The captain who drowned you in the grave //Peter Lukas

The sea’s surface that day resembled frozen black glass. The ship drifted lazily, barely rocking on invisible waves. On deck reigned the familiar, drowsy bustle: sailors traded idle curses, someone scrubbed the planks, someone checked the knots, unaware that the world around them had begun to change.

A heavy, clammy fog crept in unnoticed. It did not merely obscure the horizon—it swallowed time and space themselves, turning everything beyond the rails into a gray void that smelled of salt and old rot. At first, a barely perceptible whisper swept across the deck, as if the water beneath the keel had begun to argue about something. The sailors paid it little mind, until the air was pierced by a low, guttural hum rising from the very depths.

The silence grew taut, ringing in the ears. And then—impact.

The first jolt struck the stern, making the massive vessel shudder like a frightened animal. Wood groaned and cracked in complaint. People froze, clutching the railings, a mute question locked in their eyes. A shoal? But the depth gauge still showed an abyss.

A series of powerful blows followed one after another, rocking the ship so violently that the masts began to list at a dangerous angle. Then, in the murky gray haze beside the hull, a fin slowly slid past. Enormous, encrusted with barnacles and scarred by countless wounds, it seemed larger than two blue whales. The shadow beneath the water was so vast that the mere presence of the creature made blood congeal in the veins.

In panic, the sailors rushed to find the captain, shouting his name in desperate hope of salvation. Peter Lukas was found on the bridge. He gave no orders. He did not reach for a weapon.

The captain stood motionless, his hands clasped behind his back. His face—usually harsh and weather-beaten—glowed with a terrifying, almost ecstatic rapture. He stared into the fog, toward where the gigantic shadow had begun to coil around the ship, and on his lips played a satisfied, unhinged smile of a man who had finally delivered what was promised.

The world split apart with the thunder of bursting oak beams. A second of chaos, an icy surge—and the vessel, turned into a fraternal grave, vanished into the fog, leaving behind only oily slicks and scattered wreckage.

The last thing that remained in memory was the face of Peter Lukas. He stood on the stern of the ship as it sank and smiled, gazing into the abyss as one might at the face of an old friend.

Now there is only dead silence and a thick gray suspension, in which the last cries of the sailors drown. Clothes, soaked through with salt and cold, drag the body downward like leaden shackles. Breath catches, and the fingers clinging to a splinter of planking have gone completely numb.

Somewhere in the fog, rare splashes and the choking cries of other survivors could still be heard, but they fell silent suspiciously quickly. One after another. As if someone—or something—were methodically pulling them under, leaving not even a single bubble on the surface.

Right beneath {{poss_p}} feet, in the impenetrable, inky darkness, a colossal mass began to stir. Enormous flesh, covered in slick growths, slowly, almost tenderly, brushed against the soles of your boots. Something vile was beneath you, trying to seize {{poss}}.

The ship crossed into the “Dead Zone,” and the world around it ceased to exist. There was no wind, no wash of waves, not even the cries of seabirds. The ocean became an endless, frozen mirror of black obsidian, reflecting a gray, lifeless sky. The air grew dense, wet, and oppressive; every breath was an effort, leaving a metallic tang on the tongue, like the taste of an approaching storm.

The vessel lay still, as though frozen solid within this unnatural slurry. The silence was so complete that the creak of boots on the deck sounded deafening, an intrusion into a space that no longer tolerated sound.

By the bulwark stood the captain, Peter Lukas. His figure seemed darker than usual, as if absorbing the surrounding gloom. In his hands he held a coil of heavy anchor chain. The rusted links—each as thick as an arm—gave off a dry, grinding rasp at the slightest movement, the only sound left alive in this dead world.

When the captain gave the order to go over the side and inspect the hull, his voice was muffled, as though forcing its way through layers of cotton. It was not a command but a sentence, delivered in a flat, emotionless tone. He extended the end of the chain—cold, weighty, reeking of oxidized iron and seawater rot.

The moment the chain’s mass pulled downward toward the black water, the sea’s surface shuddered. It was not a splash. It was more like the abyss itself drawing a breath.

First came the stench rising from the oily darkness—a nauseating reek of ancient silt and decay accumulated over centuries. Then, without a sound, the water began to bulge. Slowly—agonizingly slowly—something emerged from the depths.

These were not merely tentacles. They were colossal, living pillars of slick, knotted flesh the color of rotting meat. They bristled with razor-edged growths and suckers, each one pulsing to its own alien rhythm. Water streamed from them in thick, dark sheets, revealing their true, monstrous scale.

The immense limbs writhed in the grave-like silence and began to coil around the ship’s hull. The wood moaned—a deep, drawn-out sound like the death rattle of some enormous beast. The planking bowed inward under pressure beyond imagining.

Above it all, on the deck, Peter Lukas did not move. He simply opened his hands, letting the remaining length of anchor chain crash onto the deck and slide over the side, straight into the embrace of the rising horror. In his eyes, reflecting the black water below, there was no fear—only a cold, inhuman anticipation.