#chthonic creatures

Summary: Stuck in the seaside town Ocean, a young girl must face unimaginable horrors.

Author's note: I owe everything to H. P Lovecraft for the creation of this universe, however, most of the characters in this universe were invented by me personally, although I admit that I am fascinated by Lovecraft's monsters...

This is the first story in the entire vast universe of deep sea monsters.

«Our familiar quiet world was changing before our eyes. The call of the elements sowed primal fear in people's hearts. The only thing that came down to one thing - as the beginning of all beginnings, was the sea. It and nothing else. So it was and so it will be, but for now, let the waves make noise and wash the sand with water. I'll be here for eternity...»

Chapter One: Ocean

This story originates in the town that then, in the autumn of 1903, was called Ocean. A small, unkempt town, not listed on any map of the precious homeland of England, if memory serves me right, was now completely in ruins. Little is left but the crumbling bricks of old Ocean, although it's not like the people who lived near such a remote town objected. To this day, rumors circulate about what dark, wicked deeds were going on in it. Ocean, with a population of four hundred, maybe as many as five hundred people, was shrouded in thick, impenetrable fog. And no, this fog was not the fog habitual for respectable Englishmen, who every morning went out to the park for a walk with friends, or to take the dog out. There was something different in this fog, ominous, and as if otherworldly. The people in Ocean, shunned strangers, were hostile not only to visitors, but even to each other. The town itself was founded in 1822 or, quite rudely, 1825. Then, oh, then it was more crowded than ever. Ocean was famous for its fabric, the silks that were woven at the local factory seemed to be pure, by God I don’t lie, gold.

There were also jewelers there, the equal of whom I have not met in all of Britain. There was also a port near Ocean where they caught, butchered and then sold the fish. This serenity lasted for about fifty, maybe sixty years at the most. The fog I so involuntarily mentioned began to thicken. It settled, and the closer to the ground, the thicker and darker it became. In it every now and then one could see bright lights that flickered like fireflies, and seemed to be luring somewhere far away.

In that suddenly hungry year of 1883, the wife of Ocean's founder, Ingrid Gibson, nee Smith, fell ill. Old Jack, and God forgive me for speaking ill of a dead man, was one hell of a thing. Ingrid was also a good mother, despite the fact that she was her for a very short time. Shortly before her illness, Ingrid gave birth to a baby so ugly that one would think that even the angels cried out of pity for the poor woman. The boy, named Charlie after his grandfather and Jack after his father, looked so much like the old Gibson that no one was surprised at his ugliness. Ingrid was not shy about her son, she breastfed him, raised him herself, despite the fact that there were a dozen servants in the Gibson house. The boy's skin was wrinkled, as if senile, and his eyes were so bulging that it was terrible to think how they could even be closed. There were either no eyelids on these eyes, or they were so covered by huge eyes of an indefinable color. I kept wondering how it was that a beautiful woman like Ingrid could marry a man of such bad temper as Jack Gibson. There was something so confusing about it, and even now that I know the truth, I find it hard to believe it, no matter how hard I try. Ingrid raised her son herself, Jack, in his usual dirty manner, refused to help in raising the child, saying that it was a woman's job.

The child grew quickly, although he was premature, he turned out to be healthy and strong. He drank mother's milk willingly, and Ingrid raised her son as best she could, without the participation of old Gibson. She raised Charlie until her death in 1884. Her face was covered with scabs and ichor. The veins on my neck and arms bulged, pulsing with an unusual, eerie black-gray color. That day, a storm raged outside the window. The Gibson house, large and, despite being shabby, majestic, stood high on a hill, set back from Ocean's main buildings, houses, and factories. Old Jack was ninety-five in that unfortunate year.

Ingrid did not live past her thirty-two, four days. One might have thought that the unfortunate woman had fallen victim to leprosy, but her son arrived in perfect health, and from that, it became even darker in my soul. Time dragged on, without Ingrid, the gloomy Ocean became, as it were, the capital of all the evil that is on earth. As if, when the only ray of light left this town, everything that was in it broke out from the depths of human souls, out.

In the winter, however, of that ill-fated year in which poor Ingrid died, the end of Ocean began, and the truth was that the end was not quick.

No one knows how the closure of Ocean Port happened, but it was the impetus for the economic disaster of the town. The fish that always lived in those haunted places disappeared, left, although it was rumored that it was as if the fish had been taken away like rats by a certain Hamelin rat-catcher. The fishermen, who in Ocean were reputed to have a boldness not peculiar even to hunters, talked about strange, as if from another world, lights in the thickening fog. From the depths came a strange, as if female call, not like a cry for help, not like a song.

Gurgling and quiet, but so surprisingly felt not by the ears, but by the whole being, this voice penetrated the skin, burrowed into the veins, and seemed to infect the hot male blood, left writhing in delirium on a rusty boat. It was like that until the last fisherman still able to fish left Ocean. The wooden sign that so famously proclaimed "Ocean Port" is now worm-bitten, rotten and barely supported by the heavy beams. Captain Kingsley's ship, the same year, was wrecked when he and his crew were heading to Ocean Port in order to bring medicines to local doctors.

If only I were wrong, but those few unfortunate survivors of that fateful evening, being in straitjackets in the Bedlam mental hospital, told how something so terrifying in its nature, unimaginably huge and inhumanly cruel, appeared from the depths of dark water. In their delirium, the sailors spoke of angry yellow eyes, and scaly paws with claws no smaller than the mast of the sunken Walrus. Poor fellows. Whatever it was, what they saw drove them crazy.

Shortly after the news of the sunken "Walrus" seemed to have spread like a wind through the nearest to Ocean towns, and after that the gossip that reached London itself stirred up a new wave of fear. Now no one wanted to get to the small mist-shrouded town either by water or by a bumpy road. In the darkness, a quiet female call began to be heard more often, beckoning somewhere to the water. The townspeople, however, suddenly disappeared fish and the sunken ship did not frighten as much as the behavior of the old Gibson alerted and horrified.

The old man, finally out of his mind, locked himself in the Gibson House, from which screams could be heard. The voice was young, and apart from old Jack and his son Charlie, there were no other men in the house. The screams were fleeting, followed by only silent pleas, but few had the courage to approach the mansion that was falling apart, like its owner. The east wing of the Gibson House had already collapsed, claiming the lives of several onlookers along with the crumbling bricks. Only now, many years later, I found out what Charlie's silent pleas were, and from that my heart still bleeds. In the meantime, 1903, the year of the new century, was approaching. Ocean, long dilapidated and abandoned, whose population now numbered two or three hundred people, and even those were only cripples, thieves and crooks, unable to provide for their lives anywhere else. Gibson Sr. at that time was already one hundred and fourteen years old, and the people who lived in the city sincerely wanted to know how the old man still manages to stay in this world, but they were so afraid of him that they decided once again not to approach the Gibson estates, bypassed the mansion side...

Putting aside a long and extremely interesting, albeit somewhat drawn-out article, the girl looked out the window. The empty bus rocked from side to side on bumpy roads, trees rushed past the window. It was already late at night, but Ocean was still far away. She yawned, her hands gripping the fabric of her jacket tighter. The bus driver is a sinister type, smoking a cigarette between his rotten teeth. With strangely shaped hands, he turned the steering wheel, and periodically scratched his thin red beard. (…) closed her eyes, pressing her forehead against the misted window. It was cold, it was raining heavily outside.

They drove for a long time, already for several hours, but there were no people except her on the bus, and there were not many people at the bus stops, and even they looked askance at the approaching bus. But barely closing his eyes to take a nap, the driver stopped the bus and announced in a hoarse voice:

- Last stop!

Silently getting up from her seat, (...) went to the open doors of the bus, but before leaving, she asked:

- Excuse me, sir, - she looked around, examining the area covered in thick fog, - Is there a hotel in this city?

- There is one, - the driver croaked, scratching his thin beard. - "Shark mouth", if my memory serves me right.

- Thank you sir, - thanked the girl, and got off the bus into the street. It was raining, but despite this, the fog was thick and impenetrable. Sighing heavily and adjusting her backpack on her shoulder, (...) headed for the city that was not marked on the maps. There were signs nailed to the old knotted trees, judging by which, Ocean was not far to go. Turning left, she went straight down the dirt path, the pebbles bouncing off the soles of her boots, crunching.

Finally, the tops of the roofs of the houses appeared. Accelerating, (...) began to look around in search of the very hotel that the driver had told her about. Among the dilapidated and rotten houses, she noticed people walking along the street with a heavy tread, the appearance of which was so unpleasant that she hastened to look away. They were clumsy in their movements, with sagging skin especially from the cheeks. Their fingers were long and knotty, and something told her that despite that, they were also prehensile and dexterous. They suddenly stopped, as if on someone's command, staring at her with truly toad eyes, following her every movement. Swallowing (...) pretended not to pay attention to it, but even when she noticed a wooden sign with a carved shark, she felt a chill run down her back. The owner was nowhere to be found, the hotel counter was empty, there were no people in the room. Everything was covered in dust and smelled wildly of mold. Pulling her phone out of her pocket, which was quite useless since there was no cellular connection in Ocean, the girl quickly took a few pictures. Everything in the room creaked and cracked, in the corner next to the mouse hole in the wall, a dead rat was lying, crushed by the metal rods of the mousetrap. Nearby, lay a piece of rotting cheese. There was a large, dusty, probably out of tune piano against the wall. Coming closer, the girl opened the lid, ran her fingers over the keys. The E-flat of the second octave, as expected, was out of tune, C-sharp of the fifth octave and did not sound at all. Clutching two C-sharps with her left hand, with the second she began to smoothly sort through the keys, playing Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata in the silence of the hotel. The music was calm and soothing. Outside, the downpour continued to rage.

- Not bad, considering that no one has played this instrument for a long time. - Gently tearing her fingers away from the keys, (...) turned to the voice. A young man was standing next to her. He was not much older than her, tall and surprisingly handsome, even though there was not a single hair on his head. Ice-blue eyes, enchantingly mesmerizing, although in the left eye the pupil was very constricted and resembled a tiny bead in contrast to the right. In the right eye, the pupil was unnaturally dilated.

- Sorry. – (…) awkwardly shifted from foot to foot, while the young man laughed sonorously. He playfully tapped with the tips of his snow-white, slightly bluish fingers on the out-of-tune E-flat key. The sound came out sharp and unpleasant. The girl barely restrained herself from grimacing. The young man, however, noticing this, smiled, revealing two rows of white, even teeth.

- Not the best sound, right? - He chuckled and sat down on a stool in front of the piano. His fingers began to flutter smoothly over the piano keyboard, and although he tried to ignore the broken keys in his playing, the music was still somehow fussy and disturbing. - That's better, isn't it?

(…) nodded, though she wasn't sure it was a question. Footsteps sounded behind, a gray-haired and obese man, with the same saggy skin as those of the men and women whom she met on the street, went behind the counter.

- Joe, - the young man turned to him, not looking up for a second from playing the piano, - Please, put our guest in the best room. - The man only nodded curtly, threw the keys on the counter, and then left again. The young man has now turned again to (…): - We don't often have guests, but those who come always bring video cameras and a lot of noise with them. You are not one of them, right?

- No, - the girl answered, pushing the phone deeper into her jacket pocket. - I just wanted to visit one of the quietest places in England. I hope I didn't disturb anyone.

The young man suddenly lowered his head sharply, struck the keys loudly with his fingers, causing such a sharp cacophonous sound, from which it seemed that even the paintings covered with age-old dust staggered on the walls. He turned to her, and his face lit up with a smile.

- Not at all. - He rose to his feet, towering over her, like Goliath over David, and from this, the girl became uncomfortable. - You rarely see new faces in Ocean, but each time, they are more interesting than the previous ones. Joe left the keys on the counter. I think you're very tired from the road, miss...

- (...), - the girl introduced herself, holding out her hand for a handshake. The young man took her hand in his, briefly stroking the back of her hand with his forefinger, after which he leaned over and kissed her hand.

- Welcome to the Ocean dear miss (...). We always welcome guests...