Seaward

Weird Tale at the Edge of Cosmic Dread

Photo by Polina Silivanova on Unsplash

I watch the harbour from the top of the roofed fort tower. The roof is a lid, and the merlons its teeth, and I am up here looking through them as if through a jaw. I can’t recall exactly where I am, nor how I’ve come here. My head blanks.

A deep-blue mass of water stretches out from seaward. The marina lies neatly in a straight line, with a long timber pier, and around it, masts wave from the ships. Two white yachts rest there with black rubber fenders, with sails down; one pilot boat, the colour of maroon; and, at the end, the red fisherman, Seahorn, with the name cut into its stern as if a nuisance.

Beyond the breakwater, the open sea stretches up to the horizon. The ocean, perhaps, but again, this is vague to me.

A small slap of water rocks the pier, snapping ropes and rattling fenders.

Another surge blasts from the sea, taller now, and the whole timber spine shudders from the force. Boats clatter together like spoons in a drawer. Someone shouts, and another person runs, but my eyes slide over it, because behind it, something else frightening looms behind it all. A horizon-bending mountain of blue sea rises, storeys high, followed by a low hum. The bay falls into its shadow, turning ink-dark.

The cold water pours in, chilling my bones. The entire bay transforms into rising plateaus, waves muscling out of it one by one. They are blue-black and veiny, and they climb. The first wave slopes violently, bulging the bay into a hill. The whole world tilts toward it, and I know it will strike hard.

Halyards explode from the impact. The entire pier is lifted into the air, lashing against the fort wall. Splinters fly upward, then back in the water, disappearing. The momentum continues: the next wave isn’t even fully formed yet, but it is already rising, aimed directly at the ramparts.

My mouth foams in panic. Jesus Christ, I think, losing my grip. I’m overwhelmed by the vastness, nearly paralysed by fear.

My legs are like wool, and I pinch them, trying to snap out of it, to jolt them awake. My shaking body makes the overdue decision, and I spin, plunging down the spiral stairs. To my left, the water pours over the tip of the fort wall, splashing at me like a dog’s tongue. I run neck and neck with it, knowing I have to cut across the courtyard for shelter. I hit the green grounds and sprint, as fast as I can, for the postern gate, the small door set in the curtain wall. This is my only hope. Water brushes against my back, swaying me, and I barely manage to dive through the opening.

I flash through chamber after chamber, nearing the exit, when a sudden arrival stops me. Three blond men in white shirts, dressed exactly alike, tear inside. They collide with the wall and crumple in a heap. They all look identical, with Cupid curls, like triplets.

They wear shoulder bags with first-aid kits, and I guess they’re a rescue team. They shout as much, demanding directions to the courtyard. I point them into a corridor that ends at a landing with no stairs, water already flooding over my ankles. I haul myself up to the landing, surprised that I can climb, and then shout for them to follow. We all scramble onto it, only to find a dead end and no door.

I am wrong. That’s not the path through to the courtyard. What is happening to me? I can’t remember anything. Have I lost my mind?

One of the blonds slaps me for my incompetence. We drop back down from the landing into a frenzy. With the water now waist-high, we return to the corridor, and I find the right entrance, just as I recall where it is.

I wonder how they plan to save anyone. Already, the courtyard is a bowl of water you shouldn’t enter if you want to live. But they insist, because that’s the mission.

Hopeless, I think.

As I flee towards the fort’s front gate and out, the water is pouring over everything. At the doorway, I shoulder past another trio of “rescuers”, the same ones as before. They keep repeating, identical copies entering over and over, like an endless platoon of the same faces, until I lose count.

I barely make it outside the fort, and the city is going underwater. Outside, I dodge benches, trash bins, and a central fountain as the square skids beneath my feet. The sea mass behind eats away at the day. I look back at it, over my shoulder, but it doesn’t make sense. It consumes everything, but it moves more slowly the closer it gets, as if I am anchoring it, drawing it in.

A jolt of sensation shoots through me as memories pour in. The closer the sluggish water gets, the more memories emerge. It dawns on me: the water is more than it seems. It is my lost time, my lost life, and I am regaining it through its pull.

The tide now stands still, building up like a monolith, just an inch from my face. I can smell the ocean, its brine and rot of kelp. Then, it surges further upward, shooting into the clouds, tens of thousands of feet high, already brushing the stratosphere, on the brink of the cosmos. It’s a magnificent sight.

I finally recall how I got here. My name is Gregor, and someone promised me things: secrets of life, of infinity, hidden under a black object in my palm, a ten-faced shape. I opened it and fell through; that’s how this all began. What follows is the start of this madness: the fort, me peering at boats in the marina.

I now remember a life before: being a child at the creek, hearing my parents’ floury hands working at the mill, sitting with them singing with my siblings, the drudgery of countryside work. I am me again, whole.

A sudden commotion around me snaps me out of my reverie.

I peer over my shoulder: blonds, ranks of them, surround me across the square. They stand evenly spaced, like chessmen, shoulder bags at their hips, mouths open wide, heads turned toward the sky. Their faces are empty, blank, meaningless, as if waiting for meaning to be poured into their gaping mouths.

Something is arriving, I can feel it. Otherwise, what is the spectacle for?

A sudden crack shatters the light. Day turns into dusk; the stars fill the night sky by the thousands. As if through a magnifying glass, they grow, coming down, dragging the heart of the galaxy closer.

Lines of cold cross my cheek like thin knives, leaving numb signatures over my face. I stare in terror at the emerging black vortex. The singularity unfolds before me, peeking out so close that it’s already stealing the city’s light, bending it around like a halo. It’s a chasm, and within its depths time seems to slow; something lurks there, cryptic and supermassive.

The dark rim sets a stage for what will play out. First, a single radiance, then seven more appear from its centre. They are gargantuan and flicker on and off, demanding attention. I know what it is: spider eyes, closing in. Suddenly, the creature hauls its limbs over the rim, drawn out, summoned into the scene.

“Dark God,” I tell myself.

With the creature unveiled, a high-pitched scream echoes, and I feel it inside me, the voice of the black brane. I cover my ears as they bleed, blood running down my shirt. For the first time, I recognise my clothes: a Victorian shirt, wet velvet trousers, and moccasins. These are not mine, I realise.

In response, the blonds around me lift into the air, hundreds of them, hypnotised. They circle in a hurricane, ingested by the weaver’s hunger. The beast gnashes its teeth, swallowing them whole, gorging on them. They sing an unknown song, surely a prayer of devotion. Meanwhile, the wall of water swirls into a whirlpool, pouring into the creature’s mouth and bending reality around it.

One of its arms reaches out from beyond the boundary, planetary in size. It crosses space, crackling through the atmosphere, then passes the clouds, slowly towards me. It comes as a black point from my perspective. I reach out a finger as it nears, as if our index fingers are meant to meet.

Is this where I touch God? Is this where the mysteries unfold?

Our fingers meet, but it doesn’t stop with me. It crushes me, reminding me of my insignificance and hubris. My body breaks bone by bone, blood spraying everywhere, yet I do not die. Suspended, I witness my own agony, each scream of terror merging into the mass that compresses me.

I remain there, body formless and time adrift, its flow slipping forward and back. I behold the answers, but they lie beyond a door, and death is that door.

I am denied passage, condemned for my mortal sin. Endless suffering is my fate.

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Submitted for Macabre Monday, hosted by Shaina Read, Jon T, John Coon and EJ Trask.

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Third Eye Horror
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