On the Shores of Ci

He woke up vomiting salty water on the rocks before him. Long, raspy spasms of breath cleared his lungs of the rest. He was shipwrecked. The man looked back at the rowboat that had brought him to these shores. It was but splinters now, broken and twisted beyond recognition as it now slipped beneath the sea. He lay there alone. The sea, once a raging demon of unfathomable chaos, now appeared as calm and docile as pooled water upon a woodland trail. His crew as well, gone. Himself and a few others had braved the turbulent waters to find aid for their first mate who lay wounded with them. Of the four, he was the only one he could see laying on this shore. Did they drown? Did they swim back to the ship that no doubt was on its way to the bottom of the sea as well? Or perhaps they had sought refuge upon the very rocks that he swore had torn into the boat that had brought him to where he lay. He had to find them. He had to know. But first, he had to get up and find out where he was.

The man rubbed his eyes, which were red from sand and salt. It took a moment, but he finally saw something that seemed to focus as he glared at it. It appeared bright. It gleamed in desperate movements, its shape cut in and out of definition. It seemed to surround him, growing and flowing with every ripple the sea brought to them. He managed to pull up his arm and look at his hand, which now seemed restrained by it. He squinted hard and opened his eyes once more. Around him seaweed snaked along the shores as it crawled from the sea’s dark depths. It was glowing. It seemed haunted and animated as it moved. What was it? Was he hallucinating? How long had he been unconscious?

When he shook his head once more he looked around him and saw nothing but ripples of waves and sand highlighted by the light of the moon. His eyes were playing tricks on him. Slowly, he stood up and familiarized himself with what around him was real; the sand between his toes, the smell of salt upon the air, and a path that cut up along the hillside and disappeared behind distant hills. He had a decision to make, stay here and look for evidence of his shipmates or seek assistance from those who knew the terrain. What good would he be to anyone lost?

The man took a quick look at his immediate surroundings. There was nothing that gave him any hopes that others had landed nearby. No other tracks, no articles of clothing or the like. Nothing else at all.

It was then that he took to the path and stepped into the moonlight. He followed it as it snaked along a rocky hillside and into a trodden perimeter of grass that, too, glowed like the edges of razors under the moon. A minute’s walk into this enchanted field brought him to a town that rose above the hill’s horizon. It was still and dark. Night had claimed it, as not even the faintest glow of a streetlamp was evident. As he emerged from the field and his feet touched upon the cobblestone street, it responded with echoes from the impact of sea-ridden flesh. The man stopped and looked around. He looked at the doors, the windows, any opening that would reveal there was someone, something alive here. But nothing satisfied this curiosity, nothing stirred. He walked on, seeking assistance, but hesitant to stir those within the houses that surrounded him by force. It hadn’t come to that. Yet. He looked ahead and stopped to count paces still to walk. Fifteen to go. He was getting close. Fifteen steps until he would reach the limits of the moon’s light. Fifteen steps until he would penetrate darkness beyond darkness. But he couldn’t go on. He looked ahead at this wall that seemed to signify an end to existence. He looked at the street before it and saw no transition between moonlight and this void. Houses, too, appeared half-swallowed by it. For a second he thought he could see what dwelled within, and it frightened him.

Beyond the moon’s light, inside this shell he swore he saw things just as dark move and burn within. Things that not even his imagination could manifest willed terrifying fates, unspeakable dooms to those already lost inside. Demons of grotesque origins made his feet quiver and his mind numb. And just before he felt his mind give in and the impulse to deliver his soul to what lay before him break through, he heard something rise up from the sea behind him. It sounded like voices. Disconnected, weeping voices that sang the most somber of songs. And just as he turned to grant them fully to his ears, he saw something out of the distance emerge from a house concealed in an adjacent perimeter of darkness.

A beautiful young woman stepped out into the moonlight. And as she did this she seemed to cast a shadow that resembled some otherworldly thing. As he gazed upon it, it seemed to produce shapes of the most ghastly of sorts. For the man had not seen such a shadow of certain hideousness cast by any woman of this earth. And as he looked upon this in frozen horror, he saw that she was heading towards the sea. He swallowed hard and persuaded himself to follow. At first he kept his distance, for she walked as though she were in a trance, as though she were walking in her sleep. But as he got closer to her it became clear that she was, in fact, being led. By what, he did not know. Still, as he got closer to the shore and the sea, as he followed her on down and into the perimeter of the field and beyond, it was clear that those somber voices singing were in fact coming from beneath the ocean floor. They seemed to be songs of the abyss, lullabies of the damned.

Now she was at the edge of the field and almost to the shore. She stepped upon jagged, misshapen rocks and flinched not a bit, nor lost her balance in any way, shape or form. It was almost as though she were floating upon them. The man couldn’t bear it. She was almost to the edge of the sea. He went up to her and tried to touch her, but couldn’t. He reached for garment, but grabbed only air instead. She touched the waves and they swallowed her toes, her feet, her ankles, then her shins, thighs, and waist. She was going to drown. He couldn’t let her do that. He screamed at her, tried to spray the frigid sea on her face, tried to throw himself at her. All this failed. Her waist was now swallowed by the sea; her breasts, her shoulders, and her neck. The man just stood there, frustrated, beaten, and sore. He watched as her head sunk slowly beneath gentle, deceptively innocent waves until he could see her no more.

Everything fell silent after that. The singing had stopped, and even the moon seemed to dim and almost fade away. The man sat down and put his head into his palms. There he remained until morning came. And when it did, he found himself staring at the ocean like he had done before. But this time, there was only sand. The ocean before him did not exist.

END