoth conceived for shattering enemy lines, yet now pointed towards the planet’s most desolate frontier.

Captain Elias Thorne stood on the quarterdeck, the biting Antarctic wind whipping his greatcoat around him like a shroud. His face, etched by decades at sea and the unforgiving southern sun, was grim. The Ironclad was a marvel, true enough. She cut through the frigid waves with a ponderous stability no wooden ship could match, her experimental steam engine – a blasphemous contraption of pistons and coal smoke, assisting the sails – thrumming deep within her belly like a captured beast. Yet, even her iron hide seemed insufficient against the sheer, crushing emptiness of this place. Icebergs, colossal and ancient, drifted like frozen gods in the grey water, their silence more profound than any cannonade.

"Anything, Mr. Abernathy?" Thorne’s voice was a low growl, barely audible over the wind’s shriek and the rhythmic groan of the hull.

First Mate Thomas Abernathy lowered his spyglass, rubbing his stinging eyes. He was younger than Thorne, his features still holding a measure of intellectual curiosity beneath the required naval severity. "Still nothing but ice, Captain. The channel described in the Admiral's 'suggestion'… if it exists, it hides itself well." He hesitated. "The men are restless. This cold seeps into the bones, sir. And the compass… it’s been behaving erratically for days."

Thorne grunted. The Admiralty's 'suggestion' had been anything but. It was an order, couched in ambiguity, accompanied by fragmented, centuries-old charts purportedly copied from a captured Spanish galleon, which in turn claimed descent from sources far older and stranger. They spoke of a 'Veiled Passage', a 'Sea of Lost Souls' beyond the ice barrier, a place untouched by cartographers, shrouded in perpetual mist. Nonsense, Thorne had initially thought. Yet, here they were, pushing deeper into the Antarctic circle than any known vessel, chasing a ghost story on the strength of iron plating and Admiralty whim.

"The compass reflects known magnetic anomalies this far south, Mr. Abernathy," Thorne said, though doubt gnawed at him. The fluctuations were wilder than any textbook described. "As for the men, remind them of their duty. And the extra grog ration."

"Aye, Captain." Abernathy paused, glancing towards the bow where Bosun Davies, a barrel-chested man whose face seemed carved from weathered timber, was overseeing the chipping away of ice that constantly encroached upon the forecastle. "It’s not just the cold, sir. It’s… this place. Feels wrong. Unnatural."

Thorne didn’t reply. He felt it too. A prickling sensation on the back of his neck, a sense of being watched not by human eyes, but by the vast, indifferent emptiness itself. The sky was a perpetually overcast grey, the sun a rumour somewhere beyond it. The silence, when the wind momentarily died, was absolute, terrifying.

Days bled into weeks. The monotonous routine of shipboard life – watches, maintenance, drills – became a fragile shield against the encroaching desolation. The iron plates, meant to inspire invincibility, now seemed to trap the cold, the echoing sounds within the hull amplifying the sense of isolation. Ice coated everything – rigging, rails, cannons – encasing the warship in a crystalline armour that glittered menacingly under the weak, diffuse light.

Then, it happened.

"Land ho!" The cry came from Miller, the young lookout perched high in the frozen crow's nest, his voice cracked with cold and disbelief.

Thorne and Abernathy rushed to the rail, spyglasses raised. It wasn’t land, not in the conventional sense. Ahead, the endless ice field fractured. A channel, unnaturally straight and narrow, opened before them, leading into the towering wall of the ice shelf itself. It was no natural fjord; the walls were sheer, almost polished, vanishing into a darkness that seemed to swallow the grey daylight. A faint, almost imperceptible current flowed out of this dark cleft, carrying with it water that seemed subtly warmer, steaming faintly in the frigid air.

"By God," Abernathy breathed, his scientific curiosity warring with a primal urge to turn the ship around. "It matches the chart's description… the 'Serpent's Mouth'."

Thorne stared, his knuckles white on the brass railing. This was it. The gateway to the unknown. Duty warred with a deep, instinctual dread. The sheer unlikeliness of it screamed trap. Yet, orders were orders, and the lure of discovery, of being the first, was a powerful narcotic.

"Bosun Davies!" Thorne roared.

"Aye, Captain!"

"Prepare to reduce sail! Engage the engine at quarter-steam. We're taking her in."

A murmur went through the crew gathering along the rails, a mixture of excitement and apprehension. Davies relayed the orders, his voice booming with forced confidence. Slowly, carefully, the monstrous bulk of The Ironclad nosed into the dark channel.

The transition was immediate and profound. The wind died instantly, replaced by a heavy, tomb-like stillness. The only sounds were the throb of the engine, the hiss of steam, and the unsettling scrape and screech as the ship's iron flanks occasionally brushed against the glassy ice walls that rose hundreds of feet on either side, blotting out the sky. Darkness enveloped them, broken only by the lanterns casting flickering, inadequate pools of light on the deck and the ice. The air grew thick, damp, and carried a strange, stagnant odour – brine mixed with something else, something organic and faintly repellent.

They navigated the passage for what felt like an eternity. Time seemed to lose meaning in the unchanging darkness. Nerves frayed. Men started at shadows, voices dropped to whispers. The channel twisted, turned, sometimes narrowing so much it felt like the ice would shear the masts, before opening again into Stygian blackness. The compass spun uselessly, a frantic dervish trapped in its brass housing. They steered by instinct, by the feel of the strange current, and by sheer, bloody-minded determination.

"How long has it been, Mr. Abernathy?" Thorne asked, his voice hoarse.

"By the ship's chronometer, nearly twelve hours, Captain. Though it feels like days." Abernathy wiped condensation from his brow, though the air was still bitingly cold. "The temperature is rising, though. And listen."

Thorne strained his ears. Beneath the engine's pulse, there was a new sound – a low, continuous sigh, like the breathing of some colossal lung. And water. The distinct sound of open water ahead.

Hope, fragile but insistent, fluttered in Thorne’s chest. "Ahead, slow!"

The Ironclad slid forward, the scraping against ice ceased. The oppressive walls fell away. They emerged, not into sunlight, but into a world of swirling, impenetrable fog.

It clung to the ship like wet wool, thick and grey and utterly blinding. Visibility dropped to mere feet. The air was heavy, saturated with moisture, and the strange, stagnant smell was stronger here, mingling with the acrid tang of coal smoke from their own funnel, which seemed unable to rise, instead spreading out across the deck like a greasy stain. The sighing sound was all around them now, the sound of a vast, calm sea hidden within the mist.

"All stop!" Thorne commanded. The engine died, leaving an eerie silence broken only by the drip of condensation from the rigging and the gentle lap of water against the hull. They were adrift in a blind, grey void.

"Where in God's name are we?" whispered a sailor nearby, voicing the thought of every man aboard.

"This is it," Abernathy said, his voice hushed with awe and unease. "The 'Mare Nubilum'. The Fog Sea."

Thorne scanned the impenetrable wall of grey surrounding them. He felt exposed, vulnerable. The ship’s iron skin, its cannons, its steam engine – they all seemed utterly useless here. They were blind, lost, floating in an ocean that shouldn't exist, hidden behind an impossible barrier of ice. The sense of being watched returned, stronger than ever, pressing in from all sides out of the suffocating fog.

"Double the watch," Thorne ordered, his voice tight. "Keep lanterns burning bright. Mr. Abernathy, take soundings. Let's see what depth we're floating in."

The sounding lead was dropped. The line paid out. And out. And out.

"Still no bottom, Captain!" came the call after several minutes. "Over one hundred fathoms and still going!"

One hundred fathoms. Six hundred feet. Deeper than much of the English Channel. Here, in a sea hidden within the Antarctic continent? It made no sense.

Unease turned to palpable fear. The fog seemed to muffle sound unnaturally. Shouted orders sounded flat, conversations seemed intimate even across the deck. It distorted perception, making the familiar shapes of the ship seem strange, alien. Men moved cautiously, jumping at the slightest noise, their eyes constantly scanning the grey curtain that pressed in around them.

The first disappearance happened during the change of watch near midnight. Seaman Jenkins, stationed near the stern rail, simply wasn't there when his relief arrived. No sound, no struggle, just an empty space where a man had stood moments before.

"He must have slipped," Abernathy suggested, his voice lacking conviction. "Lost his footing in the damp, went overboard."

"Without a sound?" Thorne countered grimly. "Jenkins has been at sea fifteen years. He doesn't just 'slip'."

A search was organised, lanterns probing futilely into the fog that swallowed the light within yards. Grappling hooks were trailed over the side, finding nothing but cold, deep water. The mood aboard The Ironclad plummeted. The unnatural sea, the oppressive fog – these were unsettling. But a man vanishing into thin air? That was terrifying. Superstition, never far beneath the surface on any vessel, began to bloom like poisonous mould. Whispers circulated – ghosts, sea demons, the 'Lost Souls' the old charts hinted at.

Thorne ordered all non-essential personnel below deck, hatches secured. Cannons were loaded, though what they could fire at in this blindness was anyone's guess. Gunners stood tense by their pieces, peering into the grey nothingness.

The second disappearance was bolder, more chilling. Finn, a young powder monkey, was sent below to the magazine access corridor – a narrow, iron-walled passage deep within the ship. He carried a lantern. Minutes later, a single, choked scream echoed up the companionway ladder, abruptly cut short.

Men rushed down, led by a grim-faced Bosun Davies. They found the lantern lying on the deck, its glass shattered, the flame extinguished. A smear of something thick, viscous, and slime-like glistened wetly on the iron wall, leading towards a grated ventilation port near the ceiling – a port barely wide enough for a man's arm, let alone his body. Finn was gone.

"Captain," Davies reported, his voice strained, his weathered face pale. "He's gone. Vanished. But... there was this." He held up his hand, showing a glistening residue. "Smells like low tide left to rot in the sun, but... colder. And look at the grating, sir."

Thorne and Abernathy followed him below. The air in the corridor was thick with the foul odour. The iron ventilation grate, designed to withstand considerable force, was bent outwards, twisted as if by incredible strength applied from within the narrow ventilation shaft.

Abernathy knelt, examining the slime. "It's phosphorescent," he murmured, touching it gingerly. A faint, sickly green glow clung to his fingertip. He recoiled slightly. "Cold to the touch. Almost freezing."

Thorne stared at the bent grating, then at the narrow confines of the corridor. Nothing human could have done this. No man could have pulled Finn through that small opening. The implication was monstrous. Something had reached inside the ship, deep into its iron bowels, through a ventilation shaft no wider than a cannonball, and taken a man.

"Secure this corridor," Thorne ordered, his voice dangerously low. "Post guards. Armed guards. No one enters or leaves."

He turned, ascending back to the relative openness of the deck, though the fog pressed in, seeming thicker, more malevolent than before. He felt Abernathy close behind him.

"Captain," Abernathy whispered, his scientific detachment shattered, replaced by naked fear. "That grating… the slime… What could…?"

"I don't know, Mr. Abernathy," Thorne admitted, the words tasting like ashes. "But we are no longer merely lost."

The sighing sound of the hidden sea seemed louder now, less like breathing and more like a low, anticipatory growl. The fog swirled, and for a fleeting second, Thorne thought he saw movement high above, a disturbance in the grey canopy far higher than the ship's masts. Something immense, shifting, obscuring the already absent light. He blinked, and it was gone, leaving only the oppressive, featureless void.

But the feeling remained. They were being watched. Stalked. And the hunter was closing in.

A sudden commotion erupted from the forecastle. Shouts, a clang of metal, followed by a horrifying, wet, tearing sound. Thorne drew his pistol, Abernathy his sabre, and they ran forward, stumbling on the fog-slicked deck.

They burst onto the forecastle to a scene of chaos. Men were scrambling back, faces white with terror, pointing towards the port side bow. Bosun Davies stood frozen, his boarding axe halfway raised, staring at the railing.

Or rather, what was happening to the railing.

Out of the impenetrable fog, emerging with an unnatural silence, snaked a thing. It was pale, greyish-white like bleached leather, thick as a man’s torso, and slick with the same foul slime they’d found below decks. It wasn't scaled like a serpent, nor furred like a beast. Its texture was oddly smooth, undulating with slow, boneless contractions. It resembled a tentacle, yet moved with a disturbing deliberation, an intelligence that belied its simple form. It had wrapped around a stout iron stanchion, and with an obscene, effortless power, was bending it inwards, the metal groaning in protest.

Another sailor, young Miller the lookout, had been standing too close. Before anyone could react, a second, thinner tendril, perhaps an offshoot of the first, whipped out from the grey veil with blinding speed. It wasn't clumsy or brutish; it moved with a horrifying precision. It wrapped around Miller's torso, pinning his arms. The boy let out a single, piercing shriek of utter terror before the appendage constricted, silencing him with an audible crack.

"Fire! For God's sake, fire!" Abernathy screamed, finding his voice.

Marines stationed nearby raised their muskets, the flints sparking, powder igniting with a ragged volley. Lead balls smacked into the pale flesh of the larger tentacle. They didn't bounce off; they seemed to sink in, leaving dark, puckering wounds from which oozed not blood, but more of the luminescent, freezing slime. The creature – or whatever part of it this was – barely seemed to notice.

With sickening speed, the tendril holding Miller retracted, pulling the young sailor inexorably towards the fog bank. His legs kicked feebly for a moment against the railing, and then he was gone, swallowed by the grey nothingness as if he had never existed. The larger tentacle, having mangled the iron stanchion into a twisted wreck, slid back after him, disappearing into the mist with the same terrifying silence it had emerged with.

Silence descended, thick and heavy, broken only by the ragged breathing of the horrified crew and the distant, eternal sighing of the hidden sea. The bent railing and the spreading pool of cold slime were the only proof it had even happened.

Thorne stood rigid, pistol still raised, staring into the fog where Miller had vanished. The whispers he’d dismissed, the old sea legends, the fragmented warnings on the ancient charts – they crashed into his mind with the force of a physical blow. Kraken. The word formed, unbidden, terrifying. But this... this felt older, colder, more deliberate. The way it had reached inside the ship earlier, the calculated abduction of Miller...

Abernathy stumbled back from the rail, retching. Davies finally lowered his axe, his face ashen. "Captain... what in the Devil's name was that?"

Thorne lowered his pistol slowly, the weight of command, the weight of their horrifying reality, settling upon him. He looked at the terrified faces staring back at him, seeking answers he didn't have. He looked at the impenetrable fog, feeling the unseen immensity lurking within it, an entity so vast it could pluck men from an ironclad warship like insects.

"I don't know, Bosun," Thorne said, his voice strained but clear, cutting through the fear-laden air. "But it is not the Devil we face here. It is something else. Something worse." He gripped the hilt of his own sword, the cold steel a small comfort against the encroaching cosmic dread. "Man the cannons. Load grapeshot. All hands to battle stations. We are hunted."

The Ironclad, the pride of the Admiralty, the ship designed to dominate mortal seas, floated blind and helpless in a chilling fog, its crew realizing with dawning horror that they had sailed through a secret passage not into a new world, but into an ancient feeding ground. And they were the prey. The first half of their journey was over; the battle for survival had just begun.

#cosmic horror #scary horror stories #horror stories #horror #scary horror #lady eckland #howard phillips lovecraft #unknown #fogbound sea

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glennriley49 · 6 months ago

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Haters Fuel the Fire

They whispered when I stumbled,

Laughed when I fell.

Their words like daggers,

Carving stories they could sell.

In shadows, they watched,

Hoping I’d stay small,

But I turned their whispers

Into the loudest call.

Each insult, a stone;

Each lie, a flame.

They tried to break me,

But I’m not the same.

For in their hatred,

I found my spark,

And in their darkness,

I left my mark.

Mirrors surrounded me,

Each face a scornful leer,

Reflecting doubts and judgments,

Fueling every fear.

But fear became the kindling,

And courage lit the pyre.

With every scream, I shattered,

Their mirrors, their ire.

Let them call me arrogant,

Let them curse my name.

If greatness draws their envy,

Then I’ll bear the blame.

For the path to triumph

Is paved with cries,

From those too small

To see the skies.

Like prophets and dreamers

Who walked before,

I rise through the chaos,

Unshaken, unsure.

Their stones built my fortress,

Their flames lit my way,

And their hate became the chorus

To the anthem I play.

So hate me for my strength,

Despise me for my will.

Your words are empty echoes,

While I am climbing still.

Haters fuel the fire,

Their scorn a fleeting breeze,

And I’ll stand above their ruins,

Unafraid, at ease.

For those who dare to dream,

And refuse to bow,

The world will try to break you,

But they don’t know how.

So rise above their venom,

And let their rage expire.

For nothing burns as brightly

As a heart set on fire.

@raceyrhymes @solesofwonder @ladyeckland28 @samcrosfaith

#motivational #inspirational song #poetry #lone wolf

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glennriley49 · 6 months ago

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Unclaimed, Yet Desired

She walks where shadows fear to tread,

A path untamed, by none misled.

Her steps are whispers, soft yet bold,

A story of fire, a heart untold.

No crown she wears, no throne she seeks,

Her power lies where silence speaks.

A rare enigma, fierce and free,

The lone she-wolf beneath the trees.

Not bound by chains of fleeting love,

Nor swayed by words or stars above.

Her gaze cuts through the veil of lies,

Her strength is forged in storms and skies.

She doesn’t chase, she doesn’t plead,

Her soul is fire, her mind the lead.

They see her stride, they feel her flame,

Yet none can own, none stake a claim.

The world may yearn, the world may call,

But she’s the woman who has it all.

Unclaimed by one, yet sought by many,

A force of will, unmatched by any.

For in her spirit, the wolf resides,

A shadow fierce, a guide, a pride.

Her howl a hymn to freedom’s name,

A timeless song, unbound by shame.

And as she walks this world alone,

Her essence carved in steel and stone.

Unclaimed, yet desired, her legend grows,

A rare breed of woman, the world only knows.

*This is the sigma female*

@raceyrhymes @ladyeckland28 @solesofwonder @samcrosfaith

#sigma female #she wolf #dark synthwave #poetry #dark poetry

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glennriley49 · 7 months ago

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Erection No Direction

*The Man Who Conquers*

A man stands tall, not by wealth or fame,

But by the fire he chooses to tame.

Not the flame of passion, wild and free,

But the blaze of control, his destiny.

Desire whispers, a siren’s call,

Promising pleasures that make men fall.

Yet strength resides in the silent roar,

Of a soul that craves for something more.

The world will tempt with fleeting charms,

Soft touches, fake smiles, and open arms.

But the man who masters his heart’s demand,

Is the one who builds with steady hand.

He sees the throne, not the fleeting thrill,

Guided by purpose, unshaken will.

His eyes on the stars, his feet on the ground,

In silence, his power is profound.

For lust fades fast, its fire grows cold,

But a disciplined heart is purest gold.

A man who conquers his primal need,

Can plant the seed of an empire’s creed.

So rise above, let others stray,

Forge your path and seize the day.

For the man who owns his inner fight,

Is the one who walks in eternal light.

@ladyeckland28 @solesofwonder

#rap #hip hop #poetry #dark poetry #dark synthwave #dark motivation #motivational #erection

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glennriley49 · 7 months ago

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Straight Out Ask Her

*Step Up or Fade Away*

She checked your profile, caught your gaze,

A fleeting chance in this digital maze.

A silent signal, a subtle spark,

But hesitation leaves you in the dark.

"Hey, how you doing?" won't light the fire,

A bold approach is what she'll admire.

No time for games, no endless chat,

She’s seeking a king, not idle pat.

The wolves are circling, the lions roar,

Each moment you wait, they’re through the door.

While you craft your line, they make their play,

Proving their worth before the day.

She’s not a prize to be won in jest,

But she’ll choose the bold, dismiss the rest.

So step up, speak out, make it clear,

Or watch her fade, just disappear.

The battlefield’s fierce, the odds are steep,

But fortune’s not kind to those who sleep.

In love, in life, in every game,

Only the fearless earn the flame.

*The unfortunate realities of dating online*

@ladyeckland28 @solesofwonder @samcrosfaith

#poetry #dark poetry #dating advice #online dating #rap #hip hop #dark synth

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glennriley49 · 7 months ago

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Sigma Strong

"The Path of the Sigma"

In the ashes of a love that once burned bright, I stood alone,

Not as a broken man, but as one reforged in the fire of betrayal.

Each scar, a silent hymn to the strength I never knew I carried,

Each tear, a quiet baptism into the sanctity of solitude.

You thought I’d crumble, that your absence would hollow me,

But it only carved a space for the man I was destined to become.

I walked a path unlit by the warmth of another’s embrace,

And in that darkness, I found a light that belonged solely to me.

The sigma does not howl for the pack, nor chase the fleeting,

He builds his own fortress from the stones others cast.

No longer a placeholder in someone else’s story,

I am the author, the architect, the sovereign of my destiny.

You called me cold, distant, unreachable in my resolve,

But strength cannot afford the softness of dependence.

I do not seek validation in borrowed glances or fleeting touches;

My worth is not measured by who stays, but by what I endure.

For the man who walks alone hears the truest silence,

And in that stillness, he learns the music of his own soul.

While others fall into the arms of distractions and replacements,

I stand unshaken, a mountain forged by the weight of solitude.

Love, when it comes again, will not be a need,

But a choice—a meeting of equals, not a grasp for completion.

For I am already whole, a man who found himself,

Not in the arms of another, but in the arms of his own resilience.

So let the world misunderstand, let them call me what they will—

Detached, distant, unreachable in my towering silence.

The lone wolf does not explain his path to the flock,

For he walks not to be understood, but to understand himself.

@raceyrhymes @ladyeckland28

#sigma male #dark poetry #poetry #lone wolf #strong #synthwave #dark synth #rock

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glennriley49 · 7 months ago

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The Lone Wolf's Legacy

Beneath the moon’s cold, silver glow,

A shadow stands where few dare go.

A man unmoved by fleeting charms,

With scars that speak of love’s alarms.

He walks alone, a silent trail,

Immune to whispers, immune to fail.

No mask he wears, no games he plays,

His truth unbent by fickle praise.

His heart, a fortress, built to last,

Guarded by lessons of the past.

No line to wait, no backup role,

His path is forged by his own soul.

The world may mock his lonely stride,

But strength and peace are on his side.

For what is love without the truth?

A fleeting flame, a wasted youth.

So here he stands, a man of fate,

No fear of time, no love of hate.

He trusts the winds, the stars, the night,

And fate to bring what will feel right.

A lone wolf’s howl cuts through the air,

A call for those who boldly dare—

To live, to thrive, to walk alone,

Until the right soul claims their throne.

This is his power, his iron creed,

A life unchained from want or need.

No compromises, no regret,

The lone wolf’s legacy is set.

#poetry #dark poetry #dark motivation #sigma male #lone wolf #mens relationship advice

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glennriley49 · 7 months ago

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Wanted By None, Chased By All

The Shadows I Wear

I am the silence after the storm,

The calm that follows chaos born.

A lone sentinel in a world of noise,

Carving truth from hollowed joys.

They see the mask, but never the man,

The scars etched deep, the master plan.

I’ve walked through fire, embraced the pain,

Each trial shaping the strength I’ve gained.

I am not here to seek your praise,

To chase approval, to beg or sway.

I’ve known the void, I’ve stared it down,

And risen whole where others drowned.

The chains of doubt—they could not bind,

This restless heart, this unyielding mind.

Each crack a testament, each wound a tale,

Of moments where the weak would fail.

You think you know me by the steps I take,

But not the shadows my will can break.

The weight I carry, the dreams I sow,

The storms I weathered you’ll never know.

I move in silence, I build unseen,

A fortress forged in the in-between.

Not light, not dark—I am the gray,

The balance that keeps the night at bay.

So judge my path if you dare to try,

But know this truth before you pry:

I do not seek, I do not plead,

For I am all that I will ever need.

*An insight into the world of the sigma male*

@ladyeckland28 @solesofwonder @samcrosfaith

#poetry #dark poetry #dark motivation #sigma male #lone wolf #independent

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glennriley49 · 7 months ago

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Stronger Than Your Feelings

"Forged in the Storm"

In the silence of the storm, when the echoes of battle fade into the whispers of the dark,

A warrior rises, bloodied and bruised, the rain carving rivulets through the grit and grime,

He is not led by rage, nor fueled by the flame of fleeting glory,

But by a force deeper than marrow, stronger than the stubborn heartbeat within his chest.

There, in the mud and chaos, where doubt clings like a parasite to the soul,

He trains his mind to be a blade, sharper than any spear, unyielding against the howl of his fears,

He is the peaceful warrior, the sigma, the lone sentinel against the tide of the world's noise,

Forging himself not for the applause of the crowd, but for the sacred silence of self-mastery.

Every scar tells a story, but none speak of defeat; they sing of lessons carved in pain,

Each moment of faltering, each stumble in the shadowed path,

Is but the hammer strike against the anvil, the shaping of iron into an indomitable force,

A testament that strength is not the absence of weakness but the defiance of surrender.

So he stands, muscles tight and heart steady, eyes locked beyond the rain’s relentless curtain,

Not as a conqueror seeking lands, but as a man who has conquered the battle within,

For in a world that chains itself to the weight of feeling, he chooses to rise,

An emblem of resilience, unbroken, not by the absence of storms, but by standing firm in their fury.

And when the dawn breaks through, when the skies wash the battlefield clean,

The world will know not of the countless wars he fought in the dark,

But he will know, and that is enough, for he is more than bone and blood;

He is will, forged hard, stronger than doubt, stronger than the tremor of his own heart.

There lies the quiet truth, unsung, but fiercely alive in the man who stands alone,

For true warriors are not found in their victories, but in the battles that tried to break them,

In the moments they chose not to yield, when all else would fall away,

To be stronger than their feelings, to guard the flame within, or lose themselves to the storm.

@ladyeckland28 @raceyrhymes @solesofwonder @dadrizzle34 @samcrosfaith

#dark poetry #poetry #dark motivation #sigma male #lone wolf #spartan

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glennriley49 · 7 months ago

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Trilogy Of Deep Sea Horror

By Glenn Riley, Lady Eckland and Ms Darkwood

The Abyssal Symphony

By Lady Eckland

Dr. Eliza Crane pressed her forehead against the thick viewport of the Poseidon's submersible, watching the absolute darkness beyond. At these depths, their exterior lights barely penetrated the crushing void.

"Sonar's picking up something strange," Marcus said from the pilot's station. His fingers danced across the holographic controls, adjusting frequencies. "Listen to this."

He switched the audio to the cabin speakers. A low, pulsing tone filled the space, almost subsonic. It made Eliza's teeth ache.

"That's not geological," she said, reaching for her tablet. "The pattern's too regular. Too... deliberate."

Dr. Chen, their marine acoustics expert, leaned forward. "It's like whale song, but the frequency's all wrong. Nothing that size could survive down here."

The sound changed, becoming more complex. Harmonics layered upon harmonics, creating a melody that seemed to bypass their ears and resonate directly in their bones.

"We should collect our samples and begin ascent," Eliza said, but her voice sounded distant, even to herself. The song was... beautiful. Like a lullaby she'd always known but somehow forgotten.

"Look," whispered Sarah, their junior researcher. She pointed through the viewport, where something pale and massive moved just beyond their lights. "Those aren't rocks."

Eliza saw it too – structures rising from the seafloor, impossibly tall and graceful. Towers of bone-white material that shouldn't exist at this depth, arranged in geometric patterns that hurt her eyes.

"Why aren't we ascending?" she asked, forcing the words past lips that felt numb.

Marcus didn't respond. His hands were slack on the controls, his eyes fixed on the darkness beyond. A smile played at the corners of his mouth.

"Marcus!" Eliza grabbed his shoulder, but he shrugged her off.

"Don't you hear it?" he whispered. "They're calling us home."

The song grew louder, and with it came visions – promises of knowledge and beauty beyond human comprehension. Eliza felt her resolve weakening. Through the viewport, something vast shifted in the darkness. She caught a glimpse of eyes larger than the submersible, pupils split like cuttlefish, watching.

"Emergency ascent!" she screamed, lunging for the controls. "Override code Crane-Delta-Seven!"

The submersible's engines roared to life, but the song followed them up through the crushing depths. In the darkness below, something ancient and patient continued its eternal symphony, knowing that sooner or later, they would return to its embrace.

The Black Reef

By Glenn Riley

Jake Morrison yanked at his diving gear, checking straps with trembling fingers. The search and rescue boat pitched in the rough seas off Harrow's Bay.

"You don't have to do this," Captain Sarah Wells said, watching him prepare. "We can wait for the Coast Guard."

Jake shook his head. "My sister's down there. Emily's one of the missing divers. I'm not waiting."

The black reefs loomed beneath the surface like jagged teeth. Local fishermen refused to go near them, speaking of bad luck and ancient curses. Now four divers had vanished exploring the legendary shipwrecks trapped in their depths.

"Thirty minutes," Sarah said firmly. "Then you surface, no matter what. Clear?"

"Crystal." Jake pulled on his mask and rolled backward into the churning water.

The descent was quick. Visibility grew worse as he approached the reef. His lights revealed walls of dark stone shot through with veins of phosphorescent blue. Except... the patterns were wrong. Too regular. Too organic.

His radio crackled. "Jake, how's it look down there?"

"Strange," he replied. "These aren't normal rock formations. They're—" He broke off as something caught his eye. A flash of pale flesh among the darkness.

"Emily?" he called out, knowing she couldn't hear him underwater. But the figure turned, and Jake's heart stopped.

It was his father, dead these past five years. He smiled and beckoned, disappearing into a crevice.

"Dad?" Jake kicked after him, reason warring with impossible hope. The radio crackled with Sarah's voice, but he couldn't make out the words.

The reef walls pulsed with that strange blue light. As he swam deeper, he noticed things embedded in the stone – bones, fragments of ships, and... faces. Hundreds of faces trapped in the rock, mouths open in eternal screams.

Something brushed his leg. He spun to find Emily floating behind him, her diving gear gone, hair drifting like seaweed.

"We've been waiting for you," she said, her voice clear as day despite the water. Her skin had a blue-black tinge, veined with that same phosphorescent light. "Join us, Jake. Become part of something greater."

He tried to back away, but his muscles wouldn't respond. Tiny motes of light swirled around him, and where they touched his exposed skin, it began to burn and change.

"No," he gasped, fighting against the paralysis. "You're not Emily. You're not real!"

His sister smiled, revealing teeth that had grown sharp and numerous. "We are what the reef makes us. And soon, you'll understand."

Above, Sarah watched the thirty-minute mark come and go. Jake's radio transmitted nothing but static and what sounded like singing. When the Coast Guard arrived hours later, they found only his empty gear floating on the surface.

In the weeks that followed, more people vanished from Harrow's Bay. Some were found walking into the sea at night, speaking of loved ones calling them home. The black reef grew, feeding on its victims, spreading its spores through the water like a patient cancer.

Leviathan's Wake

By Ms Darkwood

"Another round for the happy couple!" Gerard Chen raised his glass in the Oceanus Retreat's underwater dining room. Outside the panoramic windows, schools of luminescent fish danced in the spotlights.

Monica squeezed her new husband's hand. "I still can't believe you booked this for our honeymoon, David. It's perfect."

The underwater hotel was a marvel of engineering, anchored to the seafloor at three hundred feet. Thick windows offered views of the open ocean, while state-of-the-art stabilizers kept the structure steady against the currents.

The first tremor was subtle – just a slight shiver through the floor. The second knocked glasses off tables.

"Ladies and gentlemen, please remain calm," the maitre d' announced. "Our facility is designed to handle seismic activity. Security personnel will guide you to designated safety areas."

Monica pressed against the window, peering into the darkness. "David, look! The fish... they're all gone."

The ocean had emptied, as if every living thing had fled. Then the spotlights began to fail, one by one, plunging sections of the hotel into darkness.

"Something's out there," an elderly woman whispered. "Something big."

The water seemed to shift and coalesce into a vast shape. An eye appeared at the window – pupil contracted against the light, iris swirling with colors no human eye had ever possessed. It was bigger than a car, bigger than a house, and it was studying them with terrible intelligence.

Screams erupted as the creature moved, its massive body blocking out what little light remained. The facility groaned under sudden pressure changes.

"Everyone move!" Security Chief Rogers bellowed. "We need to get to the emergency pods!"

They ran through darkened corridors as the thing outside tested the structure's strength. Walls creaked. Joints stressed. Somewhere below, there was the sound of metal giving way and rushing water.

"The lower level's flooding," Rogers said into his radio. "How many people are still down there?"

Static answered him.

Monica and David followed the group toward the pod bay. Behind them, a window cracked with a sound like a gunshot. Water began to spray through the spider-web fissures.

"Here!" Rogers directed people into the pods. "Four per pod, no exceptions!"

But there weren't enough pods. Not nearly enough.

The creature struck again, and this time the entire structure shifted. Monica lost her balance, slamming into a wall. Through a nearby viewport, she saw something impossible – not just one eye now, but many, arranged in patterns that defied comprehension. The ancient thing outside wasn't just hunting them. It was solving them, like a puzzle box containing fresh meat.

"Monica, come on!" David pulled her toward one of the last pods.

"Wait," she said, staring transfixed through the viewport. "It's... beautiful."

The eyes blinked in sequence, and in that pattern, Monica saw the truth – they were never meant to come down here. Humanity had built their hotels and platforms and deep-sea mines, thinking the ocean's depths were just another frontier to conquer. But these waters belonged to something older than mammals, older than dinosaurs, older than time itself.

And it had finally awoken to reclaim them.

The last thing Monica heard before the structure gave way completely was not screaming, but a sound like whale song – deep, haunting, and triumphant. The leviathan had waited eons in darkness. A few more hours to savor its prey would make little difference now.

---

In the days that followed, rescue teams found only debris floating on the surface. The Oceanus Retreat had vanished completely, leaving no traces of its guests or staff. Deep-sea monitoring stations recorded unprecedented seismic activity moving slowly across the ocean floor, heading toward the next human intrusion into its domain.

In coastal cities around the world, people reported strange dreams of eyes in the deep and a song that called them toward the sea. But surely these were just dreams, weren't they?

Beneath the waves, something ancient and patient continued its hunt, knowing that humanity's hubris would always lead them back to the depths, back to its waiting embrace.

#cosmic horror #scary horror stories #horror stories #deep sea terror

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