Escape from the Depths and Certain Doom

It was only five minutes after Michelle jumped in that she sensed something was amiss. From my perch in the crows nest I could see naught but the occasional gull or many-masted merchant vessel, but I trust Michelle’s gift of foresight, and called for all hands on deck. In the fog ahead a gossamer figure, slightly more dense and dark than the cloud that surrounded it, crept toward us. It was then that we heard and, perhaps worse, felt the distant thud of an ageless oak ram against mahogany and pine pitch which caused me to fall from my perch and dangle precariously from the rigging.

As the shape drifted closer to our party, my first mate called out a warning but was unheeded, for the ears of our fellow sailors were clogged by the choppy seas. It was to Michelle that the crew directed its efforts, as she was most adjacent to the figure whose features were becoming increasingly apparent. As if commanded by some dark power, the winds ceased and we could get no closer to our distressed shipmate, whose anguished call for aid fell so terribly on our hearts. I struggled mightily against the ropes which held me captive, but won only small victories against their coarse hemp weave.

Not a moment later, and all at once, the fog lifted, and what lay before our eyes paralyzed even the saltiest among us. Not even the gulls called when they laid eyes on the creature whose bulk was laid bare before us, whose very presence awoke in us unspoken fears inherited from those who braved the seas a hundred generations ago: the kraken.

Its tenticles, each the width of all our cannons combined, were raised over its bulbous head, and menaced our hearts and masts with their shadows. The scream that originated in the throat of my first mate was cut short as he was swept into the drink by the ancient terror, and within seconds my crew was decimated, and only a handful of ill-equipped seamen remained to keep the beast at bay long enough to rescue our hearty, Michelle. I could hear her calling from the port bow, and called for the crew to draw oars and turn our ship starboard, giving us the chance to fire a volley at the beast before it could reach her.

As I screamed “fire!” from the rigging, the smoke and fury of our cannons rattled the timbers to the mast, and the pulley I found myself dangling from slipped, causing me to fall suddenly. I was caught by my ankle once more in the rigging, and from my new vantage point I could see Michelle swimming toward the rope ladder we had thrown over to her. She had a look about her that told me she had seen how to defeat this abomination, and when she called for her blade, I redoubled my efforts to free myself, and, finally able to reach my bootstrap daggar, I managed to cut myself free and land hard on my shoulder. The pain was dulled by the sharpness and urgency of Michelle’s command, and I searched her cabin for any sign of the elusive blade. At the bottom of a well-worn trunk I found it, and not a moment too soon. The beast was nearly on her.

I ran to the port bow and dropped the cutlass in its scabbard to her, and she, despite the terror staring her in the face, caught and unsheathed her weapon and dove under the water with it between her teeth. I ordered a second volley of cannon fire just as the kraken reared up again as if to deliver a crushing blow to our mainmast and hopes of escaping alive, and when the shot hit, the beast gave such a scream as to cause a great wave to emanate from its source, the massive tearing beak that was still gnashing at the water, searching for its quarry. We listed hard to starboard, but the beast did not pursue.

Instead, it too listed heavily and rolled a bit onto its back. It was only then that I noticed the water surrounding it turning a dark red color. A storm of heat and steam escaped from underneath the beast, as its bulk surrendered to death’s pull from behind, drawing it ever closer to the ocean floor. The heat from the beast stung my eyes, but when I rubbed them clear I saw a sight more welcome to my eyes than any piece of land: there, on the hulking corpse, the seething mass of tentacles and death, hung Michelle, clinging to the pommel of her blade, plunged hilt deep into the flesh of the beast just behind its monstrous beak. We dropped anchor and threw a line to her, which she fastened securely about her waste as we pulled her back aboard.

We broke out the ale and offered her the first drink, which she dismissed with the wave of a hand as she cleaned the kraken’s dark blood off her cutlass and concentrated on regaining control over the fury which had overtaken her and led her directly to the weakest spot in the monster’s hide. We could not help but notice, as we thanked her to the best of our ability, that her inkwork shone extra bright under the red sun’s gaze. Some would later claim that it was from these designs that she drew her power, but those who were there that day know the truth: twas her strength of will and skill with a blade that saved us all, and we shall none of us forget it.

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