Letters to Adeline
"My Dearest Adeline,
I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me. Leaving at night amidst your dreams of mother have filled me with great dread. Your grandmother shall look after your health and well being until my return. Forgive me daughter, for the dreams of that lost lake in the frozen wastes call to me. I must know. I must see with my own eyes the abberation that sits beneath those sheets of ice.
-Your Father, Samuel."
This waves crash over the side of the misshapen vessel, thirty feet long seven feet at its widest, and capable of flying though the water at nearly eighty seven knots at full speed. For comparison sake the average speed of a commercial cruise line is roughly twenty knots, or twenty five miles per hour. However, the truly marvelous aspect of this vessel was its ability to travel underwater at the same speed.
This vessel, which is shaped like a glorified pill with a glass dome, is called The Kraken. The captain and sole occupant of this vessel is one Michael Bunker, retired former high school biology teacher for thirty seven years. After the death of his long time wife Lauren, he decided to do something that would change his life forever. With one adult child and four grandchildren, he wanted to give those children a story of their grandfather. He dreamed of telling them great tales of the deep, the dark and vastness of the ocean; as well as the beauty of every creature inside of it.
So over the last two years he has lived on the kraken with little more than fighing rod and solar panels to fuel this fully electric hybrid submersible. Inside his glass dome fits one twin cot, an electric stove, and a control panel sitting behind a small glass door. The glass dome sits in the center of the ship, with the fuel cells, engine and stearing rudders in the rear. To the front was a control panel sitting in a three foot by four foot room with a spinning chair a single control panel littered buttons, switched and gages of every kind. His sole means of maneuvering was a glorified joystick and a single lever for speed management.
The glass dome he slept in was also able to open and close by sliding forward on a small set of rails. With the three inch thick reinforced glass and four inch thick hull the kraken could theoretically handle depths of up to a thousand feet. And the unorthodox half inch deep spiral pattern to the front of the vessel allows it to penetrate the water like a bullet. This beautiful machine is the brain child of himself and his son Arthur. He son spend two years building the design of the kraken while Michael spent his retirement on the materials so he could build it himself. Over the span of a year and half the kraken was build and completely operable, he then sold his house to cover the remaining expenses and set out to sea.
Over the next two years Michael has traveled the world sending post cards to his son amd grandchildren every chance he gets. From Southern California's Hueneme port down to the coast of Chile, across the Atlatic ocean where he watched great whites leap into the air at the southern tip of Africa. He traveled to Hawaii and watched humpback whales make their yearly migration, the sight of their massive frames in every direction around the kraken as the sun lightly kissed the blue ocean depths.
He has nearly half a dozen of these stories now, but three days ago something he never thought would be real, happened before his very eyes. He was fast asleep in the calm still waters of the equator when he awoke to the sounds of tapping glass above his head. As his eyes opened and peered into the vast and vibrant colors of the star kissed midnight sky he thought to himself that is where God resides, in the stars. But another series of taps forced him up as he began searching around sith blind eyes and empty hands for his flashlight. He shown the blinding light out and saw nothing. He then decided to then open the sliding roof where he looked around and saw the miraculous, a message in a bottle.
Well in truth it wasn't a single message, but was several letters written to the same person. He laughed to himself as he took pictures of the entire experience. And after the adrenaline of it all settled he quickly lowered himself back to his cot with his now gray beard smelling of salt and brine. The rest of that night his dreams were vibrant, yet everything about he coulsnt recall, even the most minute detail. All he knew for certain was the feeling of a cold sweat covering his body as his soul filled with an unknown dread. He waited for a time until he could use his satellite phone, and when it did have coverage speaking to his son gave him no sense of joy. All he felt was the deep dread.
"Dearest Daughter,
I have been at sea for what feels like years, yet only three months have passed. The closer I get to the setting ice, the more my dreams become filled with the visions of... something. Perhaps, when we do reach the south pole I will have my answers. Yet I can not help but wonder if my decision was correct. Your grandmother told me to stay to watch you grow, that this very expedition is nothing more than a fools folly. My hope is that I may delivery these letters to you with my own hands, but I see the quickly approaching ice and i fear I may not.
With love,
Your father, Samuel."
He reads this letter as the waves gently sway him from side to side, the gentleness of it a beautiful embrace like that of a mother. And as he set the letter down upon the pile of the others he looks south, he does the math in his head how long would it take to reach the Antarctic. With the ability to travel at fifty percent speed for seven consecutive hours while solar charging was active he would be able to reach the Antarctic coast in roughly one week with stops to sleep and charge the fuel cells.
"Dad thats a stupid idea." Said the male voice over the satellite phone.
"Oh come on Arthur relax a bit would ya?" Michael said as he stroked his beard as the kraken ripped across the surface of the ocean, heading south.
"Heading to an area of the world filled with icebergs and quite literally nothing else is not a great idea. I designed that ship for standard oceanic travel, its not an ice breaker."
"Yeah yeah, I'll just stay under the water to keep an eye open, oh I'll even use those exterior cameras you hooked up my last time in port."
"Dad thats good in theory but I still don't like it. Especially over the fact your going because of some fucking message in a bottle."
"Come on Arty, where's your sense of adventure? That lust of the unknown ya used to have when you were a boy, where'd it go?"
"I lost it when I had kids Dad, and it seems you found it when mom died."
"Arthur..."
"Look I do not condone this. But I can't stop you. If you go I don't want to know or hear about it until you come back. Deal?"
"Deal."
"Love you Dad."
"I love you too Arthur. Give the kids a hug from me and tell Darlene I'll be around for Thanksgiving this year." The satellite phone clicked as the call ended.
Michael felt a small sense of trepidation beginning to gnaw at the back of his skull like rats crawling at a wall. Just a week, seven days of restless sleep. Should be fine, should work out just fine.
And so he was off the oceans and waves his only companions to the vast unknown of the worst largest desert. And days of sleepless nights did pass, the lullaby of the waves gave way to rough and storming seas. In his best effort to avoid the raging storms above his head Michael dove, the descent was slow as he reached the depth of three hundred feet. The lights of the kraken were minimal just enough so that passing vessels and cargo ships might see him.
But at this depth the current was minimal, compared to the currents at the surface. Which were strong as a cargo container capsized and lost all grew aboard three hours in the future. He needed to conserve his battery, as without the light of the sun he had perhaps one hour of so of mobility, less. So he laid the instrument panel alone as an undersea river pushed him ever forward. And thats when he fell asleep for the first time in three days, he thought it would be bliss. But when he awoke six hours later with the sight of tentacles wrapping around his glass home all he could do was whisper as a question, "what in the fuck?"
But as he looked up at the tentacles he quickly shown his flashlight which caused the large Humboldt squid to release and swin away. Michael looked up to see the bioluminescent array of hundreds of squid all swimming around him in varying states of excitement. Some seemed unbothered by the kraken and its sole occupant, where nearly a hundred or so saw him as lunch. The group swarmed toward the kraken, their mass alone forced the vessel to sway from side to side so violently Michael couldn't maintain his foot hold sliding and hitting his head on his stove.
The bombardment of the bright red animals made the delirious man hold in his vomit as he tried to stand. Minutes turned to hours as eventually the squid did give up. The animals themselves are quite smart, the thick hull and glass were too much for them to bite through, and the lack of space did not allow their tentacles to find a way inside to the human sized sardine.
As his mind became awash with stars and broken thoughts from the deepest darkest parts of the ocean something rose. It caused the shoal to scatter in every direction. A mass of huge tentacles longer than the ship, and far thicker, slowly rose from the darkness of oblivion. Some of the squid could not escape as the large suckers, some as large as the Humboldt were long, swept across the shoal and took them up like flies to the swatter. Michael couldn't focus his eyes as water swirled around him as the kraken spun around like a spinning childs toy forcing him to hit the glass and look down into the deep.
He would swear that deep beneath him was an octopus the size of the statue of liberty. Its eyes focused on the now dwarfed vessel and at him, the cold slit of its pupils were unflinching. Then one of the tentacles wrapped around the kraken and pulled it down, nothing he couldabout it now. He could only pray for gods mercy as the darkness swallowed everything, and it was then he felt his mind slip.
"Haaaaaaaastuuuuuuuuuuur?" A voice rang out from far beyond his vantage, the voice was low and deep as it thundered across the sky.
Michael had stopped as he looked around himself, the golden reeds touching the palms of his open hands. He looked up and in the distance he could see only mountains and hills as far as his imagination itself. The voice seemed so far from him as its very echoed forced him stomach to thrum; yet seemed to become a whisper behind his ear.
"Haaaaaaaastuuuuuuuuur?" The voice seemed to make the very ground beneath his feet rumble as he looked around in equal parts confusion and fear.
The mountain off in the distance, so far yet so close, began to move. Against every fiber of his being he did not move as the foot of the mountain became the head of a snake that coiled up into the sky as if to kiss it, or perhaps swallow the sun. And as the snake rose its body was more visible, as the mountain seemed to be covered in in a deep set white fur. Michael could hardly breathe as the thing moved its head side to side as the echoed again rang out.
"Haaaaaastuuuuuuur? Müg re ból de sék páda." The snake then spread a pair of lustrous white feathered wings.
"AGH!" Michael screamed as he sat up, the thud of his forehead colliding with metal frame of his cot sent him back down for several moments.
After his head stopped throbbing to the point of incapacitation Michael looked around to gather himself. His heart began to race when he realized the Kraken was upside down, he looked between his legs to see ice. He exhaled quickly to see his breath was visible, he felt the temperature beginning to drop. He quickly looked through his scattered belongings and found one rain jacket and a pullover to which he put on to ease the rapidly descending temperature. He made his way inside the control room and quickly took notice anything that was glaring or standing out.
For the most part the ship indicated minimal damage; some damage sustained was to the second of the four rudders, several dents across the hull none of which were deep enough to cause structural instability. And his room was now a mess. Being upside down created a few small inconveniences in regards to seeing the controls but when he put on his readers he managed to maintain some control as he sporadically released pressure in the ballast tank causing the kraken to right itself. Each movement forced him to slowly walk along the walls and celing, each step a delecant dance with the controls.
Until seated at the controls he had not idea how close or far he was from anything, an icewall could be directly infromt of him and he would not know it. But once he was seated he closed the glass door behind himself and turned on every exterior camera and sensor that was still functioning. He sighed in relief as the cameras showed enough space to maneuver back and forth easily enough, but no way to properly turn in the underwater cave. He now had to debate with himself which way to go, according to his instruments he had roughly ten hours worth of air, as well as the battery being at half charge. If he chooses the wrong direction it will be a death sentence.
Antarctica is roughly five and a half million square miles, with a completely unmapped sub terratainian ice sheets and caves that can span possibly the entirety of the continent itself. Michael had to make a decision and choose carefully, his gut told him to slowly reverse and hopefully make it out. But his dreams told him forward. And so he pushed forward.
And like that hour after hour passed until the cave suddenly just opened, a massive pocket unlike anything he'd ever seen. Every camera around him showed zero visibility, not because something was blocking them but for the pure vastness of this pocket. He slowly stepped out of the cockpit and into his dome as he looked straight up into the ocean above. And beyond the glass was the faintest of lights, just enough to notice. He decided ascension would be his next option, so he flipped several of the controls and began heading straight up. All he could do now was watch the depth gauge and proximity cameras as he rose.
The ascension was slow, but with ever passing minute the once dull light became brighter as it began to make the water glisten with the vibrant light of life. It filled him with great hope and gumption to continue. When suddenly he breached the waters surface. He quickly shut off the motors of the kraken and watched as his systems quickly filled once again with oxygen, although his power supply was not charging. He cut the power to all systems and opened the dome once he stood he could see this giant cavern in its seemingly massive entirety.
He saw massive structures of stone and glass rising high over head as if towers of a fallen city. The ice atop the dome cavern did not sit still, instead it moved about like a time-lapse portrait of the sky at night with stars of pitch black. Michael felt the air around him was still, but warm like that of hot breath. He turned to his instruments panel began flipping switches that eventually opened to what appeared to be set of oars. He grabbed hold of the small things and began to pull himself forward, each stroke exposing more of the vast decrepit city.
With every movement forward he felt each tower above him seeming to stretch and glare down at the tiny vessel, and the even smaller man. He pushed further and further, soon the sight of skeletons littering the base of the glass towers. The shadows then seemed to stretch much farther than the light had given them clearance too, this caused Michael to feel his mind wander. Yet, eventually the lake did end and the kraken could go no further.
He spent some time searching for anchor poin amongst the stones, for all the ice would give way his small anchor made contact. Made made him more curious was the ice would reform itself almost instantly as if it did not wish to be climbed upon. When he did eventually find an anchor point he lifted himself from the kraken and stepped upon the streets of the ruined city, and walked. Each step was followed by the low crunch of ice and sleet, his rubber boots gave little squeaks in protest. Soon the bones of both the city and of humans long since gone layed out before him. The bones were yellow with age and disgust as small pieces of seemingly burnt flesh still remained attached. He wandered for hours, never growing with hunger or thirst but soon his heart began to rumble as he reached the city center where a massive castle of black Obsidian reached to the top of the cavern.
He slowly reached the front gate and thats when he heard; it was the soft breathing of something else, something more. He looked up and amongst the shifting ice and midnight stars he saw the faintest outline of a snake. So massive he doubted it would comprehend him as anything more than a simple black ant. Yet its head slowly moved downward and gazed down upon him with eyes as bright as the sun, each side of its head so far apart it appeared to him like that of twin suns. His fear was too much as pushed with all his might as the glass doors slowly slid open.
He fell forward, his hands and knees catching him with a painful thud. He slowly looked up to see the interior of the Obsidian castle was made of scorched marble. Inside this, the grand hall, lay a single throne covered with the tattered remnants of what seemed to be a yellow banner. His breathe shool inside his lungs even exiting with a hollow whistle. The dull hum of the snake just outside forced the marble to rumbled and shake. Michael then held in tears as he felt tendrils of another mind worm their way across his consciousness.
He screamed to the heavens, or perhaps to hell, as he felt his mind begin to splinter like cracks on a mirror. But his eyes soon looked upon a face, not a true face but that of a white mask hiding a pair of eyes as brilliant as the black stars above his head. The yellow tatters fluttered as the chains that bound the masked figure rattled against the throne. Michael could see it now, the throne was broken and cracked as the other was held in place. Michael looked up at the thing and before he could think of anything else, he felt it; the smile hidden behind the pallid mask that would have told him the joy the figure felt. The joy was like that of a child holding a new toy, a new thing to play with.
Then as he looked into the eyes of the tattered being he thought of how majestic this king may have looked at the peak of its power. And as the walls of marble seemed to begin melting all around him his very being shattered as he began to laugh. The laugh of a man lost into himself, lost into his fractured and stolen mind. As his laughter echoed through the empty halls of the tattered yellow sign, the final letter fell from his pocket. And as Michael looked down to the letter with the laugh of madness plastered upon his jaw he reached over to a small skinning knife on his belt and plunged it into his throat.
He refused to allow his blood to be wasted and pulled the knife across his throat severing every vein, artery, tendon and muscle. Each piece of flesh popped with the reluctant squelch of blood flowing across the floor in a vibrant spray. As his voice box was pierced his laughter grew garbled and hollow as it began to whistle toward the beast, toward death. As Michael fell to the floor he looked to the letter one last time before his blood covered it in its entirety.
"Adeline,
My Dearest, i have seen it. The great beast that is chained to the throne of eternity. I dare not look upon its eyes as the rest of the crew has fallen each of them laughing, each of them slashing their throats with stone and Obsidian. If not they have begun killing one another with tooth and nail like savage beast. I have nothing for you daughter, nothing but my regrets. I hope to join your mother but I fear now if I look upon that pallid mask I may fall into the depths of despair and hatred. Even now its presence lingers in my mind like a hollow shell being filled with thoughts of horrid affairs......he...hehe. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Fear not now child the king cometh upon the the reigns of fire and ash. May the blood release him, our blood may release him....praise the king....Sék Beato Gůrlo. Sék Beato Gůrlo. SÉK BEATO GŮRLO! May the king rise from the blood of virgins and bathe in the broken bodies of infants and children. All hail he who must never be named."