Baked Scribe Flashback : Kraken

 

Ricky steered the ship towards the small island and started to power down the motor. When they had drawn close enough, he cut the engines entirely, and let the boat’s momentum carry them the rest of the way in. It was possibly the smallest island he had ever seen, not even worthy of stopping but for the fact that one of the men had spotted the body of the castaway on its shore. There was no way to tell if the man was alive, but it wouldn’t be right to move on without at least checking.

“Get one of the rafts ready and get over there.”

He watched two of the crew as they pulled the tarp loose and began moving the excursion craft over the water, when something from the corner of his eye grabbed his attention. What he was seeing wasn’t even remotely possible, but it was happening regardless. He blinked to try and focus, and turned to look directly.

The island was sinking.

Slowly and nearly imperceptibly, but it was definitely sinking. Already, the castaway was nearly a third closer to the waterline than he had been originally. As the island continued to sink, it began to turn as well and before he could say anything to alert the crew, the castaway had slid off and into the water. The island continued to turn as the crew were all now watching, equally speechless. Just before it dropped down under the water, Ricky saw something else that shouldn’t have been there.

Eyes.

Ricky spun back to the boat where the men still stood there dumbly, with the raft hovering over the water waiting to be dropped.

“Leave it!” They looked up at him blankly. “Release the—”

He was interrupted, as eight tentacles, each as thick as the boat itself shot up out of the water. They extended straight up into the air and hovered there, teetering back and forth, before coming back down, crashing onto the deck and reducing it to cinders.

The next seconds passed in a blur. Suddenly, he was paddling through the floating remains of his ship, swimming through blood and seawater, mixed with the sounds of screaming. The men reached for each other in vain as they were pulled down into a massive whirlpool. He kicked to try and get clear of the vortex and his feet struck something solid underneath him. Ricky looked down at the massive black shadow, but before he could react, something sharp bit into his lower torso. He screamed and tried to push off, but the strength in his arms was quickly fading. The burning pain in his legs soon matched the taste of the saltwater in his mouth as he was jerked down, pulled into the infinite depths of Davey Jones’ Locker.