Captain's Darkness

Spending long nights on a ship at sea, a captain develops a fascination with the darkness. In such darkness he sees the infinite possibilities of the unknown, and it threatens to draw him in forever.

The sea. It was the epitome of darkness, and darkness was its daughter. Its mist lashed my face like the tendrils of the unseen as its great waves broke against the ship’s hull in a dance. The sea’s daughter mimicked its own dance and also broke wildly against the body of the ship. Sea’s daughter convoluted all life and took all within its merciless body to drown it within its deep depths. I saw within that darkness with my mind’s eye, saw its dancing upon the waves and curtain of death as it blanketed the sky in turmoil. My god, the terrors that she aroused within me that day.

My mind endlessly searched the expanse of this unknown universe. Searched, by some small measure of hope, for the things that we desired and the entities we desired to be, and I saw the unreal within that dominating world beyond mortal eyes. I saw the lies of the darkness and its many horrific possibilities. I lived under that veil as if swallowed by a whale"nay, not alive, but empty within my solitude, void of all prospects and left simply to endure my sorrows. My senses were lost and I was hopelessly torn between the sea’s shapely body and that silent and eavesdropping cold that comprised its surface. Surely it was akin to the darkest reaches of the Earth, and with the many months we sailed, I had no doubt that we had reached that very place. Surely the fires and torments of Hell were grander than this, I thought.

I was sailing for many years abroad the Lady Serpent with my crew and many a time we sailed into the belly of the stormy dark beast. My company had absorbed themselves in petty games of backgammon on the deck above, and I found myself withdrawn to the belly of the large galleon ship. I fell under a thick stupor and I could not sleep for many nights"many of which I could not recollect, save for the fits of torment induced by my nightmares. My heavy eyelids drooped and hung low but the nightmares of this darkness barred me from the pleasure of sweet sleep. I grew fascinated with the darkness and watched it lovingly as if a child of my own; the things unseen, the creatures that surely lurked beyond the scope of human intelligence. Stories of gremlins and cadejos marred my mind and I began to fear they’d somehow be true, that somehow this darkness, whose mere presence behind the flicker of the subtle luminescence drained my face of blood, harbored a myriad of terrible demons. With little chance of surviving should I fall prisoner to an insufferable insanity, I presented myself to the darkness of the ship’s guts below.

Something stirred within, oh surely it did! Oh God, it taunted me and I could faintly discern the black eyes of death as they stared back at me. I sat upright in my elm chair and faced the daughter of the sea as she loomed impossibly beyond the candle’s reach of the far cabin corner. The creaks and wailing of the ship were lost to me, and the camaraderie of the crew on deck fled to the back of my inconsolable mind. I sat there, arms resting dead on the chair, staring cursed and in deep mediation into the bleak depths of that cabin corner, where sea’s daughter strangled the light and cursed all of the living with her sheer existence. I found no resolve viewing her and soon lost even my good reasoning then, mouth agape and eyes blankly marking the madness looming in that corner.

Something lived within. Something indeed stirred and awaited me to throw myself into it, and my hallucinogenic mind watched as the dark and misty hands of death penetrated that portal and beckoned me with its terrible claws. I was mesmerized, charmed, and wholly enslaved by its unholy power. I crept closer to it, falling to the floor as I launched from the chair, coming at a lazy crawl. As I stole the room with my subtle and insignificant movements, the candlelight shied from me and threatened to grip the entire room in that same world of death, but little did I notice many of the candles had already faded and she closed in around me. She hungrily awaited me with her black tendrils stretched out in a deceitfully welcoming hug, while her long legs stalked and slayed the cradling lanterns. The life extinguished from the drooping wax of the candlelight, but I gingerly, unknowingly, crawled like an toddler towards my impending doom as if a dog prowling the forest floors, making my way towards a kill, bloodlust consuming the whites of my eyes.

And then it happened. I felt a tug at my collar, a slight jolt that brought me to. I was forced from my deathly enchantment and pitched my head high to see the interloper on this sacred calling; it was my first mate, and he stood over me with a perplexed countenance that expressed both concern and primordial fear in one intrinsic form.

A fear for me.

I blinked.

“Oi cap’n, ill are ye?”

The ship soon reached harbor and removed itself from the deaf of the sea’s dark tendrils. The crew happily disembarked and the camaraderie took its roost on the bay port of the Asian town. Even the sun came out to show its grand face, and the darkness all but vanished from the ship"seemingly vanquished with the entrance of the almighty Amon-Ra. I never again saw that darkness, and my nightmares never again plagued me. I loomed between the world of the living and the world of the darkness for so long, and my fascinations fled from me as quickly as they had taken control.

To this day I still wonder: should I have reached that dark corner and taken that dark hand from the mist that beckoned me so, what devastation awaited me there? What terrors lurked beyond the veil? Of the many hues of blacks within the world and the numerous valleys that projected their evil shadow over lands, what secrets lie in wait beyond the enchanting portal?

Yeah, by the good gods above, I will never sail again.

Fin.

Author's Note

I have issues with the flow of stories. Please let me know, as I really would like to get better!

Reviews

[reibirb]

Fantastic imagery, I love the style of the words, I think it matches a sailor very well. I think the story flows very well, you managed to get a lot across in a short space, but it didn't feel rushed. Very dark, in the best way, I could really feel the sailors fascination and madness in his thoughts. Excellent job!

[p]

Yes. As a lover of H.P. Lovecraft just your summary had me running, but the story is absolutely wonderful! I couldn't help but notice a few quotation marks throughout your story that didn't serve any purpose, but other than that, this was awesome!