Luciña (18+)

The next morning, Jonah awoke to a lonely bed. Luciña was nowhere to be seen in their quarters.

“Luciña?”

No answer.

Jonah looked around the bed for some of his clothing and found his boxers lying by the bedside. I slipped them on and walked towards the door. When he opened it, a thick fog crept slowly into the cabin like probing appendages. Jonah walked through and out onto the boat’s deck. The morning air was chilly and Jonah shivered. But he fought the feeling, more concerned about Luciña’s whereabouts than with his temporary discomfort.

“Luciña?” He called louder.

Jonah walked through a thick sheet of white. The deck’s railings were barely visible, pronounced only as a silhouette in the thick mist. He found his way to them before he heard something off to his left.

“Over here, Jonah!”

It was Luciña. Jonah held onto the railing and walked towards where he guessed she had called from; the bow. As he progressed towards it he could make out her figure minutely in the foreground. A shadowy figure, she was sitting on the small span of lip that jetted out of and over the edge of the boat and into the sea. She was completely nude.

“Luciña,” Jonah prodded. “Aren’t you cold,” he asked, shivering.

“Of course not,” Luciña relied, giggling.

“Look,” Luciña continued, pointing towards some unseen part of the world beyond them. “We’re almost there.”

“Almost where,” Jonah asked.

“Almost to Innsmouth.”

Innsmouth.

Jonah had heard that name before. But never from his travels. As the name echoed inside his brain brief flashes of dreams he’d forgotten upon waking started to assemble themselves like some chaotic, grotesque collage: A town of immense squalor and decay, left off any navigator’s map to forsake offense by its inclusion; its subterranean tunnels; those eyes—

“Well, are you just going to stand there?” Luciña motioned for Jonah to come to her and she stuck out her breasts to tempt him. But as Jonah walked forward, he could only see that necklace and its figure, glowing brighter now than it had when he first noticed it standing with her on the shore.

“Jonnnnaaaahhhhh,” Luciña hummed in an enchanting tone.

He walked slowly towards her. Luciña’s eyes widened as he came to her, ensnaring him. The mist surrounding them seemed to dissipate slightly as it rolled along and the boat rocked back and forth lazily. It seemed stationary now. Had she somehow dropped the anchor? Jonah couldn’t see. Yet he didn’t care as he drew closer, captivated by her gaze. Luciña slumped into the water, her upper half bobbing along the waves. For a moment she disappeared within the mist and Jonah felt an urgency rise up in him.

“Luciña!”

She went under and Jonah ran up to where she was sitting just a second ago.

“Luciña! Are you okay?”

She had gone under and Jonah feared he would have to go in after her. But just as he was about to call out for her again she surfaced, this time about 20 feet out into the sea. The mist was thick around them still and Luciña was reduced once more to a silhouette. From a distance he heard her.

“C’mon in!”

Jonah surveyed his surroundings, mumbling to himself.

“What is this? I can’t just—”

“C’mon, Jonah!”

Jonah’s mind raced to find his bravery. His heart beat faster and faster.

“Shit.”

“Hey!” Jonah shouted. “Can’t we just find a dock or something?”

“No need,” Luciña reassured him. “We can swim it.”

“I can’t swim well, Luciña!”

“I know you can,” she urged. “Jump in. I know you know.”

Jonah swallowed hard and swung his leg over the rail.

“What the hell am I doing,” Jonah mumbled to himself. “Couldn’t just find a girl who was happy with just a dinner and a movie…”

Jonah swallowed hard, swung his other leg over and jumped in. As he surfaced he took a deep breath. The water was cold, but it wasn’t unbearably so. He started to paddle in the direction he had seen Luciña but he couldn’t see her any more. He could only barely hear her beyond him, humming and splashing here or there. And then, there was silence. Jonah stopped swimming and bobbed up and down in place.

“Luciña?”

“Luciña, where are you?”

No answer.

Jonah looked back and saw that the boat had long since disappeared, concealed by the still-present mist that rolled along without a promise of letting up. Without many options, Jonah took to faith and started swimming in a direction that he felt took him to shore. As he progressed there was only the sound of his treading water. Luciña could not be heard anymore. With his heart racing and his body starting to ache, Jonah called out for her.

“Luciña? Please answer me. Where are you?!”

As if in reply, a great bellow like that of an amplified fog horn broke the stillness of the morning. But this noise frightened Jonah like nothing before. Instead of coming from a nearby coast it seemed to be coming from the depths of the sea itself. Jonah swore he even felt vibrations rise up to greet him.

“Oh shit,” Jonah gasped. What the fuck was that?”

Jonah began paddling and kicking as hard and fast as he could. His limbs burned and his heart punched at his chest so hard it hurt. Jonah’s lungs seemed to collapse within themselves and he cried out once more.

“Luciña!?”

But she didn’t respond.

And just then another bellow came in the same manner as the first and Jonah was pulled under.

***

Out in front of Jonah they stood at a great opening of one of those subterranean tunnels. He could hear the shambling and guttural tongues of those hideous abominations. And then they disappeared and something else came to him; a strange aquatic abnormality of juxtaposed hideousness and beauty; a fish with a belly like the abyss and scales the imprisoned the stars and eyes just like Luciña’s, only black and lifeless. Luciña.

“Luciña!”