Weekly Short: The Monster’s Attack

No one believes me. I can hardly blame them. My mind barely holds the memory, it feels so fantastical. And yet I have the scars. I’m the only one who made it back.

We’d been six days in the lifeboat, our ship and the rest of our crew sunk below. Nothing but endless blue, no idea where we were, when I saw it for the first time.

I thought I was hallucinating at first, so I kept my mouth shut. It wasn’t long before the others saw it too. It rose up just high enough to see the spines along its back. If it was a fish, it was bigger than any I’d seen before.

We floated a bit longer before we felt it nudge the boat. Derrick stuck his head over to look. Gav and I stared in horror as a huge tentacle shot up to wrap around him, taking him overboard. The water calmed too quickly, and we sat there in silence. In the bright sun we listened to the sound of the boat creaking underneath us. Gav was still praying when it burst.

Timber splintered in all directions as we dove away, narrowly escaping the tentacle’s squeeze. Each of the monster’s limbs took hold of a piece of our boat. I lost sight of Gav as the monster reared its head. 

It was a serpent, but unlike any other I’d seen. The limbs of an octopus lined its body, while the head resembled the fish of the deep sea. I floated, frozen on the piece of boat I’d managed to cling to. The creature focused on Gav, whose face will be forever etched in my mind. The thing swallowed him whole. 

The nurses tell me it never happened, as if they were there. Such a creature doesn’t exist. The giant ring-shaped scar on my chest says otherwise.