Eldrytch Born Ch. 01

Eldrytch Born

Chapter 1

(*-*-*Author's Note: and here I am with another project. Do not fear, all my other projects are still in progress. And like always I am getting bogged down in the finer details instead of just pushing forward. There are days where I just want to pull my hair out at getting bogged down with the ideas and eventually get myself stuck in inaction. That has been my constant sin. That and procrastination. I'll eventually release them.

As for this new project, I've been playing around with the idea of eldritch entities and elements. And same as always, I need to set up the story and setting first before we get down to sexy business. Much thanks for reading and constructive feedback are welcome.*-*-*end note.)

The sails buckled whilst the waves roared and thundered beyond the prow of Jethro's ship. His arms groaned as he gritted down on the ship's wheel, facing the furious winds and maleficious waters of the Stormwall. Ten-meter waves blasted his rickety piece of wood in this cold, hateful night and so thoroughly drenched he was that he might as well have dove into the waters himself. The occasional flash of lighting was all but the light he had to navigate the tempestuous sea. The winds moaned the wails of a hundred thousand souls and the hull groaned beneath the constant battering of the wrathful waves. Jethro had yet to come to terms on the prospect of his imminent demise.

Come on, Come on. He can make it, they made it this far.

Dark as the devil soul's was the night and the wheel shuddered against the waves. He feared the mast would fall under the storm's pressure. Odd, however, that he should feel fear most not for himself but for his other wayward passenger.

Zipporah stood at the prow, laughing and giggling, blonde hair trailing magnificently despite the madness of the maelstrom. Jethro thought her driven mad by the storm. But she looked back to him, her eyes were as joyous as it had been when she played with her friends or shared jokes back at the village. No hint of delirium or madness. She spread her arms, just in time as the boat fell off the crest of a rogue wave, and dropping to a fall.

"Woo-hoo! Hahaha! Yeah!" she cheered.

"Zipporah! Stay in the hold!" Jethro bellowed, heart leaping to his throat.

"Stay down! The waves are - -" he was cut off as another wave slammed to the side of the deck and would have sent him overboard had he not tied his waist to the wheel's pedestal. He lost count how many beatings he had endured against the thrashing of the storms. If it hadn't been for the rope, he would have been thrown overboard half a dozen times already. His heart damn near leapt at his throat at that last rouge wave. "Zipporah! Zipporah!"

"Here! I'm all right!" surpassingly she clung unto the riggings, wild smile in her face, the same smile that sent every heart in their village to melting. In the dark embrace of the raging sea, she almost seemed to glow with her bright blonde hair and fair white skin.

Another waved smashed through. It whipped him back to reality. Already he could feel himself bruising against the rope, biting down to his very flesh. Should he ever survive this, he was gonna be bruised all over.

"Zipporah!" he yelled once more.

"I'm well! Jethro, Look! It's the Eye!" she pointed and Jethro felt his breathe taken away.

It's as if the very Well of Creation itself was laid bare on the sky. As if the Great Old Gods parted the heavens and cosmos poured out their insides up above. Stars and colors he had no name can be seen as the clouds that parted were bathed in so many colors and so vibrant. And before he knew it, just as fast as it had come, they passed beneath the great eye and straight into the opposite side.

"The Deep take us...."

They had gone so far already. He wasn't as resolute as he had thought himself to be, even before they took on the waters of the Stormwall, the eternal dark clouds that lingered on the island's far borders. Even in the midst of it, a part of him wanted to turn back.

He could've.

And yet his hands did not do so. Eventually it reached the point where all he did was push forward.

To live.

No regrets of the past nor concern for the future. Just now in this moment.

There's a path Jethro. I have taught you.... you'll know when you see it. When you arrive at the storm's end.

Came his mother's whispers as if she was speaking right in his ears. Feelings he wished that stayed buried in his heart of hearts. He pushed it back deep in the chasm of his soul and focused on the black storm raging around them. He need not deal with them, not now and not yet.

He didn't see no clear path in the raging waters. Only an instinct at the back of his head, where the waters would be the least dangerous, where the waves wouldn't hit as hard. The paranoia instilled by his father drove his hand and minds when he prepared in secret. It wasn't just enough that he used the strongest of timbers. But bind them with what precious steel that could be found. And be bound once more by several inches of rope for good measure.

His voice wasn't in his head. Just that cold hard stare of his when he watched from a distance. A complete opposite of his mother's presence.

Can you see me now old man?

From starboard to portside, the wheel turned from this direction to the other. Eyes wide and alert, all feeling where the waters were least likely to crush their bundle of wood. More than a decade did his parents prepare him for this journey. And here he was. His muscles groaned and ached until they were numbed, fighting against the strain of the wheel as the ship's rudder took the abuse of sailing against a storm. Despite the cold rain and seawater, he sweated. His heart hammering his blood at breakneck speed throughout his veins. His father saw to it that his one and only child would survive him. Both in body and in mind. The trials he endured brought him an inch to death's door over the years.

Until finally, his father too vanished from the island.

How long? How long must I endure?

And just when he pondered to just giving in, as he did so many times in the past, there was nothing.

The waves still thrashed but it wasn't as horrible as it had been a moment ago. The wind still cold but no longer furious in their passing. The night still dark but there was a hint of peace now.

Had we done it? Are we free?

He was tired beyond measure. Just the mere act of standing took too much of him. He slunk down, unheeding of the awkward pose, making the rope dig even more into his skin.

A gentle hand was suddenly on his back and thought it be his mother. But it was nothing more than Zipporah. Bright, giddy Zipporah.

"I told you not tie yourself to the ship. You'll look stupid," for all her supposed frailty, what with her petite figure and innocent countenance, she possessed a surprising strength, "You did amazing Jethro."

"Thank you," he managed to utter tiredly. He tried to muster what remained of his strength to stand.

Then, something cold pass his nape. He raised his eyes. As did Zipporah.

He had thought it impossible to be even more afraid than he already been.

It's as if some unseen hand had lifted the entire of the very ocean's waters ahead of them like a woman's skirt. It was the largest wave he had ever seen. Inconceivable in the mind but save for having laid upon by your very. He put his arms around Zipporah and grabbed her tight as possible almost risking breaking her bones.

She did not protest, eyes wide and for the first time, fear apparent in her green-speckled blue eyes.

"Hold on, as hard as you can!" he yelled as the great wave neared. The rushing, climbing water nearly drowning out his words.

"Zipporah! Hold--"

And then cold, dark water engulfed everything.