The men were nervous. They could sense the wrongness of the place they were in. They came in as hunters, but had become lost in the fog. They had since become the hunted. Before they had sung to their primeval gods for courage and faith. That was when they thought they were listening. Something had been listening, but it was no god.


The behemoth stirred. It had been awakened by the sound of men, the first it had ever heard. It had slept for centuries, rising from its sea bed only to hunt the pods of the mighty orca that passed through. But the whales had not come for a long time, and it was hungry, and it had never tried men before. It rose, shaking off the mud of ages. The last of its kind, it was ancient, and huge. It felt for the vibrations in the water, and started swimming upwards towards the tiny craft floating far above. Nine thousand feet, eight thousand feet, it swam at speeds greater than even the fleeting seals or the giant squids. The men sensed its coming, and panicked, falling off the boat as they floundered on the deck, screaming. The beast closed in on the men, openening its mouth to swallow them, men, ship, and all. Its snout broke the water on all sides, the teeth surronding the men like an ivory prison. As the cold air around them turned foetid with the beast’s breath, and the darkness around them grew deeper, they were struck speechless by terror and awe. And when the beast dived back, deeper into the abyssal layer from whence it came, there was no marker left to keep the memory of the mens’ fate.