#oc deus

Not everything was pawned off on scorned ghosts, however. There was an abundance of stories about sea serpents, beautiful mermaids and their deadly siren counterparts, winged creatures that flew overhead. While these rumors had once amused Jasper as a child, just as any fantastical story would, he found himself finding them less and less credible as he aged. There just wasn’t any proof in these claims beyond word of mouth and that wasn’t good enough for him anymore. He didn’t care what his neighbor’s cousin’s daughter’s best friend saw five years ago while she was sloshed on a boat as a teenager, the brief darkness that flew across the sky to blot out the stars had no evidence of being a massive cryptid. But it was gone in a blink! she insisted, to which Jasper had to wonder if in her drunken stupor it was, literally, only her blinking. 

Naturally, when the position of being the new contractual lighthouse keeper became available, he snatched it up before Swarde & Sons had even finished posting the flyers around town. Anything to get him out of here and away from these crazy stories, even if it was only for a few months. Sure, he wouldn’t be going very far, only an hour or so boat ride away from the docks to where the old, faithful lighthouse stood on its own tiny island. But any distance was a good distance as it gave him the desperately needed solitude from everyone and their ramblings. He loved his father dearly, as any good son did, but that didn’t change the fact he was sick of hearing about what Teddy from the butcher shop heard from fisherman Kerry that his boating buddy Alvin saw in the water.

“A fish?” Jasper would ask.

“No, no,” his father would try to convince. “Ain’t no fish like this, he said. Said it was too big to be a normal fish.”

“So, a shark,” Jasper would reason.

“No, boy, no!” Excitable old man that he was, “Something unnatural! ”

And at that point, Jasper would give up trying to persuade his father to think logically and just hum and nod as he added on to the rumor. He had expected their last dinner together to go the same route when he broke the news that his application to be the new lightkeeper was accepted and he was due to ship out in three days time. Jasper was prepared for his father to lament about the time apart from both himself and his other family, though the contract was only for four months. What he wasn’t expecting was his father to fall deathly silent and stare at him with horror-stricken eyes, like he was waiting for a punchline that Jasper was failing to deliver. His spoon still hovered in the air while his son could only blink dumbly at his lack of reaction.

When the reality of the situation set in, it was as if Jasper told him he was being sent off to war and to expect their country’s flag to return in his place when it was all said and done. The O’Reilly family was close knit, no doubt, as they had lived in this town for generations, yet never in a million years did Jasper think his father would act so… clingy . Begging his son to rescind the offer, that this job was no good, that he’d be more than willing to pay for anything he needed the salary (which was strangely lucrative for a position that claimed needed no experience) for if it meant Jasper wouldn’t go. He didn’t understand where this sudden terror was coming from! It wasn’t like he was leaving forever, it wasn’t like he was even leaving the town technically. Just a couple months keeping a light on for some boats, what was the big deal?

The big deal, as his blubbering father revealed, was that the lighthouse was cursed. Because of course it was.

Jasper didn’t bother sticking around much longer to listen to his father’s frantic recollection of former keepers who had gone abroad and never returned, completely vanishing without a trace in a matter of weeks. He tried to tell of two keepers who had escaped the island long before their contract was up, both of them racked with madness to this day, one of them going on about the ungodly horrors of a creature it encountered while the other refused to speak ever again in fear of being found and spirited away. A part of Jasper felt guilty upon seeing his father so distraught over his well being, entirely convinced he’d never see his only son again if he took this job. Why did he think they were trying to entice the working man with a high wage and no need for talents? Why did he think the position was always open to be filled before any of the previous contracts were up? Why did he think everyone here avoided that occupation like the plague in favor of being fishermen or butchers or shopkeepers?

Why did he think this town was so cursed with supernatural elements? The lighthouse was a beacon for ships just as it was for the unnatural, leading them to terrorize their home by proxy! Surely he understood, surely he wouldn’t go through with this for the sake of his own sanity by pushing the boundaries of the unknown?

Nope. Jasper arrived early for his departure from the docks and was set up in his temporary living quarters for the next four months by that afternoon. The captain of the dingy boat he was escorted on a majority of the way, and later rowed the remaining distance to the lighthouse shore, was a quiet, gruff man. Signs of rough aging cut deep into his features if the gray of his impressive beard didn’t give away his fading youth. Captain Hershel, he introduced himself as, and nothing more. No small talk, no nonsense, and Jasper was happy to have someone who wasn’t looking to fill the silence with grand tales of nothingness. Probably wouldn’t do very well for business if Hershel spent the entire boat ride trying to scare the new hire with more chilling stories about his place of work, after all. Then again, Jasper was almost certain Hershel didn’t actually work for the same company, rather he was just hired out to take employees back and forth on their journey with a once a month supply drop.

In any case, Hershel seemed to know what he was doing, which was great because Jasper had no idea what he was supposed to be doing. As it said on the tin, there was no requirement to be the lighthouse keeper beyond good physical shape. Jasper didn’t know the first thing about actually manning the beacon other than it needed to be lit up at night and through especially dark storms in the day. He was lucky Hershel didn’t just kick him off the rowboat to fend for himself once they got close enough to shore to wade onto land. Instead, the captain instructed him to grab one of the three bags of supplies while he took hold of the other two, jerking his head for Jasper to follow behind as he took him up the winding cliff to the lodging house.

While the hill up was steep, he was grateful that it was covered in overgrown grass and damp soil as opposed to slippery, jagged rocks like the ocean facing side of the cliff. Slightly more bearable to trudge up and, if he did lose his footing, he would only tumble a bit before he caught himself or rolled into the sand below. Much better than slicing himself to pieces and drowning in the ocean.

The tour of the lodging was brief and underwhelming. Jasper expected as much, after all he was only going to be using it to sleep and eat. What was surprising was just how many personal belongings seemed to have been left behind from previous keepers, all of it ranging from ancient to barely dusty. Books, clothing, tools, a pocket watch on the nightstand in the shoddy bedroom, even a fully locked trunk sitting askew near the doorway. Hershel dropped the bags he was carrying in the kitchen where there was the most room and Jasper followed suit, yet before he could comment on why so many possessions hadn’t been cleared out, the captain signaled him to follow again out the door and up to the lighthouse itself.

“Are the other keepers planning to return?” Jasper called out to him, struggling to keep with the pace of the old man while going uphill. No doubt by the end of his contract would he have legs of pure steel. As this was a rotating job, he figured the former keepers had probably already signed future contracts to return after a break to visit family and it was easier to keep their belongings here rather than haul them back and forth each time.

“No,” Hershel said.

Oh. Well…? “Are those belongings complimentary of Swarde & Sons?”

“No. You can have ‘em, if ye wish.”

“Shouldn’t they be returned…?”

“Ain’t no one t’ return ‘em to,” Hershel didn’t elaborate anymore, which was convenient as he stopped in front of the massive, metal door of the lighthouse. Truly a man of few words.

Jasper was sorely out of breath by the time he caught up to the top of the slope, the short conversation doing little to help his lack of air. Not wanting to appear too weak for the job, he sucked in a gasp so that he wouldn’t be obviously panting behind Hershel who hadn’t even broken a sweat. He promptly lost the air in his lungs once he walked inside and saw the god awful winding staircase that went to the very top of the lighthouse. Lord knows how many stories tall it was, though Jasper didn’t know why he was acting surprised. Did he think there was going to be some magical pulley elevator that took him up and down at his leisure? These first couple weeks of manual labor were definitely going to be hell on his aching body…

Rather than immediately going up, Hershel led him over to a second set of rusted doors to show him the equipment inside that he would need going forward. There were three steps that went down into what was essentially a basement storage room, though it was only partially underground. Dozens of metal barrels next to a pile of dirty jerry cans lined the furthest corner while weighted sandbags were stacked closer to the door. There were a few cleaning tools – a broom, a soiled mop, some rags that were stained black – and a couple handyman items like miscellaneous sized screwdrivers that could be useful for…something. Other than that, the room was dank and oversized, nothing to write home about.

The job he would be doing for the next four months was simple enough, as Hershel explained it. Every evening, just before dusk, Jasper would need to fill up a couple jerry cans of oil from the barrels and take them to the top of the lighthouse where the mechanical systems were. Each full can held about three or so hours worth of fuel to keep the massive light burning bright, so he’d need to make a few trips. In addition, he’d need to bring two to three of the sandbags up as well to tie to the end of a pulley rope, where the weight would slowly make the gears above rotate as gravity pulled it down, thus spinning the light around. This only had to be done once as it took several hours for the weights to reach the bottom for him to undo and put away, though on stormy days he would have to do it a second time more than likely.

He needed to stay vigilant for any incoming ships or hurricanes, needed to get his sleep schedule in order as this was entirely a night based job, needed to do his duty precisely and on time to avoid any mishaps of himself or sailors. Hershel would come by every third week to drop off fresh rations that needed to last him until the next visit and, so long as the request wasn’t too tedious, he didn’t mind bringing along missed newspapers or letters on his trip. All in all, it was a simple job with straightforward rules and a nice paycheck waiting at the end of his tenure.

Jasper followed behind Hershel as he made his way back down to the rowboat to return to his anchored ship, officially leaving Jasper behind to be the new, unsupervised lighthouse keeper for the next several months. Going down the slope was certainly much easier than going up it, even more so now that he didn’t have to drag any luggage or supplies, so he was able to maintain a conversation most of the way back to shore.

“You seem to know this job pretty well,” Jasper said. “Were you one of the keepers here before?”

“No. Just m’ job to train ‘em after I drop ‘em off.”

Jasper hummed. “Ever thought about being the keeper though? I bet you could ask those guys for even more pay since you have the experience.”

Hershel shook his head. “Couldn’t pay me a mil’ion t’ stay on this island longer than I need t’.”

Oh, great, so Hershel was one of those people that were too afraid of hypothetical spirits to go out and do anything wild after all, trapped by the sea in fear that it would never let him leave. And to think Jasper had gotten his hopes up at being able to have a sensible conversation with someone for once. 

“Doesn’t seem so bad to me,” Jasper huffed, remembering his father going on and on about this accursed island. So far, he hadn’t seen any giant sirens or corpses going for a swim, which meant things looked pretty okay in his opinion.

Hershel stopped walking, nearly making Jasper stumble over his own feet and face plant down the rest of the hill like he predicted himself doing earlier. The captain fixed him with a stern glare that made him feel like a child about to be lectured for dulling their mother’s good knife set, yet there was something on his rugged face that made Jasper more inclined to take his words to heart rather than brush them off. An underlying knowledge, perhaps. 

“Listen, lad,” Hershel started. “I can tell ye ain’t one t’ believe in this stuff. Ghost n’ whatnot, yeah?”

Jasper nodded.

“Good. Ain’t nothin’ but stories passed ‘round by drunks, but this island, there’s…I don’t know what it is. Makes me feel sick wit’ somethin’. T’ain’t right.”

“You think it’s haunted?” Jasper asked. He didn’t know why he was valuing this near stranger’s opinion higher than anyone else’s at the moment, but Hershel was the most rational man he had spoken with in a long time. Boy, was that saying something or what. If a grizzled man like him was afraid of something, he probably had a valid reason Jasper could sink hold in.

Hershel sighed, though his gruff voice made it sound like a rasp. “If it is then I don’t wanna know by what . All I know is I take lots o’ men here an’ hardly ever take ‘em back. The ones I do see again are almost mad an’ most of ‘em are gone by my third visit. Don’t know where they go, don’t wanna know. Just go on and on about things I can’t keep track of.”

A large, firm hand pat Jasper’s shoulder roughly. The last human contact he’d be feeling for quite a while. 

“You’re young, an’ I like ye,” Hershel continued. “Got a good head on yer shoulders. I ain’t gonna try to scare ye with nonsense. But I am gonna warn ye – somethin’s weird here. Don’t know if it’s the loneliness or the sea madness or somethin’ worse, but it’s here. Stay in the lighthouse at dark. Keep yer thoughts straight with notes. Don’t go poking yer nose where it don’t belong.”

Jasper couldn’t help but nod along. These weren’t suggestions; they were instructions necessary for his new job.

“Good. Ye’ll be fine, then. See ye in three weeks, lad.”

Three weeks until his next interaction with another person. Three weeks in solitude with only his thoughts to keep him company and the lingering warnings that echoed in his memories. Three weeks to focus on getting his cardio up so that he could move like clockwork, hopefully focusing more on the tasks at hand than the foreboding feeling of paranoia that threatened to creep in as soon as Hershel’s rowboat disappeared from Jasper’s line of sight. No, he wasn’t going to succumb to the same hysteria as everyone else in a matter of minutes, not when for most of his life he ridiculed them for being so overly ridiculous over nothing. A few months of manual labor weren’t going to drive him to insanity and make him believe a tentacled beast would drag him off the cliffside if he stood too close to the edge at midnight on a full moon.

—

Jasper made it just past a month before he needed to get the fuck off of this wretched island.

He liked to think he was a rational man, more rational than any of his family or neighbors had been as they continued to spin absurd stories about the supernatural. In the back of his mind, he was still scoffing at their claims to have seen something fly in the dark of the night or a figure peering out from the fog of a summer storm. Totally unrealistic, no merit to any of their ‘evidence’ besides their word. But now…

The first few times he’d caught a glimpse of something unnatural happening, he was able to brush it off as his mind playing tricks on him in a new environment. Namely movements out of the corner of his eyes while he was at the top of the lighthouse that disappeared as soon as he turned to inspect. It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end and his stomach twist at the idea of being watched in a place that should have no other eyes to look at him, not to mention being able to see him from such a massive height. However, it was easy to convince himself that he was making mountains out of mole hills as his mother used to say when she was alive. What he was seeing was just passing seagulls or a swarm of moths that crowded the light each night. He only felt like he was being watched due to the glass enclosure of the light and the surrounding balcony having a full view of the outside from every angle. Nothing out of the ordinary.

And then the corpses began to appear about two weeks later around his lodging. Not human corpses, thank Christ, but the bodies of large fish and seagulls left in a haphazard pile right by the battered front door. The stench of rot continually wafted through the short hallway into the rest of the lodging, much to his displeasure, no matter how many times he grabbed a shovel or rake to move the bloody remains back to the shore. If the animal remains had appeared scattered all over the hill, Jasper could maybe argue that it was because of high waves and such that beached the fish. However, that didn’t explain why a majority of them looked gutted nor did it bring to light why so many birds had met the same fate, let alone why all this death was localized mere feet where he slept.

There was an explanation, surely, but not one Jasper could concretely come up at the moment. His best guess was the seagulls had snagged these fish from the docks as they were being processed and for some reason, once they flew directly over his lodging, they fought amongst each other for the food until one of them dropped dead with the catch. That answer was flimsy at best and only created more questions, though Jasper wasn’t too eager to think much more of it. That was until one morning, in his boredom before he was meant to trek back to the lighthouse for the evening (and definitely not because he was too on edge to go outside more than necessary), he fiddled around with the locked trunk until he successfully broke the mechanism keeping it shut.

Destruction of property normally would have made him feel a bit guilty given he was only tampering with a stranger’s personal belongings because he had nothing better to do. However, Jasper had a strong suspicion that the owner of this trunk would not be returning any time soon, and besides, it may have something useful. With how it was left dragged halfway across the lodging, he’d even go as far as to guess the former keeper was trying to take it with them in an attempt to flee from whatever spooked them enough to abandon post. By the looks of it, they didn’t make it very far before they were stopped for unknown reasons…

Though there was no hidden treasure or an entire novella explaining the complexities of the island, there were still plenty of items that caught Jasper’s eye. The clothes were crumpled and hideously wrinkled with how they were tossed in without a care, the owner clearly in a hurry to grab and go. A roll of film was tucked away in one of the jacket pockets, yet no camera could be found within the trunk and Jasper couldn’t recall seeing one anywhere within the lodging or upper levels of the lighthouse. He’d have to find a dark room back on the mainland to see if the keeper had captured anything interesting during their stay or if he would be disappointed with simple sightseeing photographs. There was a pocket knife, which Jasper was quick to claim, as well as a worn journal sitting at the bottom and buried beneath various belongings. 

It felt like a huge invasion of privacy to go through what had to be someone else’s personal thoughts, but considering he had just rifled through their physical possessions, Jasper saw no reason why he couldn’t take a gander. If anything, it might offer him a bit of insight as to how and why this keeper allegedly went off their rocker and disappeared without a trace. Warning signs for Jasper to pay attention to so that he avoided the same mental fate. Keep your thoughts straight with notes , Hershel had told him. Had he given the same advice to whoever C.A.R was, as engraved in a metal plate by the trunk handle, or he had just learned from the studious keeper the best way to keep newbies sane a little while longer?

Jasper had to skim through a good portion of the journal before he reached the timeline of when the keeper first set foot on the island, in which they detailed the same instructions Hershel had given him and how serene the lighthouse was at sunset. Right away, Jasper knew this poor soul was not a native resident to the town as no one who grew up here would willingly call this place delightful. They made mention of the new, expensive camera they had brought along to collect landscape photographs for their betrothed which Jasper had yet to recover. Day by day, they documented their routines and thoughts, never really dwelling much on unsettling events other than to mention that they had happened but it was probably nothing. Only once they began to mention the copious amounts of fish corpses outside the front door did the writings fully capture his attention. It was just the same as he had experienced: partly mutilated bodies and different fish and birds left strewn in the grass for them to clean up with disgust.

Interestingly, the keeper went on to explain a day in which they fell ill overnight and were unable to go to the lighthouse for their duty. They felt terribly worried in the event that a ship would crash into the rocks the one night they couldn’t man the lighthouse, yet thankfully nothing of the sort happened. Instead, they described the flurry of what they could only guess was strange fever dreams. The wood of the roof creaked back and forth all night and while the bedroom only had one small window to the left of the bed, they swore they saw something move outside on numerous occasions. A few times they were certain they could make out the fluttering of wings which led them to believe they were focused on one of many moths that hovered the bright island. Yet this moth was…big. Too big. Bigger than a man, which of course could not be possible. 

Jasper was convinced the keeper was suffering a mix of illness and trickery of light while the former, a devout believer, wondered if they had been visited by an angel. The holy spirit came to them in their time of need to watch over their post while they could not, guiding sailors to safety so the keeper’s conscience could remain at peace. There was nothing amiss in the morning once the keeper awoke in better condition, so there was no need to think about the odd dream much longer. That was until the keeper went outside to journey up to the lighthouse and prepare for the evening’s shift, stumbling over the gutted body of a shark at the doorstep. There was no heavenly explanation for that. Jasper stopped reading the journal for the night.

Ever since the discovery of the keeper’s journal, he had become hyper aware of everything around him regardless of if it could be considered ‘normal’ or not. It was good to be vigilant of his surroundings in any case as he would very much like to not be swept out to sea by a rogue wave, however it wasn’t a sea storm he was constantly on the lookout for. He noted that the less he came out from the lodging, the more dead animals were left for him the next day. Late in the evening, while the light idly twirled and he sat on the floor by the mechanics, he picked out patterns of how dozens of moths crowded the glass separating them from their beloved light and often moved in sync as one wave. By accident, Jasper had discovered part of the roof above the kitchen area of the lodging had been somewhat recently repaired with new wood over a sizable hole.

And the dreams. Or better described, the nightmares . 

Now this he knew had nothing to do with the supernatural and was instead the fault of his own stress. Reading several passages from the keeper’s journal before he went to sleep was probably detrimental to his slumber, but he couldn’t help it! Every time he would tell himself to put it away before he made himself unnecessarily sick with paranoia and every time he would find himself absorbed in the writings like a grotesque novelette. The fact that he would read the journal strictly at night while holed up in the lighthouse also didn’t help his cause, yet there was little else he could really do to stay busy while on duty. To be fair, the nightmares only occurred when he dozed off at his post in the midst of reading the journal, his mind eager to supply the fresh horrors to his subconscious.

They made almost no sense and yet the terror was fairly consistent each time from what he could remember. From what Jasper could recall, he swore he saw himself from the perspective of someone else looking down at him, running down the slope to the lodging like a scattering ant. He would get closer, closer, almost grabbing his miniature self before his tiny doppelgänger disappeared into the safety of the lodging. Did his clone know why it was running? He didn’t even know why he was chasing. Other dreams consisted of being in the basement storage and trying to refill the jerry cans, only for the bodies of the former keepers to lurch out of the oil drums. They grabbed at him, bony hands slick with black oil while their gaping mouths groaned and choked on the thick fluid. Try as Jasper might to shove them away, he never made it back up to the door before a suffocating force enveloped him and he startled awake.

One of the weird recurring dreams he had was the lighthouse being engulfed by moths and carried away. He only thought that one was weird because it was the most tame and likely brought on from the repeated passages about how the keeper could never get a good picture of the sea at night because his flashbulb would be crowded by moths. Even more weird, was that these were the nights in which Jasper swore he fell asleep in the lighthouse and would awaken in the lodging with no recollection of how he had gotten back. Naturally, it had to be himself that brought him down the winding staircase, out the door, down the steep hill, and into the shoddy bedroom; the problem was that he never remembered the journey to begin with. He must have been too tired to think much of it.

Nevermind the fact the keeper’s journal mentioned the same phenomenon. Purely coincidental. That was all Jasper could hope anyways as while the keeper would write that they also were plagued with unsettling nightmares, they never went into detail as to what they were about. Too disturbing to keep a record of, they wrote once, having no desire to remember them upon waking up.

Jasper didn’t mention the dreams to Hershel when he came with his delivery three weeks later as that would implicate him falling asleep on the job when he was meant to be manning the light. Hershel didn’t pry for much information either as to be expected for a man of his composure, though he did comment that Jasper didn’t look too well and to mind himself before he came down with illness. Jasper nodded in agreement, the desire to ask the captain just how much he knew about this island’s mysterious history on the tip of his tongue. He swallowed it back, however. No, he would not fall victim to madness, he would not . He wasn’t like all those other keepers from the mainland who couldn’t see the line between fact and fiction. No need to give Hershel the idea that he was a lost cause just as all the others had been.

The final straw was when he read the remaining passages of the keeper’s journal. They had started off innocently enough at the beginning of one of the weeks, just after Hershel had left, almost the same exact timeframe that Jasper was in at the moment. While the writing had been getting increasingly erratic with unsettling delusions, the keeper had done their best to maintain a level head through it all and think of possible reasons behind the events. The lack of answers was only further driving them mad, sadly, until they began to document the first solid chunk of evidence that something was deeply wrong on the island. A type of lead that Jasper could chase and see for himself.

Day 25 18XX

Dearest Elisa I am so sorry, but I cannot continue my employment as the lighthouse keeper for Swarde & Sons, though it was to afford our wedding. The happenings I have documented for the last month, if my dates counted are even correct, have left me at my wits end! As a man of God, I cannot stay here another day, nevermind an entire three months, lest I finally fall victim to the demon that stalks me in the night. I do not know what it is. I do not know what it wants, other than myself. To think I had been tricked into believing it was my guardian angel! 

The multitude of carcesses left at my door have yet to be determined as warnings or offerings. This afternoon I had gone to dispose of them just as I have done for the last several weeks when I made the most awful discovery. I will spare both you and myself the details, but my dearest, it was a tunnel not dug by man in the ground heading towards the cliff’s edge. I must leave before I encounter whatever crawls forth from it, or before I am dragged in myself.

Perhaps stupidly, Jasper did go searching for this reported hole all over the island. No such landmark showed up, which was both relieving and disappointing. Maybe it was a sinkhole that had already filled and solidified itself prior to Jasper’s arrival. Maybe the keeper was over exaggerating the size as many men often did when telling supernatural stories and in reality, they had only stumbled upon a burrow or some sort. What was burrowing out here, Jasper didn’t know, but he liked that belief over the alternative. 

Day 25 18XX

I fear I am too late to be saved. It was my own foolish mistake to wait so long to intervene in my fate that I have no choice but to suffer for it. The Lord had tried to warn me of the demon’s temptation, yet I ignored it with the hopes it was my error rather than something unholy.

One of the barrels ran dry tonight as was my plan to overfill the generator to keep the light shining throughout my prolonged escape. I moved the barrel only to make another unwanted discovery for the day – a crack within the corner. Curiosity got the better of me as I tested the durability of the stone and found that it crumbled with the slightest of pressures. With a good many shoves, I was able to create an opening that I could be able to work my full body through should I desire.

But do I desire? A logical man would insist the opposite and I am inclined to agree with him. To travel where I do not belong would only be tempting the demon to drag me down. And yet…I must admit, I feel the need to know where this new route may take me as it does not appear to be part of the lighthouse’s original structure. Perhaps it is my duty to investigate, if only to silence the mystery of this accursed island once and for all with my sacrifice. I will take my camera with me, both to document my excursion and to light my way with its flash.

God help me.

In his many trips to the basement storage, Jasper had never noticed any odd misplacement of the barrels or holes within the stone walls. This could mean one of two things: the keeper’s journal was incorrect (or totally made up) about the location they had stumbled upon, or someone had concealed the passage once more from wandering eyes. The only way to verify this was, similarly to the hole, to go out and find it himself if possible. On the bright side, Jasper wouldn’t have to meander up and down the slope of the island on a wild goose chase as this new clue should be contained in one room.

The sun was beginning to set now and Jasper’s body was growing weary from the additional climbing, coupled with the fact he pulled an all-nighter so to speak in order to do his searching in daylight. It would be time to rig the lighthouse soon which gave him ample time to snoop around in storage after the rest of his duties were completed. Though his legs were already trembling with phantom aches from the prospect of having to trek up and down the long metal staircase more than usual, his heart hammered with adrenaline. Was he excited or terrified? It was hard to tell. 

The three steps into the dingy storage room left him as breathless as if he’d sprinted up the cliffside in under a minute. The musty air only made it that much more difficult to claim a calming breath. Jasper mentally slapped him to get a grip; it wasn’t like he was expecting to find a literal gate to hell like the former keeper was implying. He was only looking to see if there was damage to the stone walls at all before he jumped to conclusions. Strange things were going on, yes, things far too strange for his liking, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t some asinine reason behind it all. It was a slippery slope that Jasper was teetering on, not that it changed his growing suspicion that he needed to vacate his post long before his contract was up.

Given that the barrels were clustered in the furthermost corner, Jasper assumed that had to be where the rumored entryway was hidden. While he liked to think he would have put on a small bit of muscle from the manual labor he performed every day, there was no way he’d be able to move a dozen fully filled oil drums by himself. According to the keeper’s journal, however, one of these barrels should be empty, which Jasper should have no problem scooting out of the way. A bit of rattling the metal barrels and sure enough there was one that wobbled under his hand without any sloshing liquid to weigh it down. Now or never, he thought to himself as he hefted the drum up and away from the others crowding around it.

And there it was, just as the keeper described. A ragged hole that disappeared into the damp, softened stone and led to God knows where. As much as Jasper liked to tote the trait that he was a rational man as if it were a badge of honor, he very nearly played the part of the fool by how his first reaction was to go into the mystery hole that may or may not lead to Hell. It probably didn’t, but there was no need to be so eager to find out. More than likely the path would either become too narrow and trap him or have some sort of drop off hidden in the dark, perhaps even connecting to the sinkhole that was mentioned previously. That was another mental smack he gave himself as he stepped away from the stupidly tempting adventure.

Luckily, there appeared to be a few more passages in the keeper’s journal before they abruptly cut off. He highly doubted the poor fellow ended their tale with a happy ending all wrapped up in a neat bow. There was no sense getting ahead of the story, though, lest Jasper miss any important information that may save his own sanity in the future. He thumbed through the pages to find where he had last left off in regards to the secret entrance, only to find the next journal entry exceedingly short in comparison to the rest. The fanciful handwriting looked much more jittery, like the keeper cared more about getting a record of their confession as opposed to legibility to others.

Day 25 18XX

There lies the body of a man in the tunnels.

Nope. Nope, no way, no thank you. Jasper didn’t care what resulted in this newly revealed man dying – be it natural causes or insanity or a supernatural force – the sheer fact that there had been a corpse (maybe more!) settled beneath his place of work for who knows how long was enough to make him call it quits. Who was this man? A former lighthouse keeper as well? A vagrant? A murder victim either by human or creature? How did he end up there? Were there more bodies rotting alongside him, had the keeper who discovered him joined their burial ground?

All great questions that Jasper was not fucking sticking around to find out. Swarde & Sons could do their own legal investigation as to why there were so many animal and people corpses popping up on the island. This was way above Jasper’s paygrade, no matter how lucrative it was to begin with. A part of him couldn’t help but wonder, the very same part of him that used to be so enraptured by the town’s talk of vengeful spirits, if the ghost of this man was the culprit behind all the strange doings every other keeper experienced. It was a ridiculous thought as no being held any power once they were dead, yet he could already envision the fishermen going nuts with how they could spin this story to be even more sinister than it already looked.

The keeper who wrote this journal might have believed in the unknown, but Jasper believed that he was not going to wait and see for things to get worse. Fortunately, it seemed they were both of the same belief the best course of action at this point was to leave posthaste. It wouldn’t be too difficult for Jasper to bail all things considered, especially if he left his meager belongings behind just as all the others before him had as well. Now the question was if they left their personal items behind in their hurry to flee, or if they never made it back to the lodging alive to pack…

Well, Jasper was focused on being the former rather than the latter. In the journal, the keeper mentioned overfilling the oil receptor for the beacon to continue burning after their hopeful departure. It sounded like a pretty solid idea, though they didn’t leave behind the exact number of jerry rigs needed to keep the light on for an extended period of time. He assumed that having it constantly lit and rotating for a handful of days in a row wouldn’t be good for the generator’s motor, nor the rusted gears that turned overhead. Oh well, that wouldn’t be Jasper’s problem much longer. And if the whole lighthouse went up in flames as a result of imploding oil drums, then at least it would serve as a fiery waypoint for ships one last time.

He couldn’t be bothered to feel the painful clench of muscles in his thighs anymore as he made his numerous journeys from the basement storage to the top of the lighthouse control. Sweat slicked his curls to his forehead, making them a small annoyance to constantly brush out of his eyes. Any longer and he’d need to start tying his hair back in a small ponytail. Jasper brought up two, four, six, eight jerry cans brimming with oil to fill the generator with the hope it would stay running for at least a full two days. As there was only a small rowboat left tied to the shore, still in relatively new condition compared to everything else on the island, it was going to take Jasper a bit longer to manually power himself back to Evermore’s mainland compared to the hour ride on Hershel’s boat. At least his arms were already tingling with soreness under his sweater sleeves from hefting extra gallons of oil up the staircase. The pain that came from rowing for hours on end back home would be a welcomed ache to deal with. On the (literal) bright side, the lighthouse would be burning strong to help guide his route back to land as he slipped away into the night.

And hopefully not become prey to any gigantic sea serpent that may slither under the waves.

Jasper needed to get a hold of himself. This was very creepy, very unsettling, borderline diabolical, but nothing that hinted it was supernatural…yet. Sure, there was the whole thing with the dead animals, and the uncanny similarities experienced by himself and what the keeper detailed in their abandoned journal, and the bizarre dreams. Coincidences. The result of budding insanity brought out by the same circumstances. It was said insanity that probably drove the corpse in the tunnel to go there and die. Jasper wasn’t about to follow suit, and he wasn’t going to kid himself into holding out longer than he needed for Hershel’s assistance like the other two keepers. He’d much rather wait to become a dead eyed loon when he was an old man rather than wait to see what might drive him over the edge like they had witnessed.

It took about six and a half jerry cans to fill the lighthouse generator to the brim, though he wasted an additional half gallon of oil when it overflowed out of the top and spilled down the sides. The slick, inky liquid was quick to cling to the humming metal and his hands, staining the skin and his sweater black when he tried to wipe it off. Whatever, cleanliness was the least of his worries right now. The last task at hand before he could say good riddance to this place was to rig up the sandbag so the light could keep spinning. Jasper wagered that if he only used half of the typical weight needed, then the gears should continue to spin for twice as long, albeit slower than usual. As long as it was continually rotating for an extra day, it was going to have to be good enough.

During his final trip into the basement to retrieve a sandbag, Jasper felt a new wave of…uneasiness. It wasn’t just the hair at his nape that stood on end, but his arms too, sending a shiver down his spin. He felt like he was being watched, though there was no way that was possible. The storage area had no windows for anyone to peek in and spy on him and the double doors only opened into the base of the lighthouse rather than the outside. The only other entry point was the hole in the wall he uncovered–

Jasper didn’t believe in ghosts or demons, but no one was there to call him out on the fact he skipped two of the steps out of the basement storage and slammed the doors shut. 

As soon as the sandbag was hoisted and dropped over the ledge, Jasper was officially ready to call it quits. The job should be set up to keep any wayward sailor safe until he could make it back to the mainland and Swarde & Sons could send out another unlucky fool in his place. He could already hear his father now, so elated to have his son back and so smug in believing the supernatural had rightfully spooked some sense into him. Jokes on the old man, though, it was actually the decomposing body of potentially another lighthouse keeper who’s fate Jasper very nearly met that terrified him all the way back home. But he didn’t need to know that, otherwise his father might start insisting he keep blessings and evil eye pendants to keep the demon away forever.

Being away from the island forever was more than enough for Jasper to have peace of mind. He thought about grabbing at least a few of his things as he passed the lodging on his way to the shore, but decided against it. Daylight was already sinking past the horizon in a wake of orange and purple and he didn’t want to be rowing in the sea in the dark longer than needed. His, along with everyone else’s, items would just have to further perpetuate the mystery of the disappearing lighthouse keepers. Well, Jasper wasn’t missing, and maybe neither were the others. Shame he didn’t think to grab the journal on his way out of the lighthouse to see what became of the keeper he relied on. 

The feeling of being watched still lingered. It was like he could feel the unwanted gaze of someone boring into his back as he practically jogged down the slope of the hill. It was just his paranoia acting up again, still shaken up from the idea of human remains being lost under the lighthouse for months or years or decades. That was unsettling enough to make anyone jumpy, surely. The only thing watching him were the dozens of stars that began to blink open their single eye as dusk darkened into night. Waves crashed against the sand up ahead in a rhythmic beating and a warm breeze tousled his red curls the closer he got to the water. It was peaceful, familiar, yet it didn’t fully calm him as he would have liked.

He was acting like a little kid who feared the monsters in the dark. No matter, he figured as he neared the half dilapidated boat shack tucked up where the sand of the shore and the grass of the slope mingled. The wood was weak and rotted from years of salt water and there were no previous boats within, but there were still a few boating supplies that should be in good enough condition to use. Jasper could take the rope it was docked with, so his only other concern was grabbing one of the crusty lanterns to help him see what was immediately in front of him out in the water. A flick of a match against the dry wick and soon he was surrounded in a beautifully safe glow of orange. There probably wasn’t much fuel left in the canister to keep it lit too long, so he needed to get a move on.

Or he would have, if the boat he was planning on using was still at the shoreline.

Technically speaking, it was , just scattered around in the sand and lapping waves in mauled pieces. This wasn’t an accident that could have just happened in the time Jasper had his back turned, not without him hearing the wood cracking and splintering by a presumably rogue wave. With how torn to shreds it was, one might mistake it for a victim of a hurricane rather than a splash of water. No, Jasper had to be confused. There had to be a second row boat somewhere else on the shore and this debris had always been floating here in hopes of becoming driftwood. His escape was probably just a little further down the sand, or maybe the rope tethering it had pulled it further out to the ocean that he wasn’t able to see in the dark. Good thing he had the lantern now, right? Good thing he’d be able to find his real boat and see he was getting jittery over nothing and leave this island in one piece, right?

No matter which direction he wandered with his lantern held forward, all he was able to see was light sand and dark water pooling at the ankles of his boots. There was no additional boat waiting for him to hop in, only the wreckage of what he was bitterly coming to accept was once his prized rescue. The creeping feeling of being watched hadn’t eased up at all. In fact, it felt like it was growing stronger the more frantically he swung the lantern with each step back and forth in the sand. The dark of night had swallowed the sky entirely by this point, leaving Jasper’s location wide open for prying eyes if they caught sight of his personal light source. The lighthouse’s own glow trudged slowly but steadily as he intended, though now it served to leave the surrounding area in darkness longer than usual before it made its full rotation.

Fuck. Fuck, what was he supposed to do now? His only hope of getting out of here had been dashed by…by something. Jasper didn’t know what, yet it seemed he was getting more and more closer to finding out whether he wanted to or not. And he very much did not. The boat had to have been wrecked while he was preparing the lighthouse earlier in the evening. It was the only timeframe he could find with a plausible explanation, which meant who or whatever tore it to shreds did this act deliberately. They saw him preparing to leave and put a stop to it while he was preoccupied. But who, and why, and how?

Not a demon. Not a ghost. Not a lovestruck mermaid. Not a giant kraken. 

Moths were starting to crowd around his limited light, making the fluttering of their wings cast a dance of moving shadows on the ground. He tried to wave them away, but they only followed his lantern, oblivious to the massive beacon that beckoned on top of the cliff that they could bask in instead. Stupid bugs. Stupid him. Whether Jasper wanted to admit it or not, this plan had ultimately gone to shit in the most unfortunate way possible and his only hope was to reconvene at daybreak to formulate a new one. The safest option was to stick it out for two more weeks until Hershel arrived with the supply run, even if Jasper was doubtful his mind would make it in tact that long. With daylight on his side, he should be able to gather his wits better, if nothing else.

Lord knows he doesn’t have very many wits left as he was just startled out of his remaining ones when he turned towards the direction of the lighthouse. He didn’t know what he saw, couldn’t even begin to describe its shape, but he saw it. He saw it . He knows damn well his eyes weren’t playing a trick on him, no matter how much his mind tried to soothe him that he was delirious with sleep deprivation and anxiety. There was something on the lighthouse, engulfing it in its massive shadow. This was no trick of the light this time because it was the light itself that illuminated the figure hovering around the glass enclosure. Jasper couldn’t tell if it was physically clinging to the lighthouse in order to gawk at the spinning glow within or if it was floating in the air. The only certain thing he could make out about the being was that its size was comparable to the lighthouse itself!

His instincts spiked like a cornered animal. He wasn’t worried any longer about rationalizing the movements out of the corner of his eye or the shadows that lingered behind for too long. He didn’t care about the copious amounts of gutted animals or the rotting corpses of who knows how many previous lighthouse keepers were hidden underground. The only thing his mind was screaming at him to do was run hide flee escape don’t get caught don’t be seen move go GO GO NOW GO–

Jasper’s body was frozen in place, unable to even suck in a much needed gasp of air after his breath had been stolen from shock. As badly as he wanted to run, though he didn’t know where he would go as the island had very few options, his locked legs refused to let him budge. How badly he wanted to wake up from this nightmare and convince himself this was just another unpleasant dream. He’d wake up any moment now, still in the lumpy bed of the lodging or on the floor of the upper deck in the lighthouse. There was no such thing as monsters. Jasper wasn’t about to be spirited away into the unknown. The stories passed around town were nothing more than fables rather than warnings.

The creature moved and the prickling sensation of being stared at increased tenfold despite Jasper being unable to see its eyes, if it had any at all. Regardless, the unsettling movement that further confirmed it was a living (could it be counted as living if it was something potentially undead?) being in his field of vision was enough to make him jump, the lantern flying from his grip to clatter in the sand and extinguish. Though the beacon from the lighthouse still shone out to see, the immediate area Jasper was in was now plunged back into total darkness. While this could be a good thing as it meant the creature by the tower would have no visual of him, he had no desire to remain out in the open and blind.

Even with the sweet glow of the lantern gone, the collection of moths still circled around him when he lit a new match to find where it had fallen. He tried to shoo them away before the match burned down to his fingertips, wasting another scarce resource of light, but they were insistent on remaining near and almost singing their spindly legs on the open flame. Fine, burn then, he had other things to fret about than a few suicidal moths. It didn’t take long to recover the lantern, thankfully. The glass dome around it had shattered on impact with the ground, though it didn’t matter to Jasper. So long as the wick could still light, he’d be fine.

Jasper took his first breath when the lantern returned to its usual glow, sans the protective glass around it. The moths were now free to enter his light source and risk getting charred, but he could see once more and that was all he cared about. Actually, what he cared most about was being able to see whatever the hell was loitering on the lighthouse and assure himself it hadn’t crept closer, inches away from snatching him up. He raised the lantern towards the lighthouse, panting, already trembling at the thought of coming face to face with whatever was haunting him all along.

Nothing was there.

He blinked. A cold sweat was beading at his forehead and the shaking of his hands refused to subside. There was nothing around the top of the lighthouse any more, nor did there appear to be a massive body of…something lingering around Jasper that could be picked up by the glow of the lighthouse or lantern. In the brief terror it had taken him to find and relight the lantern, the creature had vanished, as if it had never been there to begin with.

Because of course it had never been there to begin with. This was it then, the breaking point so many other light keepers had come to deal with. The total accumulation of hysteria mixed with loneliness and superstition. Look at him, wide eyed and quivering, like he had just seen the pale rider trot past him on a morning stroll. Considering he was very nearly ready to dive into the bottomless ocean and try to swim back to Evermore with adrenaline alone, Jasper could now understand why keepers gave the impression of going missing or holed themself up underground until they succumbed to natural causes. Fear can make a person do unreasonable things and yes, Jasper was willing to admit he was afraid.

However, there was nothing to be afraid of after all but his own brain. It was amazing what such an organ could conjure up when both awake and asleep, like giant monsters that cloaked itself in shadows while being enraptured by light. Given that he was constantly harassed by moths, it was easy to see where his brain made the connotation, not to mention the humongous scale of the lighthouse in general had been the bane of his physical strength for a majority of his stay. Right, the more he dwelled on it, though he was loath to do so, the more flaws he was able to pick apart from his delusion. So now he was back at square one with a wrecked boat, a dead body, and hallucinations that may or may not give him a heart attack.

A part of Jasper knew he needed to return to the lighthouse, but the rest of him shuttered at the thought. Why? He had already reasoned with himself why he was so on edge and how it was nothing but tall tales getting the better of his imagination. There was nothing to truly worry about, even if the gnawing dread in his stomach urged him to turn away with each step uphill that brought him closer to the lighthouse doors. He took a deep breath to steady himself, then another, and pushed the entrance open with an ear bleeding screech. Nothing about the interior had changed, yet he felt unwelcome, like he didn’t belong. Too bad, he was the lighthouse keeper here and he was going to keep the house’s light! And while it stung his pride to acknowledge it, Jasper couldn’t help but seek solace in being as close to the blinding light source as possible and ward away whatever may lurk in the dark.

First thing’s first, he needed to find where he had left the journal. There were still a couple more passages he had yet to finish reading and there was a chance they might shed some extra light, pun intended, on the situation at hand. Maybe the former keeper had also experienced equally weird happenings, maybe there was another hidden passage somewhere or an extra boat they had stowed away as a backup plan. Maybe the keeper went fully mad and just rambled for the last fifteen pages about God and the Devil and all that religious jazz before walking into the sea. Jasper was willing to take whatever scraps of an answer he could get, so long as he helped to calm his nerves just a fraction. He needed to know that he wasn’t alone throughout this ordeal, that he hadn’t gone insane just yet. He didn’t want to be a lost cause, but more than that, he didn’t want to become a new urban legend.

The journal was still left perched on one of the oil drums in the basement storage from when Jasper had examined the hole. A braver man might have gone ahead and explored the newly discovered tunnel as there was nothing else to lose, however Jasper was not a braver man. He was a rational man who didn’t want to come face to face with the alleged corpse waiting for him within, if it was even still there and if it was the only one. God above, morning could not come soon enough. 

Journal tucked under arm, Jasper slowly made his way up the spiral staircase, his eyes nervously darting to look out each curved window as he climbed. His legs still felt like jelly and he clung to the railing to aid him up, half expecting to glance out the window and meet the creature he could have sworn he saw moments prior. Said creature didn’t exist, it didn’t exist , but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be startled by a squawking seagull and tumble over the railing to the ground below. Wouldn’t that be a way to end this nightmare, taken out by a stupid bird and left to be found weeks later by the next keeper. Or Hershel. Now there was a new thought to keep him up at night – did the old captain have anything to do with the victim mentioned in the journal? Had he hidden the body, perhaps on behalf of Swarde & Sons, to avoid legal troubles and to hire a replacement as soon as possible. 

Well, Herschel had about fifty pounds of muscle on him and an extra foot in height, so Jasper was fine with never confronting him if he was an accomplice in something nefarious. Let bygones be bygones and let Jasper be gone for the love of Christ.

One impossibly long trek up a dizzying staircase later and Jasper was standing on the control platform again. A place he had hoped he’d never have to be after tonight, but one he was going to have to remain acquainted with for the time being. The metal below his feet squeaked with each step, teasing him with the prospect of one day breaking their aged bolts and plunging him seventy feet to the ground. Huh, that was the second time he had envisioned himself falling to his demise within the span of ten minutes. Perhaps he was a little more distressed than he realized as he was never one to passively imagine his death. That kind of dangerous daydreaming was only inviting karma to poke her head in and finish the job.

Everything was as he left it: a full jerry can on the table by the broken radio, a pile of empty cans tucked mostly out of the way under the table, dried rivlets of oil staining the generator from where it had leaked. Jasper considered going outside onto the wrap around balcony for some fresh air, but ultimately decided he’d rather not. Inside was safer with its glass casing and metal body. No creepy things in here, not counting the body in the basement. His legs sang in bliss when he allowed his body to sag against the wall and slip down into a seated position. He was tired, mentally and physically. Mostly physically. What he needed more than anything right now was a good rest for his mind and muscles. Of course, he wasn’t going to do that. The journal needed to be finished and the mess of cans would have to be cleaned up, though that was probably going to be a chore for Future Jasper.

He could let himself drift off as soon as he was done with the last passage, he reasoned, almost like a morbid bedtime story. No more morbid than the actual bedtime stories he was told about creatures under the bed and fairies sneaking in the windows, all things considered. It didn’t take Jasper too much searching to find where he had left off with the discovery of the body in the tunnel, though it seemed there was a bit of a time skip between that passage and the next one.

Day 29 18XX

I need to leave, Dearest Elisa, I need to leave!

Not even the thoughts of your sweet smile and soft touches are enough to bring me comfort any longer. I refuse to believe the horrors I have been witness to, and yet there is no denying that they are true. If I were to ever speak of this aloud, they would surely think I have lost my mind, which I fear they may be correct. How could you ever love a mad man? How could I ever be the husband you’re worthy of when I cannot even promise I will return whole for our wedding union?

I see the body in my dreams every time I close my eyes. His skin was dried and wrinkled, perhaps by the salted earth. I do not know what killed him or how he chose this place to lay. I am not an investigator of law. I am a humbled lighthouse keeper and you, my love, may soon become a widow before the night is over. In my haste, I have lost the camera gifted by your uncle within the tunnels. I will see to it personally I repay him if I ever make it back home alive.

I am once again preparing my plan of topping off the generator and fleeing by row boat before dusk. Captain Hershel is a good, punctual man, but I cannot wait another two weeks for his arrival. I pray the tides are calm when they carry me to land and carry me back to your arms.

–

Day 30 18XX

How can these be! What cruel fate is it that mere hours before my departure my boat has been rampaged!

No way…the keeper had lost their boat as well?! That was too suspicious for Jasper’s liking, although it did explain why the boat he had planned on taking was so new in comparison to everything else on the island. It must have been replaced not too long ago. 

I don’t know what else I am meant to do beyond waiting for Captain Hershel’s rescue. Should I embrace the coward’s role and hide myself in the shack I am meant to call home these remaining three months? I wish I could say I am a man of vigor but alas, my mental strength has been depleted in a matter of weeks. I yearn for the same safety a child feels when hiding from terrors under their mother’s blanket. I am a weak, pathetic man. If I

God in Heaven I believe I saw the Devil himself. Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name, guide–

Jasper skipped through the next page as it was only the messy scribblings of the Lord’s prayer. These holy words still weren’t the former keeper’s last, much to his growing worry. There weren’t very many pages left and the author was still stuck in as much shit as Jasper was right now. Come on, they needed to give a bit of hope that they miraculously uncovered all the answers needed for a successful escape! But what had the keeper seen to make them stop their self deprecating train of thought so abruptly in favor of reciting religious protection? Was it the same “devil” that Jasper thought he saw? 

Day 31 18XX

I am trapped. This declaration is nothing new, however it is today that I finally know who my jailor is.

Yes, yes! This was what Jasper needed: an answer! With an answer came a possible solution, and with a possible solution came freedom!

It is a winged beast from Hell.

Alright, maybe not.

Words on a paper cannot adequately describe the unholy terror its gaze inflicted upon my soul. Its eyes are black, devoid of heart, looking to swallow you whole with its stare. It is not the size of one man, but fifty of them! Do not be fooled by its nature of flight and furred head and collar for this is no heavenly being. 

There is no way this creature was made in God’s image, not with its surplus of arms and twitching horns. I wouldn’t be surprised to see cloven hoofs below its waist, though I cannot report on such findings as I was only given the displeasure of seeing its form from the chest upwards.

My Dearest Elisa would have fainted on sight and I may add I would have been quick to follow. It came to me at the provided housing from where I had hidden myself following my previous encounter. Oh yes, I had seen the beast the very night before, perched at the top of the lighthouse and observing my anguish over the wreckage of the row boat. I knew immediately it was the culprit and took refuge as quick as I could. And it gave chase, too, the villain! Trying to snatch me up before I could get inside! 

I was successful, as you can tell, but now I am trapped. I cannot leave this awful abode as it stalks my movements outside. I feel like a field mouse trapped in the hungry gaze of a hawk. What am I to do, stay indoors until I die of starvation, or do I dare venture outside and allow myself to whisked in its maw straight to Hell? It is hard to say which is the better option, though it remains clear that I will not be seeing my Dearest Elisa again in this lifetime.

A creature. A giant creature that was obsessed with being in the lighthouse’s proximity and had a knack for watching keepers when they weren’t at their post. The similarities were becoming uncanny again. Jasper wasn’t very optimistic that this was going to resolve in the kind of conclusion he would have liked, ideally one where he was able to go home within the next day or so alive and well. That was also under the assumption that the aforementioned monster was real at all and not just a manifestation of the former keeper’s hysteria, much like Jasper had suffered. To the keeper’s credit, they did go into quite a bit of convincing detail, but Jasper refused to fall victim to that kind of paranoid thinking again.

Day 33 18XX

I did not leave this house for an entire day and night. The lighthouse no longer spins and I can see the extra light I had allotted is beginning to dim. If I do not return to it soon, then it shall not work at all for the next night and guilt buries deep in my heart at the prospect. 

The stench of rotting fish continues to seep under the front door. I refuse to open it and accept what I can only now assume are ‘gifts’. Gifts similar to a feline bringing a beheaded rodent to its master – vile, but thoughtful, in the animal kingdom. If I am to believe this, then the beast is trying to entice me outside by providing food that I am regrettably running low on. 

It will have to try much harder than that to break my will. Through the power of God I will survive and outwit this unholy creature!

–

Day 36 18XX

Has God forsaken me? I cannot in good conscience believe any of this is part of His plan for my immortal soul. He wouldn’t create me just for the sake of damnation at the hands of a beast, would he? I can only hope this is a divine test of faith in my darkest hours, but I fear I am losing this battle rapidly without His intervention of some kind.

The beast tore through the roof of the housing last night when the lighthouse remained unlit. I haven’t the slightest understanding what its fascination with the building is, but it seems unhappy that I am not doing my duty. Cruel beast, I, too, am unhappy, however it is you who prevents me from doing my job! 

Perhaps it was foolish of me to think that such a shambling structure would provide me any protection from a determined beast. However, I must admit I was relieved when its first instinct was not to find where I had taken shelter within for a second time. Instead, it delivered the carcass of a shark once more, leaving it to rot on the kitchen floor rather than the porch as it had done last time. It cannot speak in human tongues and I have no inclination to listen to its grating voice for whatever it was attempting to say before leaving.

I cannot do this any longer. God, Elisa, whichever of you can hear my sorrowful heart the loudest, please accept my apologies for being a weak man.

–

Day XX 18XX

Dearest Elisa, I love you. I will see you again.

And that was it. The last journal entry. No further insight as to whether or not the keeper abandoned the island or this plane of existence. The optimist in Jasper wanted to believe the last passage was a triumphant one, that they were reaffirming to themself that they would make it back home safely to their beloved by daybreak. The pessimist in Jasper thought it sounded an awful lot like an impromptu suicide note that would never be seen by another soul. It was difficult to tell the means of their end, be it from taking their life somewhere in the lodging (and becoming another hidden corpse, how lovely) or if they had willingly gone out to let the creature finish the job, but it felt obvious enough that the poor keeper was no more. 

Had the creature actually killed them, though? Several passages mentioned the idea of the monster offering a food source to the keeper it had, intentionally or otherwise, trapped. That didn’t sound like cruel intentions to Jasper. Yet those intentions were still entirely unknown and…

…and ridiculous! For God’s sake, Jasper was no better than his father by getting so sucked into the fictitious world of ghost stories that he was actually believing anything in the journal was real. Giant, multi-limbed monsters flying around and trying to feed a human a shark, sure, that was one he’d never heard before. A bit more entertaining than the old run of the mill tales of seals that shed their skin and become beautiful maidens on land, that’s for sure. This was only a testament to how over exhausted he was in light of everything that had occurred in the last twenty-four hours. His energy was running on fumes from the lack of proper sleep to the point of hallucinating, and he was so stressed from the freak accident with the boat and demented journal writings that he was looking to blame it on the supernatural just as everyone back home did.

He snapped the journal shut in his hand with a muttered curse, half tempted to chuck the useless thing over the guardrail in hopes that it would explode in a flurry of pages below. No, he couldn’t be bothered, because that would only be another mess Future Jasper would need to clean up after the pile of jerry cans next to him. Fucking hell, never before had a story gripped him so immensely to the point he was willing to bet his life on its validity. Now he understood the dangers of relating too hard to a narrative, more so when an unhappy ending was involved. The corneas of his eyes stung with exhaustion, made even worse from forcing himself to make out someone’s penmanship with difficult lighting.

To hell with it all, he was going to bed, as in he was going to get a proper night’s sleep down in the lodging rather than subject himself to a nap on the metal platform. After everything he had put himself through, he deserved to sleep a full thirty hours if he so felt like it. Besides, the lighthouse was still set up from his failed plan and would continue to work unbothered in his absence. Hopefully. What was the worst that could happen? It could go up in flames, he supposed, like he had secretly hoped for only hours ago when he thought he was home-free off this island. Times sure do change when he’d now have to face the awkward reality of explaining to Hershel during his next visit why he was manning a charred husk surrounded by shipwrecks.

Even being sat on the floor for less than an hour had allowed his muscles to fully relish in dull pain. Trickles of adrenaline no longer hid the aches that ran bone deep and Jasper couldn’t help but wince when he struggled to push himself up to his feet. He wasn’t looking forward to the trip back down the spiral of steps, much less on wobbly legs. The jerry cans were definitely going to have to wait until tomorrow to be brought back down to the basement. Jasper was too young to be this out of shape. His back gave a satisfying pop when he finally managed to stand on his own feet and stretched, though no amount of rotating his shoulders eased the stiffness. Nevermind, Jasper was too young to feel this old , like a haggard elderly man who’s done this job for forty years as opposed to forty days. Two more weeks until Hershel arrived and he could beg to break his contract, that was as long as he had to keep his sanity intact.

It appeared he wouldn’t be keeping it together for even another two seconds when Jasper turned to look out of the window into the glass enclosure of the lighthouse.

What he, as many others would, had expected to see was the familiar glow of an oversized lantern idly turning against the glittering background of a blackened sky and sea. And to be fair, that was still what he saw, however he was not anticipating the additional sight that overtook a majority of the serene view. It was something huge, something big enough to fill Jasper’s field of vision the same way the horizon typically did. The fact that it was gazing into the glass of the lighthouse meant it was either something of equal stature or that it had the ability to float, neither of which boded well for him. This wasn’t real, this wasn’t possible, this wasn’t happening! He was hallucinating again, just as he had done down at the shore when he thought he saw the very same being. It had to be a result of him coming down from the high of adrenaline and stress, that was it. In fact, he was probably fast asleep right now with the journal in his lap and a crick in his neck.

This was another nightmare. It couldn’t be anything else. He read about the former keeper’s supposed encounter with an imaginary monster and now he was projecting that on himself. Everything had a logical explanation, it had to! Supernatural entities didn’t exist, demons and ghosts and creatures of the night were only made up by men for entertainment. Jasper was never much of a lucid dreamer, but tonight must be an exception given how fully autonomous he felt over himself compared to other vivid night terrors. What unsettled him the most (besides literally everything conceivable) was the spot on details that had been described previously from the entries. It was big alright, like the body of a man had been stretched to the height of a tower. Or a lighthouse, more accurately. The features of its face only came into view when the beacon turned to illuminate them with harsh shadows, but as far as Jasper could tell they looked…human. Which this creature was anything but.

Human, but not quite right, similar to depictions of women who were half fish or bird and men who were part goat. The faces and upper body were close enough to looking humanlike that they could fool a person at a distance, yet closer inspection brought out all the uncanny flaws that cemented the idea they were otherworldly. Most notably for the creature was its eyes. Even on a face that was nearly the size of Jasper, who already stood at a good six foot two, he could see that they were wide like that of an amazed child. There was no sweet innocence within the orbs, though. Not that Jasper could tell anyways as the entire sclera was as jet black as a pupil, making the eyes appear like hollow voids rather than windows to the soul. If the creature had a soul to begin with beyond whatever it reaped from previous lighthouse keepers.

It was difficult to tell how dark its complexion was as the angled shadows cut across its features, exaggerating and covering shapes and shades. Then again, Jasper couldn’t even tell if it was covered in skin or fur or some other type of covering. The darkest areas looked to be the top of its head and a ruffle at its upper chest, both being of the same, fluffy texture that matched the jet black color of its eyes. He couldn’t see much else of the monster’s physical form to confirm if it had extra arms or horns as observed by the former keeper, but the subtle movement that disrupted the still background behind it implied it did indeed have wings to keep it afloat in the air.

Despite none of this mattering, because it was clearly a horrid dream and was not happening in real life, Jasper found himself frozen in place yet again. Here he was in full view of the creature for a second time tonight, now only a dozen feet away from its face and separated by smudged glass it could easily shatter. The only positive to this encounter was that while the monster was looking within the lighthouse it hovered, its focus was solely on the spinning flame within the canister rather than on Jasper himself. If Jasper could find a way to get his legs to listen to his brain and move, he’d be able to sneak out of its line of sight before it managed to look up and spot him. Dying in a dream did not mean he would die in the waking world, but it didn’t mean he wanted to imagine it either way.

Why the light seemed to fascinate the creature, Jasper didn’t know and frankly didn’t care. As long as it served to be a good distraction then he was willing to let the creature have its weird obsession. Maybe it was supposed to be a guardian of some sort, or the beacon was a talisman that kept it tethered to this location so it couldn’t go off and cause havoc elsewhere. Regardless, Jasper was trapped here with it and he didn’t have very many options to go when it came to fleeing an island surrounded by the sea. Anywhere he went would be met with the water’s edge while also being in an open area, free to be plucked up and flown away to wherever the cryptid resided. He could stay in the lighthouse where it continued to stalk or he could risk trying to make it back to the lodging where he’d have more supplies to fend for himself.

He didn’t really like either of those choices. Should he make it to the lodging, he already knew the recently repaired roof wouldn’t be able to withstand the creature’s strength if it was determined enough to grab him. The lighthouse, while being a sturdy metal structure, was adorned with breakable windows following the staircase and sealed only with rusted doors. Jasper could always hole himself up in the basement and do…what exactly? Pray it leaves in a timely manner, try to drink oil to survive, hope something doesn’t come crawling out of the tunnel behind the barrels? It was a lose-lose situation no matter which way he tried to think about it, until he woke anyway. Right, no need to think so hard about this, it wasn’t a real scenario, just a silly little nightmare his mind created because his day wasn’t ruined enough.

But then why couldn’t he get rid of the tightness in his throat or calm the hammering beat of his heart? The damn organ felt like it was trying to leap right out of his mouth only to be foiled by his inability to swallow a sufficient breath. His breathing was short and quick, but he wasn’t hyperventilating with pants just yet. The shaking from his shoulders to his knees was because his muscles were still sore from overuse and not because he was afraid of an imaginary monster. As much as Jasper wanted to avoid being locked in a staring contest, he couldn’t bring himself to look away from its unnaturally human face. 

He needed to get out of here. He needed to put distance between himself and the creature before it noticed the window of opportunity it had to seize him. He didn’t know where he planned on going, but it just needed to be as far as fucking possible!

Jasper took half a step back, followed by another, flinching at the sound his boots made against the creaking metal of the landing. He cringed with each silent groan it gave, half expecting the creature’s head to jerk up at the noise and spot its prey seconds before he escaped. So far, it continued to pay no mind to him in favor of the light it adored, occasionally shifting its position to follow the glow a little longer before the rotation finished and started again. If only it were the size of a fairy rather than a dragon, Jasper would go as far as to say the behavior would look endearing with how captivated it was by the simplest thing. Its wide eyed wonder would be less unsettling as well, but Jasper was more concerned about keeping those eyes off him entirely at the moment.

If he could make the tortuous journey of seven steps to the left, he could scurry down the staircase and leave the monster behind. It wouldn’t be much distance between them, but it would give Jasper the temporary relief that he couldn’t be seen, at least until it found him through the lower windows. Stupidly, he kept his focus on the creature’s wandering eyes rather than where his own feet were heading. He should have known better given how dangerously under-maintained the landing was that he needed to always watch his step, though it was his own mess that ended up biting him in the ass.

The pile of jerry cans had sat inconspicuously the entire night where Jasper discarded them, mostly shoved under the table to keep them out of the way until he found the energy to return them to the basement. Key word being mostly. They weren’t stacked as neatly as they could have been (i.e. not at all) which left a few nozzles jutting out and one can skewed on its side. Jasper felt one of the nozzles brush against his ankle when he inched too close to the table on his way to the stairs, startling him. He jerked his foot back, but in doing so he ended up slamming it down on the protruding can and stumbled from his loss of balance. The yelp he contained did little to silence the cacophony of noises made by him tripping backwards into the table and clattering all the empty jerry cans underneath, not to mention the still full one on top of the table that toppled. 

He didn’t have enough time to react and stop the spillage of oil all over the table’s surface before it ran down the floor and through the grates of the landing, raining down on the stairs below. It wouldn’t have made much difference in the long run either way, the pitter patter of inky liquid hardly being the final nail in the coffin after the banging symphony he just performed. A sharp pain traveled up his spine when he collided with table’s edge, a bruise sure to be blooming on his lower back by morning. That felt too real. People weren’t supposed to feel genuine pain in their dreams, were they? There had to be an external stimuli that happened to his body, like…like…

Jasper was only trying to fool himself. As desperately as he wanted to believe this was a dream, he couldn’t hold up the facade any longer. The creature was real, the hauntings on the island were real, the legends were real. He was finally a believer.

But it was too late.

No amounts of salt or rhymes or burning herbs would save him when the creature was alerted to his noisy blunder. It turned to face him and blinked through the glass, like it was just as surprised to see him inside as he was to see it. Though its eyes lacked the normal tricolors, Jasper knew it was staring at him with an intensity that made his aching body tremble worse than before. It didn’t regard him maliciously, rather with the same curiosity as a child who had captured a particularly interesting bug. Jasper really did feel as insignificant as an insect right about now, especially how squishable he was.

A bug…a bug . That was it, that was what the monster was! Not a bug persay, but something akin to a moth! That explained its unyielding fascination with the lighthouse, the only form of artificial light that was big enough to satiate it during the nocturnal hours compared to its tiny brethren. The horns the former keeper had mentioned in his journal, if Jasper had to guess, were probably antennae instead of protruding bone. The logistics of how a giant that was part moth and part man – was it even a man? Did it have a gender? – were completely lost on Jasper. He couldn’t recall any tales of mothmen or bug kings or anything of the sort, meaning he was on his own when it came to sorting out which superstitions might save his hide. 

His knowledge of moths and the world of insects was also pathetically limited. What did he know about moths…they loved light to the point they were willing to die if only to touch the open flame. They could be active in the day or night, though it was the evenings that they seemed more lively. They were supposed to be small and harmless. They could be omens of death. They drank corpse blood. Actually, scratch that last one, he may be confusing them for butterflies. So, just omens of death then, fantastic. It would certainly be on point as a fair few keepers had perished under its supervision, granted Jasper didn’t know how long the creature had claimed the island as its stomping (flying?) grounds compared to when the others started to disappear.

The main takeaway was that not everything of supernatural origin was inherently sinister in nature and moths, as a whole, were tame little things with pretty wings and a harmless presence. So, with that in mind, the creature shouldn’t be of any threat to Jasper so long as he could keep it placated with the lighthouse running on schedule, just as he had been doing for the last month. Easy, no need to worry, nothing to panic over.

Until the creature tilted its head at Jasper and chirped, reaching a hand up to press against the outer glass of the enclosure towards him. He gulped, but his legs refused to do anything more than buckle at the knees instead of carrying down the stairs at mach three. Okay, this was fine. This was a friendly gesture, yeah? Because it was friendly? Because it wasn’t going to hurt him? His chest was heaving with uneven gasps and he couldn’t help but dart his eyes between the creature’s unwavering gaze and the staircase mere feet away. As minuscule as his green eyes had to be from the creature’s point of view, it seemed it had caught the movement and followed his route of escape. It was not pleased at the prospect of its newly introduced… friend taking his leave so early when they had only just been properly acquainted. The creature chirped again, more insistently, and the glass under its fingers cracked with thin spider web fractures.

Yeah, no, Jasper was done now. He wasn’t willing to stick around when it finally shattered the glass to find out just how friendly or not the creature really was. The second he saw the damage on the outer dome appear, his mind finally regained control of his body and sent him speeding down the rickety staircase. He was flying down the steps, almost skipping two at a time, like a wind up trinket whose key was finally taken out. Fueled by fear, Jasper almost missed the sounds of the creature scurrying against the metal lighthouse outside because of the blood rushing to his ears. It was making noises, though he couldn’t tell what tone it was meant to convey. Hostile, lamenting, confused? It didn’t matter. Jasper didn’t care. Please, please, he just needed to find a spot in the lighthouse where it couldn’t find him. 

The taps against the outside wall of the lighthouse drew closer to where Jasper was trying to outrun them. Metallic echoes rang in his ears like church bells, each one signaling just how fast it was gaining on him and his tiny little human legs. The reverb was deafening once it pounded directly at his heels and he cried out. As it turned out, Jasper ducking to cover his ears to protect his hearing from the last bang ultimately saved him by the skin of his teeth when the window next to him exploded in a hail of glass. Had he been half a step behind, he would have been eviscerated by the shards and, more horrifically, encased in the grip of the hand that pawed at the stairs to find him. No, Jasper was not going to pretend the scream he let out was anywhere near manly, but now was not the time to worry about bravado.

If the creature was blind about his location before, the strangled cry he gave from its sudden intrusion was more than enough to help it zero in. The next window down the tower was broken by a black tipped hand, but Jasper had already stumbled past that one as well before it could stop him. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the creature trying to follow his visual through the windows as he made his way down, having no trouble at all keeping up with his top speed. Wasn’t that reassuring, that no matter how fast Jasper tried to run, he would never be fast enough.

“ Shit! ” Jasper cried out when the creature, in an unexpected display of forethought, skipped the next window to instead slam its hand through the one after and cut him off ahead. It was difficult to change his momentum on the staircase, especially when it was littered with glass both up and down, causing Jasper to very nearly lose his footing. Tumbling headfirst into the creature’s awaiting hand was probably exactly what it wanted, but luckily he was able to latch onto the railing to steel himself before he went flying headfirst into lacerations. 

When he didn’t magically appear in the creature’s hold like it had anticipated, it withdrew its hand to gauge where the little human could have scurried off to now. Taking the opening, Jasper resumed his dashing past the monster, glass crunching under his boots and tinkling like chimes as the shards slipped through the grates as well to further shatter below. He was about halfway down the winding staircase now, though it felt like he had been running on a never ending loop. Whoever was the guy that had to push a boulder up a hill for all eternity, Jasper sorely pitied him. As quick as he willed his body to carry him, his speed was sadly no match for the terrifying size of the monster who could close the distance between them with a wave of its arm. Even though he had already darted past the window it tried to snare him from, it reached its hand back through the moment it caught sight of its target.

Long, cold fingers grazed his back and almost managed to pinch the thick fabric of his sweater. The touch alone was enough to strike the fear of God into Jasper and he contorted his body to further avoid the prodding digits. If only he had learned his lesson before about watching where he was going rather than trying to look away at his pursuer, then he may have noticed that several of the steps in front of him were slick with spilt oil. The mess from earlier had stopped trickling down from the slotted floor above and now sat in stagnant puddles on different sections of the staircase where it further leaked through. The moment the rubber sole of his boot made contact with the liquid, Jasper lost all traction in his step and flew forward.

There was no cupped hand to break his fall this time and thankfully there weren't any remnants of glass shards either. Jasper only had enough time to bring his arms over his head in a futile attempt to shield himself before he collided face first with the stairs. His forearms took the brunt of the impact, the shock of pain making him stiffen his body as he continued to tumble downwards, the railing he slammed into on occasion being the only thing that prevented him from rolling off and plummeting to a broken neck. No doubt he would be spattered in a multitude of colorful bruises that would put a cheetah’s spots to shame. If it weren’t for the arms over his face, he was sure he’d have lost his front teeth and bent his nose at a disgusting angle. Each hit his body took against the hard lip of the stairs sent a new wave of agony through his already aching muscles, rattling down to his bones and jostling his internals. 

If all the air hadn’t been knocked out of his chest, Jasper may have cried out from a few particularly rough knocks to his shoulder and side. He couldn’t have been falling for long despite how much his body bounced between the wall and stairs, but it was hard to gauge the distance with his eyes squeezed shut. They involuntarily popped open when his body rolled and forced his legs to tuck up by his stomach, only for his left shin to bear the full weight of his body when it slammed at an unfortunate angle against a step. An nauseating snap sent a shockwave through his entire being, yet he couldn’t focus on the new sensation of pain compared to the beating he was already taking. Each time his leg smacked against any surface, Jasper wheezed, but there was little else he could do.

At long last, Jasper finally reached the bottom of the staircase in an undignified heap. It was all he could do to force himself to roll onto his back while sprawled out on the floor, looking up at the dizzying swirl of stairs all the way up to the pinprick ceiling. His head was spinning, brain knocked around and running at half speed. The headache blossoming at the base of his skull instructed him to vomit, but the clenching of his stomach and heaving diaphragm refused to let anything but precious air in and out. Now that the fresh bruises could settle into dull throbs, the agony that pulsated in his left leg made itself known. He tried to move the injured limb towards him, however just twitching his calf muscle around the broken bone made him gasp. While he couldn’t see the extent of the damage done, he was fairly certain it wasn’t a compound fracture and that had to be good enough for him.

Jasper’s vision blurred and he couldn’t tell if it was due to head trauma or the collection of tears springing in the corner of his eyes, quickly welling up to run down his cheeks and temples. A pained groan escaped his lips because it was the only sound he could muster to make, not that anyone would be around to hear his cry for help. Even if it were possible for him to drag himself up into a sitting position, there was no way in hell he’d be able to hobble back to the lodging on a bum leg. He could drag himself down the slope, maybe, like the pathetic injured animal that he was. Not right now, though. He had no coordination in his nerves and no energy in his body. Never before had he felt such a pain, much less all over himself. It was humiliating to be trapped on the floor with nothing but his muddled mind to remind him of the crippling agony he was in. Was this where Hershel would find him in two weeks time, a bloated discolored body staining the lighthouse floor? Would he be returned home for a proper burial or would he be hidden with the rest of the keepers on the island as another supernatural secret?

Ah, it seemed he hadn’t considered the third option of falling victim to the creature rather than suffering from his wounds. In truth, he had entirely forgotten why he was fleeing in the first place once he started his tumble, almost like the memory had been knocked out of him along with the rest of his senses. No more windows broke overhead, which was great seeing as Jasper wouldn’t be able to move out of the way to avoid the falling glass as a result. The tapping continued on the outside walls, softer this time, trailing closer to the base as the creature crept near to where Jasper’s body lay. He knew he should try to get up and escape, or crawl to the basement at the very least in some form of self preservation, but he just couldn’t. His body was shutting down whether he liked it or not and his brain was too hazy to argue against the decision. All he wanted to do was close his eyes and rest for a bit…whether or not he ever woke up wasn’t a problem he was too worried about.

Beside him, he could hear the metal doors of the lighthouse entry squeal in retaliation to the pounding against them. Jasper tried to turn his head to look, but his vision was already darkening around the edges and it was hard to keep focus on any solid shape before it bled into random colors. A bit more force and the doors relented to allow searching hands the chance inside. While the door frame was wide, there wasn’t much Jasper could make out of the creature as a result of his fading sight and the darkness of night obscuring the unnatural body shape. He was vaguely aware of something reaching for where his body lay, a multitude of digits closing in on his space and blocking out the last of the light. A whimper pushed past his throat, the best attempt at a plea he could muster.

The spilt organs slithering out of the shark’s torso finally succeeded in making Jasper gag and retch over the side of the bed. As expected, nothing was pulled from his stomach, but the sore muscle of his diaphragm didn’t appreciate it in any case.

Jasper had no real basis on his guess, but he assumed it had been about three days since he first went unconscious to now, when he could stay awake for a few hours at a time before exhaustion eventually reclaimed him a little longer. He only guessed it was around three days because the thirst in his mouth had yet to kill him and at night, if he happened to wake up for a few moments, he could see the faint glow of the lighthouse cast over the sea outside. The light didn’t move, meaning the half weighted sandbag was no longer pulling the gears. By now, the oil in the generator had to be running dangerously low as it had been some time since he topped it off. A little voice niggled somewhere within to remind him he needed to get up and at ‘em before dusk so he could do his nightly duties. Admittedly, he was so dazed from the circumstances that he managed to swing his legs over the edge of the bed and hoist himself into a sitting position, ready to get started on the day.

The convincing daydream broke the instant he put an ounce of weight on his left leg to stand. As soon as he pressed his foot against the floor, the bone twisted and forced his leg to buckle to the side. Luckily, Jasper was still sitting on the bed or he would have crumpled to the floor for the second time. The pain that shot up his leg into his hip felt like he had been electrocuted solely on that limb, a fiery aftershock making his shin throb even when sitting still. The shot of adrenaline that followed the surprise agony was more than enough to get his heart pumping, bringing his nerves back to full attention and remind him that something was very wrong and he was very fucked. Regrettable as he was to mess with his injury, Jasper knew he needed to examine it with the hope he could help it heal straight. A broken bone was a temporary setback, but one warped from improper healing was something that could impact him for life. Not that he knew how much longer he had left to live in this misery.

After a few attempts at pulling his boot off, Jasper had to resort to wadding up a corner of the dirty bed pillow and stuffing it in his mouth to bite down while he yanked the swollen foot free. His head was swimming when the shock faded and he spat out the pillow, a string of saliva clinging to his chin that was already dampened by pained tears. On the bright side, he didn’t have to roll his pant leg up as it was still cuffed just below his knee, revealing the unsightly entirety of his broken leg. As he figured before, the bone hadn’t splintered through the skin which was half the battle won. His ankle and foot was swollen and his shin was covered in one giant, purple bruise that was yellowing at the edges. There was minor bruising on his calf in addition to red markings that trailed down to his heel and up past his knee.

Lord, he was hesitant to check himself over for the rest of his injuries, knowing it wasn’t going to be a pretty picture, albeit a very colorful one of red and purple hues. Internal bleeding wasn’t too detrimental to his health, was it? Better than external bleeding, surely. Despite the many sharp edges he slammed into on the staircase, the only open wound he had found was a small cut on the back of his head. The dried blood had matted the curls down in one section which would be a pain to comb out later and the inflamed skin around the gash stung when he brushed against it. At least the scab that had formed hadn’t reopened and he couldn’t feel the base of his skull, so he had to assume it was fine and that he wasn’t half scalped. 

While a fresh change of clothes and a quick rinse of clean water would most definitely do wonders for his physical wellbeing, Jasper couldn’t find it in him to lumber to the bathroom to attempt either feat. Realistically, he needed to pick and choose which task he wanted to spend all of his limited energy on, and even then he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to complete it. The last thing he needed was to fall asleep in the bathtub and drown or lose his balance because of his broken leg while changing his pants. Perhaps it was best to save those daunting duties for another day when he could trust himself to remain upright for an extended period of time. Right now, Jasper needed to focus on what was immediately important: he really needed a drink of water, he needed to brace his leg to keep the fracture from shifting too much and misaligning, and he needed to think of how he was going to get the fuck out of here.

He hadn’t seen the monster since sunrise (or was it the sunset of the previous night?), which was to be expected from a nocturnal species. Where did it go in the daylight hours, he idly wondered. Was it still somewhere on the island, burrowed in the underground tunnels, or did it fly elsewhere to spend the first twelve hours of morning before migrating back to its beloved light? Jasper only pondered it in passing, but he couldn’t help but feel one day in the near future he would discover where it nested. Leaning back to look out the window, he saw that the sun no longer hung overhead and was beginning its descent to sink into the horizon. The permanently cloudy skies did help to make out the faintest of glowing outlines in the grass, a sign that the lighthouse still shone. Jasper knew the oil reserve would be tapped dry by nightfall, however, when the creature would be due for a visit.

Not much time, then. This was going to suck, but Jasper had to figure out how to hobble to the kitchen in his first order of business to rehydrate himself. With any luck, the recent destruction of the roof should have splintered the new wood into sizable pieces that he could use as a brace against his leg. The biggest hurdle was going to be maneuvering into the hallway and around the stale shark corpse that took up most of the foot room. Jasper didn’t look forward to being so close to the stench of decay, much less the idea of accidentally tripping and falling right into the gore that soaked the floorboards. It took a bit of mental preparation and hyping himself up to not fail spectacularly before he was able to push himself off the bed to shakily stand on one foot. He braced against the nightstand and shuffled to the wall with an undignified hop, a motion he was going to be repeating a lot around the lodging.

Slowly, Jasper made sure to take his precious time that he didn’t have much of to waste while he navigated himself along the walls out of the bedroom. Each shuffle made him wince and a few times he forgot out of habit to not rest any amount of weight on his left leg, causing him to yelp and stumble against the wall for support, further aggravating his tender shoulder. A few times he needed to stop and catch his breath, blinking away the stars in his vision and trying not to stare at the distressing mess of bloody shark teeth and viscera inches away from his ankles. Though the beast was long expired, Jasper could still imagine it suddenly jerking forward and clamping down on his legs. The imagery made him shudder, encouraging him to pick up the pace as he shambled around it into the kitchen.

The place was a wreck, as to be expected when the roof overhead was ripped apart and mounds of rotting animals were left to discolor the floor. The small dining set had become collateral damage as a result of the impromptu cave in, though the stove and water spigot remained unharmed thanks to their sturdy design. Jasper didn’t bother fishing for a clean glass out of the cupboard and instead braced against the faucet to drink directly from the tap. Cool water flooded his mouth and it tasted like the sweetest wine Christ had to offer at the last supper. He sucked down many greedy gulps until he physically couldn’t anymore, pulling away to take a few deep breaths and returned for another sip. His thirst felt like it would never be quenched and Jasper swore he could swallow the whole ocean and it still wouldn’t be enough to wet his lips.

With the water dribbling down his chin, he decided to go ahead and just wash his face while he was already positioned under the water flow. It wasn’t as refreshing as a full body bath would feel, but it was still nice to scrub away the tears and grime and oil smudges that had been left to dry on his skin for some time. Being a tiny bit clean was better than not being clean at all. When he finally pulled away and turned off the water, he was a soaking mess. The front of his sweater absorbed most of the overflow while water dripped from his face and pushed back the curls that framed his face. Jasper didn’t bother drying himself off with his sleeve or looking for a hand towel, the cool touch of clean water gave him a bonus perk of energy he needed to get through this.

Now that the first thing on his to-do list was taken care of, it was time to search for some scrap wood that wasn’t too jagged at the ends and would fit the length of his lower leg. Two pieces would be ideal to have on either side for extra stability, but he could make do with one if that was all that was available. Shit, how was he supposed to keep it pinned to his leg, anyhow? He couldn’t just roll down his pant leg and shove it underneath, he needed a restraint of some kind. If only Jasper was blessed with forethought instead of hindsight to go scoping out emergency supplies when he first arrived at the lodging instead of assuming he’d never get grievously injured on the job. There probably wasn’t any tonic in the first aid kit that could magically heal broken bones, but there might have been gauze he could use as a wrap. 

Right now, he was in no condition to go searching through the lodging on the hunt for medical supplies that may or may not even be here, nor did he have the time. He’d have to make do with an alternative, like tearing the bedsheets or something. Well, come to think of it, many of the personal belongings left behind in the bedroom were articles of clothing. Jasper could cut up one of the long sleeved shirts or a pair of trousers to use until something more sustainable came along. The other keepers wouldn’t mind, it’s not like they were ever going to be worn again. What a morbid thought. 

It was good that Jasper was not a picky man and selected two pieces of wood that were close enough in size rather fast. He was almost certain one of them was a chair leg, not that it mattered the sort of his makeshift splint. The trip back to the bedroom was just as difficult as it was to leave, maybe more so now that it was his injured leg on the same side as the wall he needed to scoot against to retrace his steps with two wooden splints under his arm. It took much self restraint for Jasper to keep from collapsing back in bed and dozing off until the creature came to pester him. Now that he was showing signs of life again, he was sure the being would have something in store. He needed to be prepared for anything, including his end.

The bed sagged when Jasper dropped himself at the foot of it to take a break. And to think he was so hopeful that by the end of his contract he’d have built up his stamina and core strength enough to run marathons. Instead, he had almost no function of his left leg and he was winded from walking to the kitchen and back. Utterly pathetic. Nevermind that, he’d have to wait and feel sorry for himself and his failures of being a man later, his leg needed to be taken care of. The wardrobe was too far away at the other side of the room, but the trunk he had originally found the keeper’s journal in was still moved by the bed from when Jasper was being nosy. It felt like a further disgrace to the poor keeper to not only read, and at times mocked, their personal thoughts, but to now soil their clothes.

He needed to think with a positive attitude, like how he was positive he was screwed beyond all help. The sacrifice of a few shirts was the keeper’s final good deed for the world, helping Jasper survive a wee bit longer with the chance of getting off the island if he could somehow hold down the fort until Hershel arrived. Unlikely, but he could dream. There was nothing else keeping him going. Jasper felt around his pockets and cursed when he didn’t find any of his usual belongings where they should be. No matches, no knife, no film roll – they must have fallen out sometime between his tumble down the stairs and being carried off to bed. Hopefully the former keeper had some extra goodies to share with him; they had served him well so far.

Jasper scoured the trunk like he was looking for lost treasure. A soft, white button down shirt was set aside on the bed to be used as wrapping. A hefty pair of pants were also claimed in case he needed more hearty material, though it would be more difficult to cut into strips. Other items Jasper had previously overlooked were given a second chance at being useful and stuffed into his pockets – a chain without a pocket watch, a pencil, a handkerchief, a folded mirror. What he was going to do with any of these things, he hadn’t the slightest clue. Somewhere along the way they could find their purpose and he didn’t want to be without them when that happened. Good thing his pockets ran deep for him to horde his new arsenal of tools!

His scrounging paid off when he inspected a side pocket within the lining of the trunk and found a gold letter opener. The blade wouldn’t be sharp enough to slice skin, but the end was pointed enough to draw blood with enough force. It wouldn’t make for a very good weapon against the creature should it come down to that, not that Jasper thought he stood a chance in any form of combat if it proved to be aggressive. The upside was that it should be able to tear a shirt to ribbons and that was all he needed it for. Working with zero medical expertise was challenging as he wasn’t sure if he had the wood supports properly straight or the wrapping tight enough to hold it all in place. Every time he wound another strip of fabric to sandwich his throbbing leg between the splints, he barely stifled a whimper. Too loose and the bone wouldn’t stay still, too tight and he risked cutting off blood flow and losing the whole leg.

Once he was as satisfied as he could be with his handiwork, Jasper tested the durability of his splint by gingerly moving his leg back down to the floor. He wasn’t stupid enough to try and stand on it, but he did shift to put a bit of weight on the left side of his body. Pain throbbed in every muscle as was to be expected, however he couldn’t feel the bone grinding against itself as terribly as it did before and the wood didn’t budge. That looked like a pretty good success to him! He’d feel proud of his accomplishment as an amateur doctor if it weren’t for the fact all this would be for naught when the creature came to steal him into the unknown. Or eat him. Or kill him for sport. Lots of possibilities.

Well, the last item on his bare boned schedule was the impossible task of getting out of here alive. He would have preferred to have done so also in one piece, but the mottle of purple decorating his fibula said otherwise. What constitutes as ‘here’, anyways? Did he want to get out of this room, out of the lodging, off of the island? Yes, yes, and yes. It wasn’t going to be that simple, however, with each location being harder to fully flee from than the last. Going down the hilly slope and walking through shifting sand with his broken leg sounded like hell. Jasper would honestly have better luck taking a second tumble through the grass until he landed at the shore than to hobble down on his own. And then what was he to do when he got there, he still didn’t have a replacement boat unless one had magically washed up the night before last. Plus he was meant to do all this before dusk in a couple hours when the creature would make another appearance? Not happening.

So, he made his goal smaller. Can’t escape the island yet, could he escape the lodging? Physically, he could, but then he would just be sitting out in the open waiting to be snatched up. There was a chance he could clamber up to the lighthouse, though going uphill with a bum leg sounded even worse than going down. Not to mention there was nothing in the lighthouse for him to do at any rate. He certainly wouldn’t be climbing up and down the very same stairs that battered him, hefting oil cans and weights with him to boot. Hiding out in the basement was a viable option as it seemed like a place where the creature was unable to bend its hand in or peer at him through its lack of windows. But there were no supplies like food or water or toiletries and all he’d have to keep him company was the hole that led into a tunnel system of death. Yeah, it could be worth exploring if he was destined to die anyways, if only to answer the mystery for himself before he ceased to exist.

Escaping the lodging was plausible in the future, but right now Jasper had to cross it off his list and narrow down even further. Escape the room? Sure, he could escape the bedroom, he had technically already done that when he shimmied against the wall into the kitchen and back. There was nowhere else to really escape to as the lodging was only designed to hold one man, thus was outfitted with basic necessities and walls to separate them. There was a bedroom, a kitchen, and a bathroom; what more would a lighthouse keeper need for a four month contract? A billiards room? Jasper would make sure to throw out that suggestion to Swarde & Sons if he ever made it back to mainland for the next poor bastard they swindled into signing up for the job.

Muted sunlight was fading fast, smearing the gray skies with an ombre of pinks and orange. In another hour or so, he’d be able to tell if he had any extra luck with the lighthouse still shining. He wasn’t sure if that would lend him much mercy to whatever the creature might have planned for him now that he was conscious, but if nothing else then it shouldn’t be crossed with him and his lack of due diligence. Time was ticking away too fast for Jasper’s liking as he had yet to formulate a good enough plan to survive the night. The bitter reality was that…well, there really wasn’t much he could do in this situation. He was a rat trapped in a cage waiting for pest control to make their rounds and be put out of his injured misery. Gnawing off his tail might free him from the mousetrap, but it wouldn’t swing open the hinges to the carrier. 

…but maybe…if the exterminator thought the cage was empty, they wouldn’t bother looking for rats inside…

Jasper couldn’t run, he sure as hell couldn’t fight, so he was going to have to swallow his pride and hide. Truthfully, he didn’t have a lot of pride left to lose, though rather than taking the coward’s way by squirreling himself away forever (or until Hershel could save him), he only needed to stay hidden until the creature lost interest and gave up the search. If he rinsed and repeated this tactic for enough nights, it may be fooled into thinking he disappeared during its morning absence to never be seen again. And if the island looked abandoned with the lighthouse unmanned again, Swarde & Sons would send a replacement for him posthaste, which meant an even sooner rescue! Yes, yes, everything was coming together for once during this godforsaken tenure! 

The lack of light being cast against the grass outside confirmed his fear that the lighthouse had finally gone dark after three days of overworking. Orange skies were making way for purple tones and Jasper knew he had less than an hour to find a suitable hiding spot. The lodging was small with sparse furnishings, leaving him with limited options. Trying to hide in the kitchen was out of the question seeing as that’s where the creature’s main point of entrance was, not to mention the table had been demolished by its carelessness of breaking and entering. The bedroom had potential if Jasper could wedge himself between the wall and wardrobe, or even under the bed. However, this was the last place the creature would have seen him when he was bedridden and therefore the first place it would search if it was smart enough. Besides, crawling on his belly to squeeze under the old bed frame meant he would have to get down on all fours and somehow back up with a broken leg. That left the bathroom which only had a basin tub to offer him coverage around himself. Not a bad idea, save for the small window over the toilet that gave a full view inside for giant eyes. If he could find a way to cover the window…

No time for that now. Hanging up shabby curtains would have to wait and be a project for tomorrow if he lived to see the day. As he was still in the bedroom with only minutes to spare, it was going to have to be this room that he sought refuge in. If Jasper trusted his agility, he might have tried to climb into the wardrobe itself and shut the door. Knowing his luck, however, he’d probably lock himself in and suffocate before the creature even bothered to search the room. Another skeleton in the closet for Swarde & Sons reputation, he figured. His saving grace was the small gap between the far wall and the heavy furniture, just big enough that he should be able to wriggle his way in the opening if he sucked in his chest. 

A few odds and ends had already been shoved in there by keepers trying to make space with their belongings. Jasper wasn’t too worried about discarding them around the room as he doubted the mess would make a difference to the creature. A few umbrellas tossed on the bed wouldn’t be a dead giveaway to his location if it never knew where they came from to begin with. It took some skillful balancing on one leg while resting his shoulder against the wall for Jasper to be able to stand in front of his hidey hole and clear out the space. Two umbrellas were moved to lean against the old trunk, a jacket left hanging over the top corner was pulled down and thrown on the bed, a broken mop that was meant for the trash got tossed towards the doorway where the shark resided. A few books were stacked on the floor which Jasper didn’t think he’d be able to reach, but when he bent down to try, he wobbled and knocked his arm against the wardrobe before he could steady himself.

From behind the furnishing, something rattled loose and fell against the corner wall with a light thud. At first, Jasper was mildly frustrated at the prospect of clearing out more hidden items when he was already pressed for time. However, when he reached for the new burden he’d have to throw away, he was pleasantly surprised to find what he grabbed was the curved head of a cane. 

He blinked and pulled the walking stick out for him to see in all its forgotten glory. There was nothing special about its design – strong and straight, made from a faded dark wood with a few nicks at the bottom from usage, a smooth hand grip to hold. It was exactly the kind of cane he’d see veterans and the elderly use around town to make walking on cobbled paths easier for their bodies. For a job that required so much walking on uneven grounds and staircases, Jasper wasn’t sure why a keeper with a disability requiring the support of a cane would be considered a suitable candidate. Then again, who was Jasper to judge when he had never met the fellow it belonged to? Who’s to say they weren’t twice as competent as him at the job even if they could only be on their feet for half the time? Plenty of fishermen suffered from missing limbs and loss of senses, but that never slowed any of them down from reeling in their nets to feed everyone.

Besides, it was Jasper who was going to be needing the cane to get from point A to point B in a reasonable amount of time. Never look a gift horse in the mouth. 

He tested out the cane and found it to be almost the perfect length for his height, even if it was a little awkward to hold as he needed to wield it in his non-dominant hand to substitute as his left leg. The wood showed no signs of damage or weakness when he put a bit of his weight on the support to see what it could hold and to his elation it didn’t bend when he bared his whole body down on the handle. One man’s trash was another man’s treasure, as they say. Although, the man who needed the cane prior probably didn’t think it was trash. Jasper hoped he didn’t need it now, wherever he was.

The end of the cane helped Jasper to smack the books out of the way and clear enough space for him to get both legs in the gap. Already this thing was coming in handy! It took a bit of maneuvering himself, his busted leg, and his new third appendage until he wormed himself into the tight space as far as he could go. He was confident that he was completely concealed from view, even if he would be easily accessible should the creature tip over the wardrobe.

No sooner had he wedged himself into the gap did he pick up the telltale signs of the creature’s arrival. A full body shiver racked his bones from its presence alone, though he couldn’t see what its vicinity really was. Jasper could just feel that it was near. Like a suffocating wave of fear trying to drag him out into a sea of dread. He couldn’t feel the burning stare of wide, black eyes boring down on him which was good. The wardrobe was out of sight from the kitchen and the only window in the bedroom faced away from the wall he was smushed up against. There should be no viewpoint the creature could use to its advantage, unless it decided to tear up the rest of the roof and peer down overhead or tear the rooms to shreds in its search. He desperately hoped it wouldn’t be too dedicated to finding him.

Little thumps could be heard on the roof above Jasper and trailed towards the gaping hole in the kitchen area. There was no way the shoddy wood beams of the original roof structure would be able to hold the massive size of the creature without caving in, so he didn’t think the noises he heard were it crawling around. If it was able to shove down metal doors and slam through freshly repaired ceilings, it could smash the lodging if it felt inclined at any point. Jasper could only assume what he was hearing, similarly to the thuds he heard following him down the lighthouse, were the creature tapping and roaming its hands around where it knew its new captive was hiding. It felt like it was trying to mimic the courtesy of a knock before entering someone’s private domain, a little heads up that it was coming in regardless if Jasper wanted its company.

Or maybe it was partially blind from staring directly into a light source for ten hours a day and needed to feel around to navigate. Probably not as moths were pretty adept to work in the dark hours of the night, but Jasper didn’t know how he felt trying to give the creature polite, human characteristics. He didn’t know where it would have even picked up such mannerisms unless it had stalked humans and their quaint behaviors for some time. There was even the possibility that manners like knocking existed within its own species, assuming it was knocking to give a friendly how do you do to begin with. The thought made Jasper’s empty stomach feel queasy. As much as he wanted to believe the creature meant no harm, the risk of trusting it offered too big of a fatal mistake to take lightly. It was better to avoid than to find out the hard way.

The creature trilled outside, deft fingers trailing along the roof while it presumably tried to look around inside. Jasper could hear shuffling in the hall followed by a nauseating squelch of meat. With his back pressed against the wardrobe, Jasper wasn’t able to peek around the corner to see what disgusting act it was doing, though following its pattern of habits it was either poking the remains of the shark to see if any bites had been nibbled from it or leaving a fresh gift of butchered fish. Possibly both. The smell of newly dead sea animals made his mouth salivate, not out of hunger, but as a precursor to vomiting. God no, he had to swallow back his gags before he risked his retching giving him away.

More movement could be heard in the kitchen where it pawed around the wreckage of the ceiling and dining set, chirping and chittering all the while. At times, the light coos sounded like the monster was directly calling for Jasper like a mother hollering that supper was ready for her children. Thanks, but no, he had no desire to eat what it had brought only to be snatched up afterwards as dessert. When Jasper didn’t respond to its calls, not that he ever had before when he was drifting in and out of sleep on bedrest, the creature gave up on its cheery rumbling to investigate. He could tell it was moving its body around from how the roof creaked and the debris in the kitchen scratched the floors from being shoved out of the way. It must be angling itself to get a better glimpse into the kitchen and through the doorway that led to the bedroom where Jasper should be resting.

Upon seeing that its little human was nowhere to be seen, the creature gave a curious noise. Jasper could imagine it tilting its head like it had done back at the lighthouse when it first noticed him standing around. The gesture would have been cute were it not being done by an unnatural being that was scaled up too tall for comfort. It called out again, waited, and tried to search deeper in the lodging after Jasper failed to appear in front of the creature. Shadows creeped along the wall in front of him where thin fingers attempted to reach through the bedroom doorway. It had no idea how close it was to being able to brush against Jasper’s trembling body if only its shadow was solid. Though its arms were the length of the entire lodging, the blackened tips of its fingers were only able to graze against the bed he should have been laying in. The unfortunate angles of the hole in the roof and series of doorways meant it had to contort the limb and restrict its full access.

It couldn’t see with its arm in the way, so the creature blindly felt around where it could with soft touches. The fingers drummed against the floor and it cooed again to entice Jasper out of wherever he had gone, beckoning him to come within grabbing distance. The creature bumped against various items he had strewn around while it searched for anything human-sized, never lingering too long on objects that were not Jasper shaped. He felt like he couldn’t breathe, regardless of the fact the limited space between the wall and wardrobe prevented his chest from fully expanding. His hand that didn’t have a white knuckled grip on the cane handle slapped over his mouth in an attempt to silence his pants should they slip out as whimpers. Unless the creature started tearing through the walls to make more room for movement, it wouldn’t be able to touch him or the furnishing. Saved by the grace of a mere foot.

After its search brought up nothing, the hand retreated from the room and Jasper dared to let out a shaky sigh of relief. His leg started to throb again despite the cane helping to alleviate any weight on the bone. He was going to need to sit down soon or risk falling over and making a ruckus before the creature left, ruining any chance of survival he had scrounge up.

‘ Please leave, please go, please, please, please ,’ Jasper mentally begged over and over. He wasn’t foolish enough to start praying to a God he never bothered to rely on until now. If such a higher power existed, he was sure it would smite him out of spite for only bothering Him in his time of need. ‘ I don’t know what you want, please, just leave me alone! ’

Jasper wasn’t going to be tricked by the stifling silence into assuming the creature had taken its leave after growing bored by his absence. It was biding its time, willing to wait around until he was lulled into a false sense of security and scampered back out into its line of sight. Finally, finally , after an unbearable amount of time spent counting his breaths and willing his quivering right leg to not give out under him yet, the lodging creaked with movement to signal the creature was prowling again. Once more, it tapped its fingers along the floor and walls and roof, the sensation vibrating through the wood beams from too many directions at once. It unnerved Jasper how so many sounds could surround him, but he refused to give into the discomfort. A few more chirps and coos tried to grab his attention until all fell into an uneasy quiet again.

The roof groaned as the pressure against it eased away. A few more pieces of crumbling wood around the edge of the hole splintered and fell to join the growing pile of debris in the kitchen. Aside from that, the noises ceased from the kitchen and Jasper felt the imaginary suffocation loosen its hold on his heart. There were no thundering footsteps that might sound like a retreat, though come to think of it he couldn’t recall ever feeling it walk around him, meaning it was either light on its feet or flew away under the cover of night. He couldn’t be too eager in revealing himself from his hiding spot on this off chance this was still a trick. For all he knew, the creature had only moved itself to be crouched in front of the door for Jasper to swing open and come face to maw. Intelligence and intentions were two things he couldn’t underestimate with the unknown being.

God, but his broken leg was really, really, really killing him in this tight space. The throb in the muscles had gone from aching to burning and he was losing the strength to stay upright even with the cane. He needed to sit down, or lie down, just for a moment to work up his energy again. On the bright side, so much agony was focused on that one limb that he hardly noticed the minor pain the rest of his body was signaling from continued overuse. Even the headache had subsided once his heart started pumping more erratically, dulling the pain with a brief shot of endorphins to keep him going. By now, the sun had disappeared to wake up the other side of the world while the moon took its place. The lodging hadn’t an ounce of light save for the moon that offered a small fraction through the hole in the kitchen. Even the stars had been mostly blotted out by clouds threatening to storm at some point in the night.

So that was that, then. For the first time during his month on duty, the lighthouse remained dark. How many could see his blunder from Evermore, he wondered. Was Swarde & Sons already drawing up the paperwork to send a new lighthouse keeper on their way come morning? With the storm trying to brew, Jasper hoped there were no boats out tonight that may sail too close to the rocky edge of the cliff. Or, if they did, could they drop anchor for a spell and let him hitch a ride back to town? He sighed and let his head hang forward, thunking it against the wall and sending a brief tingle of pain to his temples. Fuck, he was fucking fucked. Jasper had no idea how long was long enough before he could risk wiggling out from the gap to find somewhere comfortable to recuperate. 

With no natural light in the sky to dictate the passage of time, Jasper hadn’t the faintest idea whether he was waiting for ten minutes or an hour. His leg couldn’t stand the cramped space coupled with uneven weight much longer and he hesitantly had to call it quits. Screw it, it had to have been long enough. The creature’s fixation was with the lighthouse, not Jasper, so it must have lost interest in him by now. Surely it didn’t lament over every keeper that randomly disappeared, provided they hadn’t gone missing by the monster’s doing. It probably expected a new toy to harass for weeks on end within two days time. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and winced, preparing to force his stiffened muscles to shuffle back to bed. Bed sounded so nice. To sleep away the entirety of night if he was lucky so he wouldn’t have to deal with the drawn out hours.

The room being plunged in darkness did not help in the slightest as Jasper tried to get solid footing while shimmying against the wall. He planted a hand on the smooth surface to help pull himself out until he could turn his legs in the proper direction, sucking in a pained gasp through his teeth when he accidentally smacked his broken leg against the wardrobe. Another great purpose of the cane was that he could glide it across the floor in front of him to avoid tripping over any of the junk he carelessly threw around earlier. The creature fiddling about probably didn’t help with the location of the messes either. Crippled and blind, great perks he had never thought he’d experience at the tender age of twenty-two. If he was lucky, maybe he’d go deaf next, just to complete the trifecta. 

Shuffling at a snail’s pace, Jasper managed to pop free from the gap to have full reign of the bedroom. The cane served him well at detecting where the edge of the trunk was now catty corner from the foot of the bed and a couple articles of clothes that may have tangled around his boot if he wasn’t careful. Fortunate was never on his side for long; with his great idea of using the walking stick to both balance himself on one leg while sweeping the ground for obstacles, he failed to consider the possibility that his support may get caught on something while he was trying to take a step at the same time. In the back of his mind, he knew it was those damn books he smack out from where they were stacked. Never disrespect the power to knowledge like it was a golf ball, regardless if it was a life or death situation. 

He yelped when he started careening towards the ground, surprised to find his legs no longer under him. Brutal flashbacks to the lighthouse staircase repeated in his mind, even if the fall to the ground would be nothing compared to the beating he already took. Jasper released the cane to put his hands out in front of him to help break his fall and hopefully not land on anything hard that the creature may have moved in its prodding. Pain flared up in his leg when he caught himself on his knees, saving himself from being winded if his bruised chest slammed on the floor instead. Though it was tempting to let his hands and knees go lax so he could fold into a sad, miserable heap on the floor, Jasper forced himself to clamber to the bedside to preserve just a modicum of dignity. Tugging himself up from his knees with the bedsheets felt as if he was trying to scale a mountain with only a hanging rope. The way his arms strained to hoist him up and over the side of the mattress made bumbling toddlers look like professional athletes.   

Damn, he hadn’t felt this exhausted since the very first time he went all the way up and down the lighthouse’s spiraling stairs on his starting night. To think he had only dragged himself up two feet off of the ground and was equally winded from the ordeal. Another blow to his esteem, nothing new these days. The bed creaked as he finally situated himself to sit and take in the events from the last few hours. Jasper didn’t think he’d be able to handle the mental overload of trying to compartmentalize the whole half week of hell, wanting to start off small instead. A weary sigh escaped him and he sagged, propping his elbows on his thighs and scrubbing his face. He was almost terrified to look at himself in a mirror, wondering how ghoulish he must look with rings under his eyes and pasty complexion. 

What was he going to do?

Sleep. Sleep sounded nice. Sleeping under the circumstances sounded stupid and dangerous when the creature was still lurking around. Sleep sounded like it could turn off the troubles of the real world for a little bit. Well, what else could he do while trapped in the lodging in the middle of the night? He couldn’t light a lantern, not that he had his matches on hand to do so, as the pinprick of fire would alert the creature of life within. Wandering around a cramped house with garbage littering every room on a cane was just begging to end in disaster. 

A rumbling boomed overhead and Jasper froze. It took a solid minute of sitting petrified, only able to hear the thudding of his heart in his ribcage echoing in his ears, until his shoulders relaxed. Not the creature, just the familiar sounds of a coastal storm gearing up for mayhem. Oh, fantastic, just what he needed, a thrashing of rain to flood the lodging thanks to the hole in the kitchen ceiling. That, including the slippery grass and mud pits that were sure to form outside, was really the icing on the cake to prove how trapped within the bedroom’s four walls he was. Thunder rang out again as a warning of things to come. So far, the sky remained dry, only passing a chilled breeze through the lodging and making Jasper shiver, even in his grimy sweater.

The breeze also carried the odor of dead seafood from the doorway. Jasper wrinkled his nose, wondering how he was going to clean up that mess when he could barely walk more than five feet. Touching the pile would alert the cryptid that something was ‘eating’ the offerings, which would A) be an obvious indicator that Jasper was still inside somewhere and B) encourage it to hunt for more to replenish the food source. Ugh, despite having grown up in the fishing town of Evermore, Jasper would never be used to the stench of gutted fish like everyone else seemed to be. Coupled with the visual of slimy entrails and bulging eyes…thank God for the darkness covering the hallway’s massacre because he was very close to making himself sick.

Thunder cracked again, louder, and a flash of lightning accompanied it to light up the room from the window. Still no pitter patter of raindrops to make Jasper worry about catching pneumonia on top of everything else wrong with him. With any luck, this would stay a simple heat storm and pass over with a couple booms and cracks, but with Jasper’s luck, the storm would grow into a full fledged hurricane targeted only on the island. Why must the universe hate him so? Was it because he refused to believe in the supernatural despite the tales he had been regaled since he was a young lad? Having his sanity spooked out of him should have been punishment enough, in his opinion. No need to go as far as to sicc a cryptid that not even the townsfolk murmured about on him to prove a point.

Thunder. Silence. Thunder . Lightning. Thunder . Silence. Lightning. Thunder. Silence. Silence. Lightning. Shadow.

…Shadow?

Yes, shadows formed when there was an object standing directly in front of a light source and blocked it from reaching anything else. With his head still in his hands, Jasper had been watching how the sparks in the sky would make the room flicker like the pop of a flashbulb. He thought back to the missing camera a few times, still disappointed he had lost the film roll. Who knew what kind of things the keeper had unwittingly captured in photographs, never to be developed. The black outlines of himself and the furniture stretched forward across the floor before disappearing back into the darkness of night that surrounded him. Yet when the next flash of lightning illuminated the sky behind him, he remained swallowed in darkness with only the thinnest of light peeking through the edges of the window. The storm must be picking up pace. Clouds swollen with rain were coming in to block the loud and angry ones t–

Tap tap tap.

Jasper’s blood ran cold. Any color that might have snuck back into his cheeks quickly drained away. N-no, no, just rain, had to be rain, three fat drops of rain from an errant shower that had already moved on. The prickling on his neck begged to differ, warning him that the window to his back was going to be the death of him. No, no, no, the creature had no reason to come back for a second look, Jasper hadn’t done anything to warrant its attention! He was mistaken, he was paranoid, if he turned around he was certain he’d see nothing to cause him any alarm because he had tried so hard to keep his plans from going off without a hitch. With a gulp, Jasper turned to look behind him out the bedroom window and saw…

…nothing. Just as he expected all along and most certainly did not fear he wouldn’t. Just a fully black scenery that came with the late evening hours. The storm clouds sure must be raging as Jasper couldn’t even see a single star in the sky, blocked out by the masses.

A flash of lightning followed by a deafening crack of thunder rang out and Jasper’s worst nightmare stared back at him. The sky only needed to be lit up for a brief second for him to take in the full horror that crouched beyond the window. A white halo out light created a striking outline of its body, cutting into sharp creases of shapes that didn’t make sense. None of the details he caught made the imagery any better, disappearing into the night before Jasper could realize what he saw and put it in place. The creature was just as close to the window as it had been when it peered through the lighthouse. Its face took up most of the window pane, though Jasper could see the tip of a finger curled at the sill from where it had tapped for his attention. Said finger knocked against the glass again followed by a croon now that it knew they were focused on each other to communicate.

No sense in pretending he was anything but terrified that he had been caught in his earlier deception. The sight alone tore a shriek from Jasper, his instincts trying to run on autopilot and instructing him to bolt without a second thought. He hadn’t even fully straightened his back when he scrambled to stand when his leg, still broken and throbbing with agony, twisted under the sudden pressure and sent him back onto the floor for a third time. A cry of pain caused Jasper to choke on the lump in his throat, tears springing to the corners of his eyes while his body chastised him. His breathing was ragged, bordering on hyperventilating, but he was unable to focus on anything but the window. It blended in to be almost invisible against the stormy backdrop, worsening Jasper’s panic at being unable to see its moves. He could hear it chitter and shuffle around, tapping its fingers against the glass again when it pressed against the window.

He crawled backwards in an effort to put some distance between himself and the hand that had a knack for breaking through flimsy barriers in its way. The length of the dropped cane brushed against his forearm, Jasper promptly snatching it up as his only means of defense. Obviously, it was going to do much damage unless he managed to jab the end of it into one of the creature’s round eyes, but it provided an iota sense of security that he needed more than anything. It visibly wobbled in his hands as they trembled, unable to hold straight and look at least a bit threatening. Why would the creature be threatened by what was essentially a dull toothpick pointed in its direction? After it chomped Jasper in half like it did with the shark, that might be exactly what it uses the cane for.

His throat was tight and dry, bobbing with each gulp he tried to swallow down. It was a losing battle as each breath he sucked in was immediately exhaled in rapid succession, tightening his chest with the feeling of suffocation despite the fact he had plenty of air to breathe. The problem was that he couldn’t hold it for longer than a second before it escaped in a raspy wheeze. Little spots speckled his vision, egging on his panic that he was on the verge of passing out if he didn’t settle himself soon. He tried, he tried, but he couldn’t. The agony from his leg and the anxiety in his heart was making his head swim and his eyes water. Maybe it was the idea of masculinity instilled in him, or maybe it was his last inkling of dignity he had to spare, but he refused to break down into a blubbering mess in front of the monster. That wasn’t the image he wanted to leave behind when he went out. It may make no difference to the creature whether he cursed or cried, but it was the principle of the thing.

The sky lit up again with two more flashes of lightning, helping to hold the visual of the creature outside a little longer to gauge its intentions. Thunder muffled what Jasper assumed was more trilling noises it was trying to make and when he didn’t respond how it wanted, it moved away from the window entirely. Fuck, fuck, no, he couldn’t lose sight of it no matter how sick it made him feel to be locked in a staring contest. Not knowing where it scurried off meant it could ambush him from any direction, giving him little to no time to prepare a reaction that might get him out of this mess. While the creature had a knack for being light on its feet thanks to its aerodynamic ability, it didn’t bother to silence its movements around the lodging as there was no need to be sneaky. It saw Jasper and Jasper saw it. The element of surprise was long gone. The roof creaked and shifted as weight passed over it, tapping and scuttling against the shingles.

Jasper anticipated it was heading to the point of entry it had made for itself in the kitchen, yet he still couldn’t move fast enough. Shock kept him firmly in place like a quivering statue, like if he stayed still then the lurking predator wouldn’t be able to find him. Considering said predator was already on its way after holding him in its line of sight for a good minute, on top of having what he could only assume was natural night vision to navigate in the darkness, there was no reason for his instincts to impede him in his escape a second longer. The fact that he still couldn’t move his leg without receiving a sharp throb straight to his hip didn’t help in trying to twist around. He hadn’t even turned enough to push himself away from the door frame when fingers curled around the edges like spider limbs. Dark tips blended in too well with the already unlit room, making it hard to see their shapes until they were already on the move.

Its hand twisted and lightly scratched against the floor to get as close as it could to where Jasper huddled, much like it had done previously during its search for him. A frigid sensation trailed against his side, forcing his body to jolt like the shock of ice on bare skin. He was in grabbing distance and they both knew it. All it would have to do was hook a finger or two around his torso and it would be able to drag him out and up. The creature made a happy croon when it felt the soft texture of Jasper’s sweater beneath its fingertips, going in for the (maybe literal) kill to grab him. Jasper wanted to scramble away, but there was no room for him to go without the hand snagging him first. Even if he didn’t have to drag himself like a mudskipper, he’d never be able to dodge the nimble digits. It wouldn’t have mattered; it already knew he was in the bedroom, it was just a matter of getting him out.   

Not if Jasper could help it!

The fear that once locked his joints solid was now pumping his bloodstream with the adrenaline to fight. In a snap, his arms were moving on their own accord to wield the cane in both hands and swing as hard as he could at the creature’s fingers. He really didn’t think he’d be able to do the kind of debilitating injury to it like he had sustained from his fall down the stairs, he just needed it to back off so he could put some extra space between them. The handle of the cane smacked against the knuckle of the creature’s middle finger with a satisfying thud of wood on bone. If anything, it probably hurt like a bitch for a couple seconds, which was better than Jasper was expecting to get. He didn’t know if he truly caused it pain or if it was only shocked to feel him retaliate, but the creature yipped and flinched its hand away for a moment.

“Get back, get back! ” Jasper yelled, slamming the head of the cane into the pad of its fingers when it tried to reach for him again. “I said get away from me! ”

Like most living things, the creature didn’t appear to like being physically assaulted no matter how miniscule the attack was. Too bad, Jasper didn’t like being under house arrest by a monster he wasn’t one hundred percent sure wasn’t hostile, yet here they were. Those other keepers had to be missing for some reason or another due to the creature’s involvement. He smacked the hand with the cane when it went in for a third time, hitting the sweet spot of the crook between its index and thumb to strike whatever nerve was under its flesh. Fear made his blood run cold yet he was working up a burning sweat. His arms held fast with each swing in the air he took as a preemptive warning to the creature to keep its distance, grunting with each arc. It didn’t sound like the creature was too happy with this development judging by how its chittering went from peppy coos to annoyed clicks.

Annoyed , not angry, just mildly inconvenienced by the human fighting for his life. The two of them sat at a stalemate for an uncomfortably long stretch of time – Jasper panting with the cane raised over his shoulder to strike and the creature’s hand drumming idly against the door frame. Belatedly, he wondered if all its little taps and knocks weren’t just to grab his attention, but to help it…see, in some way. To feel out the proximity of things without actually feeling them, an additional aid to being able to see during any hour of the night and not worry about bumping into things on its flight path. There was a word for that, he was pretty sure. Whatever the word was, it was severely screwing him over as the creature redirected its plan of attack for a fourth attempt.

Almost hesitantly, the hand reached for Jasper as it had done before, but flicked back right as he took a swing. He missed, predictably, yet the fingers didn’t retreat back to the door like they should have. Instead, with the cane still pointed in its general direction, the fingers pinched the length of wood and held it still to prevent any more flailing. Jasper yanked the cane to rip it free of the creature’s grip, trying with all his might to budge the object and only proceeding to make his shoulders sore.

“L-let go!” He yelled. “Stop it, let go!”

Rather than release the cane like he commanded, the creature gave an experimental flick that painfully jerked Jasper's arms down. It damn near tore his arms out of their sockets, but he refused to lose his hold. With him still clinging to the other end, it wiggled the cane to try and shake him off that way, eliciting a panicked cry.

“St-stop, stop! You’re going to break it!” Without the cane to help him walk, he was done for. Jasper couldn’t be certain he was ever going to have the ability to walk again when everything was said and done, to be honest. Even if he were to spend the rest of his life hobbling away from the creature around and around on the island, he needed the additional leg support to make it anywhere. And if his leg didn’t heal straight by the time… if he ever got home, he’d be relying on it much, much longer.

It almost sounded like his desperate cries made some sort of impact on the creature. Did it understand human words? Did it care what they meant? So far, it hadn’t made any attempt to mirror sounds that Jasper could construe as intelligible conversation beyond a lilt of tones it made from chirping. Either way, it took his plea to heart and stopped waving the cane in a manner that threatened to snap the wood in half. The alternative it offered was hardly any better, yanking the cane forwards towards the door like it was reeling in a fish on a line. If Jasper wasn’t going to relinquish his stubborn hold, then the whole thing was just going to come with him.

It was all he could do to twist himself to be dragged across the floor on his hip rather than having his broken leg squashed under him. Jasper tried in vain to continue their one sided game of tug-o’-war, though with no traction for him to steady himself it was hard to label this a competition of strength. He didn’t want to let go of the cane and risk losing its valuable assistance forever and he was just shy of being willing to dangle from his hold on the handle when the creature inevitably lifted him out of the roof. What neither of them took into consideration, it seemed, was the pile of fish guts still festering in the hallway that Jasper was dragged right into. Disgust overrode impudence and he was forced to release his end of the cane to shield himself from rotten flesh smearing on his chest. If he thought the stench of death was bad when it was wafting towards him ten feet away, it was even more horrendous to experience the slimy carcasses on his person. He wasn’t sure if it was better or worse that the atrocious feeling had coated itself on his clothing rather than exposed skin.

Jasper couldn’t describe what kind of noise he was trying to make other than that it was one of utter repulsion. His mouth opened to cry out, but quickly clamped shut once a taste of the putrid air hit the back of his throat. If he could throw up anything solid, he would. Instead, he had to settle for his stomach retching with nothing to purge, each wet gasp inviting in more odors to his lungs. Bracing his hands against the floor to shove himself out of the path of marine viscera did little to quell the burning in his throat when his palms squished down on cold and slippery who-knows-what. This was the only time he felt he was grateful to be in such intense darkness, if only to save himself the extra horror of finding out what organs were currently being squelched between his fingers. Broken leg be damned, Jasper flung himself away from the unwanted food pile and half-dragged himself into the hallway. 

Shit. He’d cornered himself, now. Actually, he was always cornered, but it was so hard to get out of the mindset that he did have the chance to get up and run that he kept forgetting he was more fucked than he actually was. Oh, the things you take for granted, like the use of both legs and walking unassisted. To his back was the bathroom with only one way in and out, to the front was the front door blocked by the gooey remains of fish and shark entrails, to his right was the creature and its grabby hands.

“Fuck…,” Jasper groaned. Nowhere to go but the bathroom, though he doubted the safety it offered would last long.

It was his only option; he needed to take it. If he could just crawl forward a little bit, he should be able to pull himself up and lean against the wall for support to shamble to the bathroom. The hallway was short, but it may have been a mile long horse track for Jasper in his current state. He rolled onto his belly with a whimper when the hard floors pressed against his abdomen, stretching his arms out and hoping he had enough upper body strength left over from swinging the cane to be able to haul himself over to the wall. The creature was unimpressed by the lack of human attached to the cane it pulled out of the lodging, dropping it with a clatter amongst the other wreckage in the kitchen. Though Jasper wasn’t directly in front of it, he was much closer than he was when he had been holed up in the bedroom and therefore easier to get a hold of without blindly feeling around. 

He was barely to the baseboards when a hand came creeping from the corner of his eye. The bend of the hallway from the kitchen was still a bit cumbersome for the creature’s scale, but it was undeterred. Two slender fingers poised themself to squeeze down on his ankle, his left ankle, ready to drag him back where he belonged. The scream that ripped out of his chest was borderline feral, an unbearable sensation of pain he’d never experienced before blinding him as soon as the creature clamped down on the broken bone and pulled . If he had hoped it was only a fracture before, it had to be a clean shatter after that. The muscles in his calf and shin spasmed as pain receptors fired off from every damaged nerve, his thigh and hip bearing the worst of the aftershock while his swollen foot went numb from shock. White filled his vision, accompanied by a ringing in his ears that Jasper realized afterwards was the echo of his own cry. Tears freely cascaded down his cheeks in continuous rivers, not that Jasper registered the feeling at all.

By some miracle, the homemade splint around his leg hadn’t been damaged by the monster’s careless touch. His whole body shook as if he was convulsing, bitter bile rising in his throat to be spat out on the floor between heavy pants. Immediately after the wave of agony enveloped every fiber of his being, it receded into a faux numbness that felt akin to an out of body experience. Jasper was in his mind, but not his body, free of aches and tingles for a blessed handful of seconds before he was slammed right back into reality. He didn’t know when the creature let go of where it had tried to grab him, probably when he howled in rabid torture and scared it enough to not try that tactic again. Scared of hurting him or scared by the unexpected scream, it was hard to say. Definitely not scared of Jasper no matter how deranged he sounded. At least it didn’t have a physical reaction to being startled by flinging him into a wall by accident.

Why couldn’t he just lay on the floor and force his body to sink into the floorboards to rest underground? Why did he have to keep fighting an unwinnable fight to survive another minute of this hell? Why not give up and accept what would be coming whether he wanted it or not rather than drag out this infuriating game longer than needed?

Because he was a man, a fighter, and he was not going to give the creature what it wanted after everything it’d indirectly done to him. Not after what it had done to the other keepers, especially poor ol’ C.A.R and their window Elisa. He owed it to the ghosts of the lighthouse to carry on their fighting spirit for as long as he could, willing them to lend a hand and bestow upon him the sudden knowledge of the island’s filthy secret so that he might defeat the beast once and for all.

No such luck. Worth a shot.

Sorry physical limitations and mental overexertion, but Jasper couldn’t wait for a full recovery to get moving again. His head was fuzzy with static and every wheeze was accompanied by a pitiful whimper, limbs trembling all the way down to his fingers and toes, yet he pressed on. He had to. He didn’t know when the creature was going to try to grab him again and the bathroom door was so tantalizingly close. Whether the creature was positioning itself for a new form of attack or trying to give him a breather before spring more distress on him, he couldn’t tell. Thunder and lightning and creaky roofs and chitters were unable to impact the senses hyper focused on getting him over the bathroom threshold. Every grunt, every gasp, every sob brought him another inch closer to sanctuary. 

He wasn’t keeping track of the time that passed, but Jasper was a little surprised (and suspicious) that the creature had yet to reach its hand down the hall for him after his fit. Did it assume he had died of whatever injury garnered such a reaction and taken its leave? Probably not. He hadn’t the faintest idea what it could be biding its time for however. Maybe it wanted to let Jasper experience the triumph joy of freedom by successfully barricading himself with the toilet as one last mercy before it demolished the whole lodging as payback for him not playing along. It was working because once he felt the transition from bare floors to cool tile along his chest, he dropped his arms in relief. Dragging the rest of his body inside and slamming the door shut felt like a tedious afterthought, but a necessary one if he didn’t want a repeat of his leg being grabbed.

Once he was locked inside the even smaller prison, the floodgates forced themselves open. His trickle of tears coaxed out by physical hurt was nothing to the mental torment that had been raging behind his damp eyes for weeks at this point. Justified paranoia and shame that had been building up as the mystery came to a head finally decided now was a good time to seek an outlet. He was an idiot, a failure, a sorry excuse for a worker, a pathetic fool, a bumbling coward. He was scared, and hurt, and painfully lonely, and terrified of the unknown. He wanted to go home, to tell his father he was right all along, to get a humble job at a storefront, to be able to walk without limitations. How had everything gone so bad so quickly? Why did everything have to end on such a chilling note? Why hadn’t he been a good son and given his father a proper goodbye instead of holding on to his contempt over a couple tall tales?

Jasper’s shoulders shook as he sobbed into his folded arms on the floor. Not even the smell of old blood from the fish pile could phase him during his episode of self loathing. Every inhale he managed was lost to a hiccuping cry as tears soaked into the soiled sleeves of his sweater. He never should have taken this job, he should have listened to what everyone was trying to warn him. The question that still lingered amongst the other why why whys were why did the creature wait to reveal itself after so many weeks of working? He couldn’t imagine what kind of excitement it might get out of watching him work like any other hired hand, especially when he wasn’t as jumpy as most Evermore residents and wouldn’t be checking over his shoulder at every unusual occurrence. It couldn’t be because it wanted to get a rise out of him via hauntings, and it had even left what he assumed were well meaning gifts of food. That seemed like a reward more than a punishment. No motive he could come up with made sense. Nothing about this damn island made any sense!

Sob by mournful sob, tears slowly started to peter off from cries to whimper to the occasional quiet whine between stuttery inhales. As cathartic as it felt to finally air his grievances, it was equally exhausting. His heart felt heavier than his body, holding him down to the scuffed tiles and insisting it was totally sanitary to be pressing his tear stricken face to the bathroom floor. What stage of grief was this now, depression? How many more until he reached the end for acceptance and embraced his fate with open arms? He hadn’t made it that far, evidently. For once, Jasper focused on the sharp throb still beating through his left leg as a welcomed distraction from anything else his mind could wander to. His arms didn’t shake, but they were stiff and uncoordinated when he moved to push himself up into a sitting position. 

The numbness in his chest tried to spread like a disease to his brain with the goal of fogging up his thoughts. That was fine, Jasper didn’t have any more thoughts to spare. No more back up plans or last minute efforts, no more false senses of security to trick himself with. He pressed himself into the corner of the wall and door, mindful not to whack his temple on the sink beside him. Sweat and tears felt sticky where they mingled on his flushed face and he scrubbed them away with his palms, squeezing his eyes shut and pulling at his curls in a last ditch attempt to wake himself up from a wretched fever dream. It hadn’t worked yet, but if he kept trying…Jasper sniffled and sighed, lulling his head to smack against the wall and immediately regretting it when the cut on his scalp flared.

The lack of interruptions from the creature’s insistent need to make his life miserable should have tipped Jasper off that it was up to something. It had left him alone to his own pathetic devices for too long, which meant he wasn’t alone in the slightest. No taps shook the walls and no support beams threatened to snap, not even a little coo broke the silence to call him back. It wouldn’t have given up the chase so quickly, not when it knew Jasper was both injured and cornered in the only backroom of the lodging. All it would have to do was flick off the roof and the cryptid could scoop him up without further restraint. As much as he wanted to believe it was a dumb, stupid animal, he couldn’t deny that it had shown feats of intelligence for a bug-monster-thing. Being out of sight would not immediately put him out of mind, more than likely, and if it did, it meant he was never out of sight to begin with.

This theory was confirmed when Jasper finally opened his eyes and dared to glance at the small window positioned above the toilet (because privacy be damned when you’re supposed to be the only man on the island). It would be comical if the overall situation he was in wasn’t so heart wrenching with how he was only able to make out the shape of its eyes from the tiny cut out. Moonlight aided him in being able to see the outside world better now that the thunderstorm had quieted down, making the void of the creature’s scleras glitter like the blackened sea that surrounded them. He wished the cryptid didn’t have to be so massive when its features were quite pleasant from an objective view, very soft and innocent looking when he knew it was nothing of the sort. Well, kind of knew. There were still too many mysteries of the lighthouse island to definitively say who the culprit was, but considering the creature was his only main suspect and the personal perpetrator for many of the ‘hauntings’ he experienced, it was easy to assume it had done more nefarious deeds as well.

Jasper didn’t even try to hide the contempt that scrunched his eyebrows and pursed his lips. He didn’t know how long his pursuer idled outside, if it had watched his mental breakdown and had any opinions on the matter. Everything about the damn creature and the captivity it forced on him flipped between terrifying and irritating him. Namely the complete lack of privacy for Jasper to wallow in self pity like a grown man without having his emotional turmoil put on show for a being that may not actually understand empathy. Was it amused, confused? Did it think less of him now if its opinion on him hadn’t already been rock bottom? To hell with it! If he wanted his last moments to be the most pathetic he had ever felt, it was his damn right to do so, no matter what the creature wanted to dictate for him! Huh, Jasper thought anger was supposed to come before depression when it came to grief.

The creature stared at Jasper. Jasper glared at the creature. The creature didn’t move and neither did Jasper. They were locked in a stalemate of some kind, led entirely by the monster as he could do little else but watch for its movements. When it had yet to do anything but cock its head after he had gathered enough composure to not be a sniveling mess, Jasper felt a burn in indignance in his guts. Oh, sure, it could watch and do whatever it wanted no matter how severely it affected his mental and physical being, so long as it was entertained enough to keep up the grueling game of hide-n’-go-chase. At any given moment it could snuff out his life on purpose or by accident with its carelessness, having no idea just how fragile human bodies were compared to its own. And what could Jasper do about any of it? Not a goddamn thing. He had to take whatever it threw at him and hope he’d survive another hour into this unending nightmare.

For what? For fucking what? What could it possibly want from someone like him, from any of the previous keepers who must have met something akin to the same fate if they were all victims of the creature’s fancy? Surely it felt some semblance of care for them if it was trying to keep them fed and enticed with what it thought was a hearty food supply, provided it wasn’t actually trying to ward them off the island with the stench of decay from outside the lodging door. Its noted obsession with the lighthouse was the key to its confusing motive somehow, but for the life of Jasper he couldn’t figure out where he was supposed to fit into the equation. Guilt by association, perhaps. In its mind, it thought of him and the other keepers as proxies of its beloved lighthouse, therefore they also needed to be subjected to its whims for however long it wanted.

Not anymore. Jasper wanted out and he didn’t care how he got it or if it was by leaving this mortal plane instead of the island. He was tired of being jerked around by something he could barely comprehend existing a mere three days ago. There were some things ignorant humans didn’t need to get involved with, the supernatural being a confirmed threat was one of them. Stories can’t hurt you, but monsters tearing through the ceiling very much could. 

“What…what do you want? ” Jasper said. His voice was hoarse from sobs and his throat still stung from dehydration. He would have liked if the raspiness mixed with his already haggard physique helped to make him look intimidating, though he doubted his still puffy eyes were doing him any favors.

As to be expected, the creature did not answer his inquiry. It acted like it understood him to a degree, perking up at being addressed and blinking its eyes. He couldn’t tell if it was able to absorb the full meanings of his words or if it only recognized Jasper was speaking directly at it, not that it mattered if he wouldn’t receive a response. The lack of communication further frustrated him, wanting to make him yell and stomp his foot and demand the supernatural being to pick up on the English language so it could explain itself to him. He didn’t do any of that childish behavior, instead opting to scowl. 

“What? Are you even going to do anything?” At this, the creature chittered softly and leaned down a bit more. He could see the twitch of movement in its mop of hair, but it was too difficult to tell what it was. “What am I supposed to do, huh? Did you like watching me cry? You just want a front row seat to see me miserable?”

It tilted its head to the other side to regard his bitter question before turning away entirely to glance back at something behind where it was crouched. Jasper didn’t know why the innocent act enraged him as vehemently as it did. How dare it pick and choose when he was worthy of its attention, as if all he had to offer wasn’t good enough to hold its interest for longer than a few minutes. Before he could think what he was doing, his arm reached up to the lip of the sink to grab the shaving mirror he never used and hurled it at the creature. The solid iron stand smashed through the glass with a satisfying shattered, almost taking out the whole window frame due to its already small build. Just as he intended for some idiotic reason, he had the creature’s fully attention back on him when it flinched back at the noise and the minuscule shards that almost cut its cheeks. If only he had been able to throw the mirror a little harder and managed to whack the creature in the corner of its eye. 

Jasper grit his teeth when the creature crooned in confusion, knitting it brows at the cracked glass. Oh, he was sorry, did it not like when windows were smashed within inches of its person? If only Jasper could relate to such an experience, such as when every window in the lighthouse exploded to make way for a grabby hand. 

“Don’t you fucking ignore me!” He snapped. “Tell me what you want!”

He wished he had more things to throw at his captor, even if it was just to knock away the clinging glass out of the window sill in an attempt to prick the creature’s skin. Still, it did not suddenly gain the ability to speak in eloquent sentences to detail why it did any of the things it put all the keepers through. Rather than make an attempt at Jasper’s impossible request to vocalize beyond chirps, it reached its finger towards the now open window to poke around the entrance he created. The creature ran the digit around all the edges of the sill to break the remaining shards still jutting from wood, never once appearing like the dagger fragments tore into its flesh, or if they did it simply didn’t care enough to react to the minor nicks. Once the window had been completely cleared of debris, it tried to squeeze another finger through, only managing to get two past the cramped opening while still being unable to hook onto Jasper. A part of him wondered why it didn’t just rip a second hold into the roof like it had done to the kitchen if it wanted to grab him so badly.

Scoffing, Jasper foolishly gripped the side of the sink to help heave himself up, his new overconfidence overriding how adorably clumsy he looked trying to get his footing. “What’s the matter? Can’t grab me?” Where this self of arrogance was coming from, he had no idea. It was a dangerous game to taunt the being that had already forced him to swallow his pride more than once, but perhaps it was time it got a taste of its own humiliation now that Jasper had the upper hand. His advantage was sure to only last a few seconds before the creature grew fed up with his attitude and simply tore down the wall, no doubt. Jasper could deal with the consequences when they arrived.

He wasn’t stupid enough to bait himself and stand only inches from the monster’s curled fingers for further teasing, but he did move away from the corner he was cowering in to lean against the sink basin. So be it that his last words were full of venom and spite. It was better than tears and pleas, though any exclamation would still send him to the same place beyond the veil. 

“So, that's it then? You put me through a month of hell and you’re going to be bested by a lavatory window,” Jasper huffed a humorless laugh. “And yet, you still scare the shit out of me. I can’t tell which of us is more pathetic.”

In the grand scheme of things, probably Jasper. He was the one that had been having a panic attack face first on the grimy bathroom tile. Still, it was strange not to see the creature resort to brute force and demolish the lodging where it stood. Plenty of men would have done so if they possessed the size and strength of the creature, though maybe that was a testament to the violent nature of humans compared to whatever cryptid species this thing belonged to. The only reason Jasper could reckon for its reluctance to cause destruction was because the bathroom was already cramped and he was holed up inside, meaning he was at risk for serious injuries if walls and wood beams came crashing down on him. Too little too late, he groused as his broken leg sent a sharp stab to his inner thigh when pressed his heel against the floor. To be fair, the creature didn’t technically snap the bone itself, but Jasper never would have sustained the multitude of wounds from tumbling down the stairs if it weren’t for the fact the monster was chasing him.

The yank it gave to his leg definitely didn’t help either. He’d be lucky if it didn’t do any long term nerve damage, though it was still too early to tell. Jasper didn’t know how many, if any, of his words had an effect on the creature, but its fingers retreated from where it was trying to dig around the room to be replaced with its wide eyes again. Did it feel offended by Jasper’s taunts, or was it merely intrigued by his continued babbling that it wanted to listen to the funny sounds? Again, what did it matter? He was stuck in here and the creature was stuck out there.

“Never imagined I’d live out the rest of my days in a washroom of all places,” Jasper said. It was mostly mumbled to himself; an observation that the creature couldn’t get in and he wouldn’t be getting out, leaving them both trapped in the confines of a seven by seven room. Well, only Jasper was trapped in the room itself, but the creature was too preoccupied with the contents within to flaunt its worldly freedoms. “Are you happy now? Is this what you wanted? I’m thrilled to die in a week a foot away from a toilet because you wanted to be a bastard.”

Oh, the tempting urge to curse the creature up and down with such vitriol words that would make the town preacher shudder from across the sea. Jasper was never one of those men who swore absolute filth like a sailor, even if he did think of a dirty word now and then. He liked to think of himself as polite and respectful to a degree, at least biting his tongue so nothing too profane slipped out in front of any women or holy men. But this creature was not a heavenly being nor a proper lady…was it a lady? A man? Was it anything? Thinking of what might be between its legs was not what Jasper needed in his mind, especially when it was none of his business how it presented itself. 

If he could stand straighter and cross his arms, he might stand a shot at looking a little bit imposing. However, he couldn’t risk not having at least one arm holding him steady at the sink and heavily favoring the right side of his body. Still, he narrowed his eyes and clenched his free hand into a fist against his pants. He looked like a kicked puppy more than anything, almost asking for another beatdown to get him back to submission.

“...are you just going to fucking stare at me all night?” Hm, what else could he throw now that he had a clear shot to its face? He still had that other mirror in his pocket, smaller than that shaving one he just hurled. “That’s it? That’s all you wanted this whole time? I can’t believe how…how…Jesus Christ, what is wrong with you?!”

Now isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black. His brief triumph of being able to hash out some of his pent up frustration had sadly come to a close. The status quo of the creature being a terrifying entity and Jasper being the petrified keeper begging for his life needed to return to normal. No more smart mouthing, no more faux bravado. He could see the creature lift itself up slightly as the black eyes disappeared out of sight of the window frame, passed its button nose, and now revealed its mouth. For a moment, Jasper thought it was still repositioning itself as it didn’t make any sense why it needed its lips in his view. Not unless it was going to suddenly speak, which he still doubted was possible.

No, it was worse than he could have imagined. The soft lips parted slightly to allow a thin tongue to slither out and extend through the open window. To Jasper’s horror, it continued to lengthen, far past the typical size of a tongue even when taking the creature’s expansive size into account. The appendage came closer to Jasper, so impossibly long that he couldn’t comprehend how it could close the distance that its fingers couldn’t. 

“Wh-what are you doing?!” He asked, like it wasn’t obvious. “Stop, st-stop! No! ”

He couldn’t move back fast enough without tripping over his two feet, not that it would have made much difference as the locked bathroom door sealed him inside. The corner he had called sanctuary wouldn’t have been any more help, anyways. The thin muscle coiled around Jasper like a fleshly lasso, ensnaring one of his arms to be trapped against his side while the other was still able to flail free. And flail he did, digging the heel of his good leg into the tile to try and reel himself backwards while his hand pushed at the tongue to get it off his person. It didn’t feel…wet, per say, not in the same way humans and dogs salivated. But it was cold and taunt, an unnatural sensation that Jasper didn’t like having wrapped around his midsection. He tried to wriggle his fingers between his waist and the appendage to pry it off, cringing and crying out when it wouldn’t budge.

“Let go, let me go!” Twisting his body side to side only encouraged the tongue to tighten its hold on his wiggling form. It wasn’t tight enough to bruise, but it was aggravating his already sore muscles more than he liked.

The real terror didn’t set in until he was lifted off the ground, only half a foot or so, causing him to yelp and scramble to find purchase in case he was dropped. Jasper managed to grab the edge of the sink and held fast, praying his five fingers would be able to save him as he was guided towards the window. The tongue was retracting and looking to take him with it, bringing him into the outside world where its mouth would be waiting for him. Oh no. Oh no, God no, please. He was going to be eaten, it was going to slurp him into its maw and toss him back with one swallow. That was if it was feeling merciful, who was to say it wouldn’t chew him up a bit before sending him on his way to be bug food.

“No, no, no, please! Pl-please, I’m sorry, I-!” It’s tongue pulled him again, his grip on the metal basin slipping as he was unable to compete against its strength. “Don’t do this! I don’t want to die, I don’t – ah! ”

His fingers slipped over the sink and he had lost his only anchor. With nothing holding him back, the appendage maneuvered him out the window. Honestly, he was surprised it didn’t bonk his head on the sill while pulling him out as he thrashed and squirmed, whirling his free arm to try and grab hold of anything. No such luck, Jasper could only watch through teary eyes as the tongue withdrew into the cavern of its mouth, bringing him closer and closer to his doom. He was back at stage one of the cycle of grief, or whichever was the one that pumped his heart full of vigor until it felt like it would explode. He changed his mind, he wasn’t ready to give up on life anymore, he wanted to survive! He didn’t want to meet his end, not like this of all fates. That would explain why there was never anything left of the other missing keepers to find, perhaps even going as far as to theorize it was just trying to plump its future meals up with fish offerings. As many keepers came and went, it would have a pretty steady food source.

Jasper couldn’t help but sob, not that there was much else he was capable of. The tears that dropped from his cheeks mixing with the crusted fluids of fish guts must taste delicious on its tongue. “No, please, please ,” he had to keep trying to reason with the creature’s sense of empathy, anything to get him a few spare seconds of life. “Don’t!”

The creature didn’t.

There was maybe about a foot between himself and the creature’s lips when the tongue stopped receding back into its mouth. He could feel puffs of warm breath ghosting against him, the heat making him shiver still in the cool night air. No fangs that he could see peeked from under its lips which was a small mercy on its own to know his flesh wouldn’t be torn to pieces. Being so close to what he assumed would serve as his final resting place finally rendered Jasper speechless, waiting for the bite that would cut off his uneven breathing forever. All he could stare at was its thin lips, neither ticked up in a smirk or curled into a frown, oblivious to the chance of taking in the rest of its facial features while he was up close and personal. Its mouth never widened to accommodate his size and its tongue didn’t pull him any further. He wondered if it was savoring his struggles before gulping him down, the idea earning another hiccuping whine.

The creature tilted its head; not up, like he was expecting, to toss Jasper in its mouth to the back of its throat, but down for him to be cushioned by two cupped hands. Once he was seated between the cold fingers, the appendage around him relaxed and unwound from his midsection. It felt like a snake slithering off him, making him shutter at the equally distressing feeling. The tip of its tongue trailed up his neck as it disappeared, running across his red cheeks and redder curls before disappearing into a closed mouth. Jasper couldn’t move. The other shoe had to be dropping any moment now. At long last, the creature had succeeded in getting him caught in its slender hands for…whatever reason. He had been so convinced he was about to be eaten moments before that he forgot there were other possibilities it may have planned for him. Being a late night bite wasn’t off the table yet if it decided to take him back to its nest and save him for later. Perhaps that was where the body in the tunnel came from, a meal that had escaped before being finished.

Once again, Jasper and the creature were in the midst of an uncomfortable staring contest. It would have been morbidly ironic if after all this, it simply clapped the hands cradling Jasper shut to squash him like a pesky fly. The creature was so big that it was hard for him to pick one spot to focus on, his vision still blurred with tears he was trying to blink back. Did he look at its face, or its chest, or its arms, or its hands? Too many options were crowding around him. While the distance between them was closer than it had ever been, it was still difficult to make out a lot of what Jasper was seeing in the dark of night. Unlike the creature, who could probably make out every tiny detail of the man imprisoned in its hands. He hoped it liked what it saw, with his shoddy cast work made of scraps on his left leg and the dark circles contrasting under his green, bloodshot eyes, matching the mess of curls that had grown out and tangled. 

Yeah, his quivering body must be something to behold. Whatever it was about him was enticing enough for the cryptid to consider keeping, if only for a little longer. Its arms moved down past its chest when Jasper made the observation that it was wearing something different since the last time he saw it. The fact that it was wearing anything was strange enough to give him pause. Before, he remembered seeing fluffy tufts of fur that covered its neck and below its clavicles. In its place now was the loose wrapping of fabric around its shoulders that ended just above its stomach, almost like a poncho. There was no way such a thing was handmade and tailored for the creature to wear when it wanted. Well, there was no way a human would have made the shawl for it, so it must either be skilled in textiles on its own or its wayward colony was more sophisticated than he thought.  

Jasper stopped his descent when he was in front of its abdomen, the hands closing around him more to fasten him in a covered hold against itself. With limited space to struggle and the compression of its hands pushing him close, he was forced to press himself against the monster much to his displeasure. Any attempts at putting his arms out to gain a fraction of personal space was foiled when its fingers nudged him in place. Not only were its fingers always like flexible icicles, but its core temperature was nonexistent, like it didn’t produce any body heat. The lack of warmth made him feel as if he were cuddling a corpse, earning a shiver both from the visual and the coldness surrounding him. Weirdly enough, Jasper could feel a soft texture under his hands that was certainly not bare skin. It was short and silky, too coarse to be fur but too soft to be body hair, unless it was a mix between the two. Seemed like a useless trait to have if it could barely keep the creature outwardly warm.

If Jasper thought he felt sick when the creature first shifted itself to stand at its full height well above the lodging’s roof, then he was feeling downright terminal when he felt himself lifted higher in beat to its wings flapping. He was ashamed to admit that his fingers threaded the furred exterior of the creature and held on for dear life, unsure how many dozens of feet he had been sprung up into the air. All wriggling ceased to ensure he wouldn’t slip out of its delicate hold and plummet below to the rocky shore. Where was it taking him? To its hidden nest, maybe a collection of nests like a cryptid commune for him to be shared around? Would it drop him over the middle of the ocean as a final kick to the teeth for being so difficult? Jasper didn’t have much time to ponder where he would be landing as he was already back on solid ground before his stomach had finished flipping from the upward momentum.

The flight itself had only lasted a few seconds. Upon reaching their destination, the creature pulled Jasper away from itself to drop him onto a hard surface while it continued to hover. He was only released about a foot above the floor, the creature clearly expecting him to catch himself and land on his feet when it released him, but that was a bit difficult to do when he was down the use of a leg. He probably deserved the unintentionally rough landing after trying to act so high and mighty with it. It was too disorienting to tell where he had been dropped off at for him to know which way to lean his body for additional support, causing him to crumple when his left leg tried to stand and collapsed under him. Jasper crashed onto metal with a groan, banging up his elbows. Damn it all, why did everything have to be made of steel and iron? 

Before he could compose himself, two icy touches pinched on either side of his chest to haul him to his feet. The air was squeezed from his lungs, the stars in his vision now spinning faster while he tried to steady the world around him so that he could steady himself. Once he was upright, the hold released, and he was again forced to bear his weight onto his broken leg which gave out as expected. This time, he pitched to the side and was able to grab onto a railing that encompassed the ground he was on, preventing him from getting any more bruises to his growing collection. Jasper cried out at the stab of pain he felt, but the creature wasn’t deterred by his dramatics and attempted to make him stand for a third time. To the creature, it might have thought it was helping by guiding Jasper to balance on his two wobbly feet, however all it was doing was worsening the agony from the irritated limb. When he was unable to keep upright without his left leg, Jasper fell backwards onto his rear with an embarrassed yip. Tears were trying to wet his lashes again, an involuntary reaction to the amount of pain throbbing from his foot to his hip.

He could see black-tipped fingers creeping towards him again, ready to scoop him up and be disappointed when Jasper still couldn’t miraculously stand on both feet. As best he could, he crawled backwards to avoid the hand closing in on him, shaking his head to convey his point.

“N-no, stop!” He cried out, hoping his tone and physical cues would give a hint he didn’t want to be touched anymore. “I can’t, I can’t st-stand on my leg.”

The hand curling towards him paused and pulled away, leaving Jasper with the chance to finally view his new surroundings along with the creature. Immediately, he recognized that he was on the outside walkway of the lighthouse, which explained why he was only airborne for a heartbeat. He’d only been outside on the path when he needed to clean the window enclosure after the glass became smudged and risked the light being less visible. At the time, he had assumed it had something to do with the salty sea carrying grime through the fog, maybe some seagulls flying into the window panes. Now, he had a sneaking suspicion that had he had wiped away were markings of the creature’s overly touchy nature.

Without the storm to light up the sky with quick, bold flashes, Jasper had to rely on the faithful moonlight to give him any sort of guidance. For the most part, he was able to make out the dark shapes in the distance and could see what was immediately in front of him, including the creature. In all the times he had come uncomfortably close to its being, he never really…considered all of its details. It was the least of his worries to memorize the creases of its eyelids or the colors of its cheeks when he was focused on living another ten minutes. Jasper had already observed the confusing basics of its build – wide black eyes, blackened fingertips, dark skin and darker fur on its head and chest – but there were so many more obvious abnormalities that he felt like a blind fool for not picking them up sooner. Some of it he already had a hunch, such as the two twitching antennae poking out from under its bangs and the rounded wings that protruded from its back.

The extra pair of arms was new.

He supposed he had always been so preoccupied in avoiding any hands feeling around for him that he never bothered to notice which arm it was attached to. No wonder it was able to sound like it was tapping at all angles or cutting him off quicker than he could outrun them. The other oddity that stood out (well, many oddities stood out to him) was why it felt the need to clothe itself, if only from its chest to its neck. It understood the concept of clothing, though maybe the idea of modesty was lost in translation. Not that it needed to cover anything else up of course, seeing as its entire body was covered in short fur, aside from its clavicle and the top of its head where it grew much longer. The fur concealing its body also didn’t extend past its neck where the larger tuff was, revealing skin instead. While the moon illuminated the shapes and features of the larger portions of an already giant body, the intricacies of its wing pattern and fur colorings were lost to the darkness. At best, Jasper could tell it had a color palette of blacks and…browns. Tans? Maybe some white? It couldn’t be anything too vibrant as it appeared to naturally camouflage in the night.

The monster regarded Jasper for a moment before turning heel and flying off down the slope towards the shore. He didn’t bother trying to follow its flight path before its shape was lost to the darkness below. Alone again. Trapped again. So many gears were turning in his head that he could almost feel the smoke billowing from his ears, trying to piece together any type of motivation that made sense. The creature was obsessed with the lighthouse, that was a given. It had some weird, counter-obsession with the keepers as well, possibly between the connection to its beloved beacon they had. It liked the keepers enough to try and convince them to stay with gross fish piles, but it didn’t take too kindly when they tried to flee allegedly. What the hell did any of this have to do with Jasper?! Was he a pet or a food source? A prisoner to the other world until another offering could take his place in four months? Nothing made any logical sense!

It was when Jasper leaned his head against the cool railings of the walkway did he happen to catch a glimpse of the damage on the other side. At first he thought it was a trick of the light coupled by the budding migraine behind his eyes, but he squinted and focused through the glass dome to confirm there were shards littered about around the east facing window. That was damage it certainly didn’t have before he went on house arrest. He was already grasping at straws for most explanations, but the creature doing willing destruction to its obsession didn’t fit the bill. Then again, it had no problem blowing out the windows down the tower of the lighthouse in an attempt to grab Jasper, so maybe this wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. Destroying it out of anger still didn’t make sense even if it was a temper tantrum that the current keeper wasn’t playing nice. It might be inclined to break a few windows out of necessity, yet for what…? If the generator wasn’t running then the light was going to be out, it wasn’t going to be able to jiggle the beacon inside like a dying bulb for a quick fix.

The more he scanned the inside of the enclosure, the more broken glass he was able to see glimmering in the moonlight. Cracks and gaping holes in the panes stood out from the starry skies and he was fairly positive the railing was warped from what he could see. The other side of the walkway was where the entrance into the lighthouse was and where it seemed like most of the damage was sustained. But Jasper hadn’t been at his post in days and the night he was attacked was primarily on the staircase, it had never gone after him from the landing, unless he was too concussed to remember. The creature had no reason to go digging around where it knew he wasn’t. On top of that, it was incredibly sneaky whether it was trying to be or not; naturally light on its feet and hardly leaving a trace of evidence beyond the feeling of unease and fish. To do such obvious and extensive damage to the outside of the lighthouse for seemingly no reason was extremely out of character. 

Jasper was so lost in thought trying to piece together a timeline of destruction that he hadn’t even realized the creature returned, a testament to its creeping nature. His mind came to a screeching halt when something clattered against the metal walkway next to him, causing him to startle and smack his head against the railing he was leaning on. He sucked in a grunt through his teeth and did his best to ignore the ache that rang in his ears. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust after straining them through the dark to see what was on the eastside of the dome. A few, teary blinks and he was able to see in front of himself again without the image being too blurry. At his feet was the familiar elongated shape of the wooden cane he had grown attached to. The relief that washed over him was like meeting an old friend after so many years apart, despite having only gained and lost it a matter of hours ago. Jasper never thought he’d be able to use the wonderful aid of assisted walking for the rest of his stay on the island again!

He looked between the cane dropped at his feet and the cryptid warily. This had to be a trick of some sort, something hidden up its sleeve that would cost Jasper more than he could afford. It moved to brace one pair of hands against the railing while it hovered with small flutterings of its wings, waiting for him to accept its gift of his own property. Actually, not really his property, either. Finders keepers. Jasper swallowed thickly and furrowed his eyebrows, still staring with trepidation at the creature. It sensed his confusion and chittered softly, nodding its head in the direction of the cane and, when he still didn’t claim it, reaching another hand up to push it closer. Yes, he saw the cane, it was never a matter of him being blind and stupid, but what was the catch? This felt like too nice of a gesture to come with no strings attached, but maybe that was Jasper’s inner pessimist coming out and expecting the worst from the creature. Even now, he was surprised by the depth of its intelligence, always underestimating its ability to comprehend anything on a human level. It remembered the cane and was able to pick it out of the pile of kitchen debris, it knew it was vital to Jasper being able to move on his own, it recognized his words enough to fetch what was needed so that it could continue forward with its own goals.

Jasper didn’t like how smart it was proving itself to be. It was easier to pretend it was a big, dumb animal with the same brain size of a common moth, guided only by natural instinct and zero critical thinking. Knowing that it could understand actions and the good or bad consequences that followed humanized it on a level he was not comfortable with. He supposed it shouldn’t come to too much of a shock that it was smarter than the average bug seeing that it was a freakish hybrid with some familiar parts of a human. Perhaps intellect was one of the traits that carried over along with a few physical attributes. The monster chittered at him again to encourage him to take what he so desperately needed, the ends of its antennae twitching eagerly. Hesitantly, Jasper reached for the cane without ever breaking eye contact with the creature in case it wanted to pull any funny business. It made no move of trying to lunge towards him or to take back the cane as a cruel joke, only crooning in delight when he finally grabbed the handle.

A brief inspection showed no splintering or anything down the length of the walking stick, thankfully. Nothing but a couple new nicks in the wood from being thrown around the wreckage of the lodging and dropped on the walkway. Honestly, that was more than likely the least amount of superficial harm this poor cane would be experiencing for a long time under Jasper’s new ownership of it. It would be a miracle if it lasted long enough for him to return to Evermore’s mainland before it snapped in half. As wrong as it felt to show any type of manners to the creature, the last thing Jasper wanted to be stuck with was a supernatural bind akin to the fae owning humans for not being polite enough for the faux gifts they bestowed. He doubted this thing was any kind of fairy despite its winged appearance, hell he still didn’t believe fae existed regardless of what he’s gone through this last month, but he couldn’t take that chance. The supernatural worked in mysterious ways and Jasper knew next to nothing about what the rules were meant to be with mothkind.

“...th-thank you,” Jasper mumbled, ducking his face away to hide his burning cheeks. To think he was cussing it out only moments ago and now he was showing it gratitude, if only to avoid potentially being indebted.  

The way the creature pleasantly bristled and chirped told Jasper that it accepted his praise for its bare minimum good deed. Its fingers drummed with excited impatience as it watched him climb against the railing to hoist himself up on one leg, fiddling one handed with the cane until he had a comfortable grasp on the handle and could balance himself with its aid. The grated metal on the walkway posed a bit of a challenge for Jasper to navigate on the uneven surface without getting the tip of the cane stuck, but nothing he couldn’t handle. Slow and steady was all he needed to take it at, he was in no rush to get anywhere when there was nowhere else to go. Evidently, the cryptid disagreed with this dull walking pace. It was already circling ahead of the balcony and calling out for Jasper to catch up, vibrating the metal with its hyper taps. He almost feared if it kept rattling the walkway that the rusted screws would break free and he’d be going down with it.

It was hard to keep up the pace with something that was much larger, and could fly, and was not slowed down by a broken leg. Every time he managed to catch up to where it was waiting for him, it would circle away further around the walkway and chitter. Jasper could almost hear it lamenting about how slow he was going and to please get a move to follow it. Why the hell was Jasper following its unspoken directions, anyways? Simple, because he had no choice. His only other options were to sit and pout until the creature took action for his behavior or throw himself over the railing and hope he breaks his neck before it catches him. Neither of those sounded too appealing and, if he were to admit it to no one but him, he was…curious as to what it wanted. That was the question he had been asking all along anyways, what do you want? Now it was trying to give him an answer, though he would have preferred a verbal explanation rather than finding out on the spot. From what he could tell, it was leading him to the east side of the enclosure where it had last left its handiwork.

“If you wanted me to go inside, why did you drop me on the exact opposite side of the entrance?” Jasper huffed when the creature fluttered forward a few feet again. Wouldn’t it have been easier to push him through the hatch if he had been placed next to it?

The creature paused and tilted its head in consideration for Jasper’s point. It must be growing tired of his snail’s pace because it reached out to him with the intention of plucking him up and carrying him over the rest of the way. Should have kept his mouth shut if he didn’t want the help. Jasper wasn’t having any of its crap this time, it had already gotten to pick him up once and that was more than enough in his book. He leaned against the rail for support to be able to wield his cane up and jab it in the center of its encroaching palm, halting it in its tracks.

“No,” Jasper said firmly. When the hand that could have very easily smacked the pointed object out of its path to him pressed a little hard, he returned a shove of his own. “I said no . Leave me alone.”

Surprisingly, the creature relented and returned to its mile a minute tapping to tell Jasper to get a move on already. The petty part of him wanted to hobble extra slow just to get on its nerves, but if he moved any slower then he would be standing still. Each wobbly step brought him closer to the mess that had been left for him to deal with at some point. Metal rungs from the walkway were bent and the enclosure of the light itself was missing two glass panes, the shattered remains littering the inside and on the balcony. The door that led to the inside of the lighthouse was completely ripped off its hinges and discarded God knows where, the once rectangular door frame now warped into a shape he couldn’t begin to describe. Big enough to fit an unnaturally large hand through, that was for sure. He wasn’t looking forward to seeing what the inside of the lighthouse looked like if this was the condition of the outside leading in. The work table was probably demolished and jerry cans littered about, though that was technically his fault for bringing up so many and leaving them there.

“Christ, what did you do?” Man, Hershel was going to have a conniption if he saw the state of the lighthouse. Maybe the destruction of the lodging would soften the blow. Actually, it would be Swarde & Sons who would have to deal with the cost of repair for both buildings which would undoubtedly come out of the hefty paycheck Jasper was supposed to receive. Great. 

Jasper took care not to drag his bum leg over the broken glass as he meandered to the newly resized door. He wasn’t much in the mood to go picking glass shards from where they embedded in his skin through the thin shirt wrappings. The creature looked ready to shove him inside the longer he lingered by the entrance, trying to get a glimpse of what fresh hell he’d be getting himself into next. Honestly, it was more squirmy than a mutt begging for scraps outside of the butcher's shop. Its chittering was increasingly insistent while all four hands felt the need to touch and grab every part of the lighthouse it could reach as if the whole thing might disappear should it let go. He didn’t know what kind of mess he was expecting besides one of great caliber, but what awaited him inside was not what he would have guessed.

It was a mess, yes. It would have been foolish to think there wouldn’t be any type of trashing inside after witnessing firsthand the extent of the creature’s gentle touch. It wasn’t always on purpose, in its defense, as Jasper knew it could be soft to some degree, but most times it didn’t realize the power of its own strength compared to the weak, man made structures until the damage was already done. The table hadn’t been knocked over, however it was shoved further along the platform and turned to a slight angle. Everything previously on top or under it was sent flying in disarray when it was moved, jerry cans kicked around and basic filing papers strewn about. That was about as far as the original mess went. It was the sudden appearance of new, out of place items that caught Jasper off guard. 

In the middle of the platform were two oil drums, both with their outsides stained black from oil sloshing over the rim during transport. The ground below had to be a sight to behold with how much liquid must be pooling by the front door. He wouldn’t be surprised if the whole damn floor was forever stained black. The rope for the weighted sandbag was also pulled up, though not properly wound back into the pulley system. Instead, the half weight sandbag sat on the floor with the excess of rope dropped around it. Even before Jasper lost one half of his pair of legs, he would never in a million years be able to drag one, let alone two , full oil drums up the winding staircase. No man could, realistically. It was clear as day that this was the doing of the creature and its superior strength (and inferior careful touch). This now opened the floodgates to many new things Jasper had to consider, such as how the creature was able to get the barrels out of the basement storage and how it grasped the basic understanding of a keeper’s duties.

Well, if it spent its time observing previous keepers like an ant farm to make sure they were maintaining the lighthouse, it naturally would have picked up the repeated process of oil cans and tossing sandbags. The creature knew the necessities of the job, but it lacked the small, delicate touch needed to go through with it. It probably already knew that it could break the generator and snuff out the light forever if it fiddled too roughly with it and even its slender fingers wouldn’t be able to untie the sandbag or wind the gears back on the pulley. Those were  jobs that required much smaller hands to complete.

Jasper glanced away from the familiar supplies waiting for him inside to the monster that hovered over him excitedly. It perked up when he showed understanding of what it was trying to convey to him with its obvious clues, cooing in question.

“You…do you…do you want me to turn on the lighthouse?”

It nodded. It fucking nodded . It gave him a visual response that he knew well and good meant total understanding. And it wasn’t a simple, single nod like men give in acknowledgement to each other when passing on the docks. It was several quick, short bobs of its head that showed anticipation to finally getting what it wanted. Dare Jasper assume, a smile even cracked in barely contained excitement. There was absolutely no mistaking what it was wanting from him at this point; it wanted him to do his damn job and return the glorious glow of light for it to bask in all night long.

“...huh,” Jasper said dumbly, because what else was there to say when one has confirmation that the creature inadvertently holding them hostage has full understanding of what they say?

Autopilot kicked in before he could dwell on the many implications that were pounding at the door of his subconscious. No, no, that was a problem for Future Jasper, as most things were. Right now, he needed to fulfill his contractual duties like a good lighthouse keeper. Ships and sailors depended on him to guide them through the dark waters, especially on nights like this where a storm was still debating if it wanted to fully brew. He just hoped he wasn’t too late and there weren’t any vessels claimed by the rocks and waves in his absence. It took a good minute for him to maneuver inside without tripping over anything that might send him headfirst down the stairs for a second time. Jasper made sure to tap the blackened grate with his cane to check that the spilt oil was dried before venturing further. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.

Doing the job was simple, doing it one handed was a different story. Half the task was already completed for him with the oil drums being at the top of the stairs rather than the bottom. He supposed it didn’t matter what kind of mess he made at this point, so long as the job got done. For once, the obnoxious clutter left behind by Past Jasper was of use to his current predicament, snatching up the closest jerry can and submerging it in the oil. Inky liquid coated his fingers and drenched the tin carrier, dripping fat streaks to the floor when he brought it back to the surface. He was never this messy before, but he was in a rush, and he also had the new challenge of trying to drag himself over to the generator without being able to lean on a wall or railing for additional balance. Every step felt daunting, having to balance most of his weight on either his leg or the cane while he dragged the other behind in shambling steps. Falling flat on his face would be bad enough. Falling with a full can of oil would be rubbing salt in the wound.

The long, arduous journey of five steps was done with minimum casualties, though Jasper wasn’t sure he had it in him to make a second trip. Sure, it was typically two cans that was needed to keep the lighthouse lit a full night, but they had already wasted a good portion of the evening into the early hours. This should be enough to scrape by until dawn when the break of day could be in charge of saving lives. His second priority was to reel the rope back into the pulley so that it could drop back to the ground again. Luckily, the sandbag was still attached from before, so while the beacon may turn slower at least it would still rotate regardless. That task was far easier than the first one as he propped himself against where the table was now shoved and tucked the cane under one arm to balance fully on his right leg. With both hands free, it was as simple as tugging one end of the rope back hand over fist until the other end pulled taunt from the weight. Another perk of having the job half finished for him was that he didn’t have to actually heave the weight of the sandbag up with his weakened biceps since it was sitting on the landing. 

With the rope line secured so that it wouldn’t immediately drop back over the edge, Jasper used his cane to prod the sandbag until it slipped under the railing to drop. Above him, the gears clinked and groaned as usual and the beacon spun in slow circles. Upon seeing the movement with, the creature gave a high volume trill and practically clung to the glass enclosure around the still unlit bulb, resulting in another series of cracks on one of the unmarred windows. Alright, time to give the bastard what it's been vying for since day one. A flick of a switch and pressing down two buttons helped the generator roar to life. It took a moment for the fresh oil to chug through its mechanical veins into the lightbox, fueling the tiny flame that danced within into a safely contained roaring blaze. With how overwhelmed the creature became at the sight of the blinding light, one would have assumed Jasper had freed it from lifelong servitude as opposed to doing the same thing he’s been hired to do for the last four weeks. It didn’t seem to have the same ill effect of scorched retinas from staring directly into open fire like humans did, eagerly pressing its face into the glass to try and become a part of the fire within.

Like a moth to the flame, as they say.

Now that light had been restored to the dreary island, Jasper took the time to really take in all the minuscule features he had missed on the creature without darkness or crippling fear holding him back. The dazzling smile that pulled its cheeks up was the first thing he saw, revealing white teeth and no abnormally long fangs. It was oddly cute, in a way. It made Jasper feel good to see, like he had done a good deed and was rewarded with pure happiness from another. If he hadn’t been practically forced to do its bidding at the cost of his leg and sanity, he might have given himself a pat on the back. Everything else was as he remembered, though now he could see the black markings on its wings that ran along the tips and veins, along with the details of its makeshift capelet. It was a grungy green color, not very fitting with its natural hues of brown and black, with no stitching done at a scale of a cryptid. While it flew around the light like it was dancing with the glow, Jasper caught sight of bold, white lettering that was tucked into the folds near its shoulder.

MADEUS

Madeus? What was a ‘Madeus’? Amadeus , like the shipping company from the opposite side of the channel? That would make sense if it was one of the tarps used to cover their open crates of trading goods. How in the world had it managed to snag one of those? Did it take it off a passing ship simply because it wanted to, or had the voyager been a previous victim to the ragged cliff side after a keeper disappeared the morning before, leaving its cargo to be claimed by anyone in the area? The worst case was that it had purposely caused the ship to sink in order to steal its scrap, but he couldn’t imagine it was that desperate for something it didn’t need. Or rather, it must need it for something if it felt tonight was a good time to wear it compared to other times. It was almost as if it was…a rain poncho, maybe? Something to protect its head and face if the clouds above decided to send down a storm after all. What a strange, strange creature…

Now that his new lifelong goal of satiating the creature of the island was fulfilled for the night, there wasn’t much else for Jasper to do. He’d have the rest of the night to listen to delighted chirps and purrs echoing around the lighthouse while the creature circled in view. It would be a fine time to figure out how the fuck he was going to get back down not only the lighthouse, but to the remains of the lodging. And also figure out what he was supposed to do with no kitchen and a bathroom that was locked from the inside. And also figure out what he was going to tell Hershel in two weeks time when he asked what the hell could have possibly happened. And also figure out if this was going to be a new nightly routine or if the monster would disappear now that it had made its point clear. He figured it wouldn’t bother trying to hide itself any longer since Jasper was well aware of its existence and what it was capable of if he tried to avoid it again, nevermind any future escape attempts.

If he tried to hitch a ride back to the mainland with Hershel when he arrived, would it stop the whole ship from breaking past the seawall? Jasper wasn’t sure he was willing to put Hershel’s safety on the line, but at the same time, he felt there was more to the grizzly old man that he was originally letting on. No way he hadn’t figured out there was fuckery afoot with as many men as he had dropped off and rarely taken home, but the question was how extensive was his knowledge?

Jasper felt like he was only collecting questions and rarely answers. For every explanation he got, he received fifteen open ended questions in its place. None of it was ever a simple answer either like ‘it was just the wind’ or ‘a bird dropped something’, it always had to be ‘a giant monster did it’ and ‘there’s a body in a tunnel’. He needed to stop trying to stick his nose where it didn’t belong and he wouldn’t have ninety percent of these headaches. Speaking of headaches, there was still one pressed at the back of his eyes that was coming back full force with nothing else for Jasper to be distracted by. He pinched the bridge of his nose and then rubbed his hands down his face, cringing when he felt oil smear against his forehead. Shit, he forgot about that, even though most of the crude had been rubbed off when he was fooling with the rope system. Fishing around his pocket, he pulled out the handkerchief he’d stowed back at the lodging when the pencil he’d also taken slipped free and rolled next to his boot. Right, he had pocketed a couple different goodies he had hoped would be of help.

Didn’t pocket the letter opener, though. That would have been handy in the event the creature tried to get grabby when Jasper wasn’t in the mood, not that he knew if he’d be able to pierce its flesh. Rather than bending down to reach the dropped pencil, he leaned back against the generator and let himself slide down until he sat with a soft grunt. It felt good to get off his legs again and he propped the cane up against the table’s edge beside him. Briefly, the creature stopped its unyielding staring contest with the unblinking light to regard Jasper and his change in height, assuring itself that he had not disappeared from view entirely, and resumed its hypnotic dance. Yeah, trust him, Jasper wasn’t going anywhere without some sort of assistance, much to his dismay. Hopefully the creature wouldn’t forget and leave him behind to crawl down the staircase step by step. If it left him trapped at the top of the lighthouse, it had a pretty solid chance of assuming he’d be right on time for tomorrow night.

Jasper picked up the pencil and considered the writing utensil. Hershel had recommended something about keeping his thoughts straight with notes or something, much like C.A.R had done. In fact, the journal from said keeper was only an arms length away next to a jerry can, still full of blank pages to be filled. He used his cane to drag the journal closer to him, a bit disappointed to see that oil had seeped through the cover and stained some of the paper within. Most of it was still good to use, at least. He wasn’t a fanciful writer like the other keeper who could pour out words in looping cursive, so whatever he wrote would be utter garbage in comparison. Whatever, it wasn’t like he was writing this to be the next great novel of Evermore, he was writing this to keep track of the several dozen questions he had and how many of them still needed a solid answer to be considered resolved. Best case, he would solve all the mysteries of the island without losing his mind or life in the process. Worst case, he’d leave behind a thorough guide to help the next keeper survive through their contract, just as the first keeper had unwittingly done for him. There was no sense keeping the same diary entry format, either. Shorthand and bullet points would suffice just fine.

The first two pages alone were just Jasper going in depth about the physical nature of the creature, sparing no detail so that it could not be mistaken for another giant moth person. He wanted to get every oddity this freak of nature toted before going on to describe the quirky mannerisms it displayed most often. It liked to tap, it was grabby which may lead to injury if one fought against it too much, its expressions were limited to vocalizations, it tilted its head when it was thinking rather than when it misunderstood, it really, really, really fucking loved the lighthouse and by extension cared a bit for the keeper that maintained it. This led Jasper onto his next section of exploring his own theories and remaining questions. The cryptid knew somewhat of the inner workings of the lighthouse and what the keepers were supposed to be doing in order to keep the beacon lit at night. This meant it knew the keepers were vital to keeping its beloved light shining and without them, there would be no beautiful glow. Therefore, it kept an eye on the keepers to ensure they were happy and healthy in its home, even offering gifts of ‘food’, all of which inevitably backfired before the contracts were up. Keep the keepers, so to speak.

Here was where the questions began. What did it do when the keepers tried to leave early? It sabotaged their escape plans, of course, as both Jasper and the last keeper had experienced that themselves. But what if they kept trying, what if they tried to hide away or went through the act of ending their lives? Had the creature ever grown angry and disposed of them itself when they failed to do what it wanted, or did it become overprotective in an attempt to keep them alive each night until they eventually managed to die one way or another. Did any of them actually escape besides the two that were brought back early by Hershel, and did the creature still try to prevent them from going? It understood human language, at least the bare bones of it to pick up key words, and it had picked up on certain habits to know what may be considered normal-ish for human behavior. There was no denying it had emotional intelligence as well, so it must understand empathy enough if it was trying to make friendly offerings before accidentally driving men to the brink of insanity.

And these were just questions for the monster personally, nevermind the slew of inquiries about the island itself. Did the creature arrive before or after the lighthouse had been erected, and where did it reside in the day when there was no light to burn? What kind of tunnel system existed under the lighthouse that the previous keeper had partly found and why, for the love of God, was there a mummified corpse in one of them? Was the creature the only one of its kind in the vicinity, or were there more hanging around ready to pounce? How much did Hershel know about what was going on, had he ever encountered the creature? Did Swarde & Sons know about the being that haunted their job opening? Were any of the keepers ever considered true friends to the cryptid or were they all just pawns in its grand scheme to be forgotten about when the job was done? Besides the one, were any of the other keepers ever confirmed deceased or simply… elsewhere?

Jasper was about to start his tenth page when he realized he was still referring to the creature as…the creature. Which was not incorrect, but it was a tad tiresome to write over and over again, even in shorthand. He needed a name for the thing, if only for him to refer to it in future notes on the off chance he ever had to differentiate it from something else. What to name a giant moth monster thing…it wasn’t like he’d be able to formally ask what it preferred to go by. Come to think of it, Jasper had never offered his name to it either, but it felt like a moot point when he didn’t think it possessed the ability to repeat it back. He could call it Amadeus as per the writing on its shoulder, but that was still just as long as ‘creature’. Maybe a shorter version of it, like…Deus? Sure, why the hell not, no one else was around to offer up any opinions. Don’t name things or you’ll get attached to them, his father used to say when he’d play with the cats near the fishing docks as a child. No worries, he wasn’t going to get bonded to the creature within this lifetime.