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Description
There are certain matters which can only be related by words on paper. The world, it seems, has decided I am clinically insane, and therefore, I am dictating this instead to a young nurse, since they have also decided I cannot be trusted with any item sharper than a spoon. However out of place my prose may seem to you, allow me to tell you it was bought from the leisure I once enjoyed as a free woman. I read horror tales of the twentieth century, by greats such as Poe and Lovecraft. These things are not allowed to me now- the doctors fear it will incite hallucinations of the sort that put me here, in this place.

But it was not a hallucination.

Allow me then, to tell you of the events that led to me being here imprisoned. I have managed to persuade the doctors to allow me this, though I am not sure quite how. They were very stubborn in all other matters pertaining to my incarceration- for incarceration it is! No matter the pretty name you put on it I am here against my will, kept in captivity.

I left my home in the small town of Clear Springs, Oregon on the unusually warm day of July twenty second, year two thousand and nine of our lord. (No doubt many urbanites will attribute my supposed madness to the "inbred" population of Clear Springs, as they are so fond of referring to it as an incest town. The ignorant cowards would try to cuddle a mountain lion or a bear, and attempt to keep coyotes and wolves as pets, no doubt, were it not for the people of Clear Springs, whose frustrations with the citizens of Portland, Salem and Eugene are well justified.) I was leaving for a vacation along the south coast of Oregon, hoping that it would be sunny, instead of the usual cloudy gloom that so haunts the western half of my state.

I was then, a young woman, and by many rights would still be considered so, and yet my hair is as white as snow, for the terrors I saw some days after my arrival in the city of Gray Rock.

My friends will tell you there was nothing amiss with me the week I left for Gray Rock, for indeed there was nothing. I spoke as you might, a common Pacific Northwestern citizen who used such slang as "fail" and "pwned" as freely as the next person. I had had a laughing conversation with my mother over the likelihood of foul weather simply because I had chosen to take a vacation the night before, and all seemed quite usual.

But I did not know then of the horrors that awaited me in Gray Rock.
Being the somewhat dramatic person my friends have known me to be (perhaps this, then, is the reason they so willingly believe in my depravity) Gray Rock was the perfect vacation for what I intended. In the fall, I was to begin teaching a new class (for I am- was a history teacher) about ship wrecks along the Oregonian coastline. Gray Rock being home to many of them, I was quite pleased with my chosen destination, for I have always loved the stony southern coast of Oregon, with its looming monoliths carved by the sea herself. (Always have I been a romantic where the sea is concerned.)

I chose a route along the coast, visiting such favorites of mine as the Devil's Punchbowl, and Devil's Churn. There seemed a theme to me, in the naming of these landmarks, particularly when one also considered the coastal Devil's Lake and Devil's River (though it is known to locals as the D River, and these I passed by, having seen them many times). Not at all fazed by these names, I continued along the coast to Gray Rock, vistas of the ocean darting out from behind the trees and mountains of rock. I took much time, stopping to take pictures, and slowing to watch when I saw young does and fauns in the brush along the roadside. This then, was what those urbanites who mocked my hometown could not appreciate- the raw, untamed wildness of life! Certainly, they probably cowered before a mantis. (I cannot judge too much here, possessing a terrible arachnophobia.)

My car, battered and worn though it was, offered a comfortable transport, and when I arrived at my hotel in Gray Rock somewhat late that night, I was quite ready to simply sleep. So wearied was I that I barely took in the clean, colorless room before sinking into exhaustion on the bed. Thinking on it now, I suppose that that room had a similar color and arrangement as to the near cell I inhabit now- that sterile, dead feel of a hospital room.

Though I thought I would sleep quite well into the next morning, I was wakened in the middle of the night by a great clamor. A fierce storm was raging without, shaking the glass in the window, and spattering it with rain. Thunder boomed, and lightning blazed white and blinding from the darkness. I cursed, and crawled out of bed to close the drapes and turn on the light, knowing I would find no rest with a storm that violent roaring throughout the night. I was not awake enough, however, to pursue anything of use, and so I merely watched the flashes of lightning against the insufficient drapery, wondering when it would end, and if the weather was the result of my accursed bad luck in choosing vacation weeks.

Then though, a stench filled the air. It was as if the smell of a thousand scorched and rotting fish, with some unnamable, unbearable disgusting odor of the sepulcher; and it filled me with a nameless terror. I lay huddled in my bed, having extinguished the light, and praying for an end, praying that whatever created that monstrous aroma would not find me, and nigh gasping for breath as the stench thickened. A roar, not as of thunder, but as of some great animal beast filled the night, and I trembled in dread- then, the blackness took me.

I awoke sticky with my own sweat as the dawn peaked over the eastern mountains, and believed it all to have been a nightmare. Once cleaned and dressed, however, I discovered that the storm, at least, had been real. The evidence was easy enough to find- branches had been snapped from trees in the fierce wind, and some had even been uprooted! The lightning had struck so old trees, and even scorched the gargantuan rocks that leapt up from the water into the sky. Everyone in the small fishing town seemed to be talking of it, and so I gained some details sharing my morning meal with some friendly but badly shaken fishermen.

They hadn't seen a storm like this in years, and the last time they had, they said, there had been strange happenings in the water. Whales, colossal whales, had begun to wash up on shore, mostly devoured, after great storms like that one. By what, no one could seem to say. Scientists only determined that it resembled nothing they had ever seen before, and hypothesized that it was the result of some kind of water decay before the carcass had washed up on shore, but the townsfolk, who had seen the carcasses at their earliest, whispered that the marks of teeth upon the dead whales looked frightfully human, and yet impossibly large to have been so. That had been nearly thirty years ago, and it wasn't the right time for whales in Gray Rock, anyway- but one man claimed he would know the sound of that roar that I had heard, and the stench we had all smelled, anywhere. It was the same beast they had heard whenever the whales were found.

I listened with a patient ear, but I did not think there was any supernatural cause behind the storm, or any great monstrous and as yet undiscovered fiend. I was a teacher, after all! Educated, and not at all given to superstitions. I did not doubt that there was a scientific explanation for the roar and the hideous odor. Perhaps the storm churned up the water and carried the smell of dead fish, and some anomalous airstream created the roar everyone was whispering of. The ferocity of the storm, too, would explain the washing up of any already deceased and decaying whales. This I said to the fisherman, and they looked silently at me as though I were a quaint child that failed to understand. I thanked them for the company, and went out to the beach to observe the damage of the storm myself.

The giant rocks I was so fond of were indeed scorched; the small hardy flora that took root high above the tide's reach burned in fiery lines, and it seemed that it had even broken away large sections of stone and granite. I was not the only investigator. A young, overeager journalist named Mark Parsons introduced himself. "Hell of a storm, huh?" he asked me.

"Yeah," I replied, for then I still spoke as any other might. "Woke me up in the middle of the night,"

Parsons nodded quite eagerly- I detected in him the type of young man who has spent his whole life waiting for something exciting to happen, and has finally got it. Never mind the stink that could still be perceived upon the sea breeze. I directed him to the fishermen I had breakfasted with, and spent much of the morning walking the beach and seeing the damage for myself. When I returned to Gray Rock, ravenous and worn, I chose a small, seedy café in which to sup. The air was filled with kitchen smoke, and the sharp tinge of alcohol perforated the atmosphere as well. My eyes wandered, until they found the small television screen near the bar.

Young Mark Parsons was on the local news station. His gold blond hair was being tormented by the wind as he gestured the scorch marks on the rocks. I could not hear what he said, nor read the small subtitles from my seat, but I could see the barely concealed excitement on Parsons' face. Some part of me disapproved, though I could not say why. Something seemed misplaced in his animation, as if it were not quite proper, or as if he was ignorant of what he spoke of.
Sleeping in my hotel room that eve, I was wakened again by the roaring wind. It was the same storm as the night before, and I trembled to hear its fury. It was as though the thing behind it- whatever vengeful sea gods that took their wrath out upon the city- were further inflamed. Once again, I smelt that awful stench, and heard that terrible roar. This night, however, I was not taken by unconsciousness, and remained awake for what waited.
The deadening silence.

It was terrible, almost more terrible than the roar of the tempest had been. It was heavy and oppressive, a deafening weight upon my ears. I thought, in a moment of crazed and animalistic panic, that I was being hunted.

The presence my subconscious detected- or perhaps I imagined it- seemed to loom over my small hotel, and at the same time lurk back in the depths of the ocean, simply waiting for me to come near enough to be captured. I shuddered in my bed, sweat formed on my brow. I would not fall victim, there was nothing but my own nightmarish imagination! I would not let it consume me!

At some point, I must have slept, for I woke to the clamor of the townsfolk. They were all standing about in the hotel parking lot, murmuring like superstitious fools. When they saw me coming out of the door, they seemed almost relieved, and I saw one woman begin to weep. I was utterly bewildered, and understood nothing. They greeted me with cheerful and reassured hellos, and further confused me by almost burying me with offers to buy me breakfast. I consented, at last, to an old fisherman, one of the ones I had eaten with on the previous day. I asked him, after the waitress- a girl scarce more than sixteen or seventeen- had taken our orders, what was going on. His old gray eyes looked out at me from a swarthy and sea-worn face. "It doesn't do to go asking too many questions about those storms, Miss Hammond," he said softly. "You should probably just go home."

I recall vaguely being somewhat offended, though I daresay I should have listened to him. It would have left me ignorant of the madness that lurked in the watery depths. "I'm a grown woman," I protested, "And I intend to stay for the vacation I paid for. A little storm won't frighten me off." Damnably ignorant was I, and I do not blame the poor fisherman for not wanting to attempt to enlighten me. I would have laughed in his face, the poor soul.
As it was, he simply studied me with an expression of sadness, and caution.

"Alright then, Miss Hammond," he said, "But you might want to be wary of the sea at night."

It was nonsense, all of it. Of course you would be wary of the sea at night, when you couldn't see the way the clouds turned and how the waves broke upon the shore. No sane person would be out on the sand in the middle of the night, particularly not after such violent storms. I told him so, and the old man looked somewhat soothed by my arrogant words. Arrogant they were, for I thought then I was quite certain of what was going on.

I took myself to a used bookstore, on the corner of Seventh and Ellensburg, determined to take my mind off of the storm, and my own childish worries. I wandered round quite alone, and happy, for I have always been an appreciator of books. I found, in my drifting to and fro, a small and quite worn copy of a book named Monsters of the Deep. I took it to be a scientific collection of data, perhaps about giant squids and the like, but I was disproved by the table of contents, which listed among the pages Leviathan, Kraken, and, more perplexingly, The She-Demon of the Pacific.

Curiosity drew me onward, and I turned to the page listed. A colorful illustration of the supposed sea monster lay on the opposite page, showing a gargantuan mermaid that dwarfed a Spanish galleon, carrying a huge spear. Her skin had a sickly green color, and her hair was a mat of colorless tangles, filled with broken wood and seaweed. Her teeth were at first glance like a human's, but all along the edges were sharp and elongated canines and roseate gill slits were open along her neck, flared in a most dreadful manner. But the worst- by God, the most horrible thing about her were the eyes: huge and amber in color, they took up almost half her face, with a terrible fish-like quality. Dead of emotion, her unblinking eyes were turned on the wretched sailors in the painting, and their doom was certain.

The image chilled me to the core, and I was almost unable to tear my eyes away to read the text. There it described her, a monster whose hunger was nigh insatiable. She fed upon whales, and giant squid, but she did not exclude the smaller creatures from her diet. If a ship were to disturb her she would destroy it, and if there were any survivors, they would likely go mad. It told of sailors who were reduced to gibbering fools, muttering always about the eyes.
What madness possessed me to buy the book I will never know, but as I meant to retreat to the hotel, a commotion caught my gaze, and pulled it to the beach.
A whale carcass had been found. I, with all the other curious onlookers, hurried to the beach, and I alone was silent among the furious whispers of the coastal folk. My eye had caught what theirs had missed.

A massive spearhead was embedded in what remained of the whale- a piece of chiseled stone sharpened to a point, over five feet long. Unable to speak, I grabbed the shoulder of the man nearest me and simply pointed. The crowd gradually fell silent as we all stared at it. Spots of color began to dance in front of my vision, for the stench- that awful stench, that reeking odor of a thousand opened graves heaped with rotting fish- was making me lightheaded. I fairly swooned, and had to be pulled away from the thing.

I knew it then. The monstrous thing was real. No rational explanation could shake the thought from my mind- The She-Demon, or The She as I now thought of her, was real. The storms were hunts, where she churned the waters. And the stench, my God, the stench- it was her breath! Her terrible roar and the smell of the carcass she fed upon, all fed into the terrible stench that saturated the sand and the air!

I could let no one know of it. No leviathan of the sea could match the terror of those dead fish eyes, or the calculated way she hunted. The townsfolk- how long had they known? How much had they guessed at?
Oh God, it was a terrible thing!

I spoke to no one of my discovery, but it could hardly be called a discovery. I could tell from the nervous eyes of the townspeople that they knew. They all knew. How long had they kept it a secret? Years? Decades? A century? The monstrosity would have destroyed the sanity of the world, if they knew of it, I was certain! Knowing of it, I could not help but wonder- where had it come from? Were there more? Good God, did it breed and spawn? Left alone with my thoughts, it was a wonder I held onto what little sanity I had left. I avoided the water when it grew dark, and in the early morning, and the storms continued in the night.

One afternoon though, the storm came out of nowhere. I was trapped upon the sand, watching the waves thrust up against the rocks, clinging to what I could to not be sucked out into the watery depths. The ocean I had always loved, I feared would soon become my grave.

Perhaps, as the doctors say, it was all a hallucination, a fever dream of hypothermia brought on by the storm. But no! I have the scars, and they are not from debris or being flung upon the rocks! The monster is real!
I felt death coming upon me when there, there She was! She wrestled in the water with- dare I recount it- a colossal squid, and its tentacles flailed and writhed as She gnawed on it, her teeth terrible to behold. But far more horrible- God, I can hardly bear to think on it again- were those giant, phosphorescent orbs! Her amber eyes, cold and dead of all emotion! I think I must have screamed, for She turned, the gills on her neck flaring a horrible bloody red. She set those unwholesome, evil eyes upon me, and roared. It was deafening, and I watched with animalistic terror as She slid towards me, the dying squid discarded as if a child's toy. She thrust Herself over a rock, terrible and gargantuan as she was, her sickly gray-green skin covered in some unnamable slime. She was coming for me, God have mercy, She was coming for me!
Satanic, vile fiend- The She!

Description
There are certain matters which can only be related by words on paper. The world, it seems, has decided I am clinically insane, and therefore, I am dictating this instead to a young nurse, since they have also decided I cannot be trusted with any item sharper than a spoon. However out of place my prose may seem to you, allow me to tell you it was bought from the leisure I once enjoyed as a free woman. I read horror tales of the twentieth century, by greats such as Poe and Lovecraft. These things are not allowed to me now- the doctors fear it will incite hallucinations of the sort that put me here, in this place.

But it was not a hallucination.

Allow me then, to tell you of the events that led to me being here imprisoned. I have managed to persuade the doctors to allow me this, though I am not sure quite how. They were very stubborn in all other matters pertaining to my incarceration- for incarceration it is! No matter the pretty name you put on it I am here against my will, kept in captivity.

I left my home in the small town of Clear Springs, Oregon on the unusually warm day of July twenty second, year two thousand and nine of our lord. (No doubt many urbanites will attribute my supposed madness to the "inbred" population of Clear Springs, as they are so fond of referring to it as an incest town. The ignorant cowards would try to cuddle a mountain lion or a bear, and attempt to keep coyotes and wolves as pets, no doubt, were it not for the people of Clear Springs, whose frustrations with the citizens of Portland, Salem and Eugene are well justified.) I was leaving for a vacation along the south coast of Oregon, hoping that it would be sunny, instead of the usual cloudy gloom that so haunts the western half of my state.

I was then, a young woman, and by many rights would still be considered so, and yet my hair is as white as snow, for the terrors I saw some days after my arrival in the city of Gray Rock.

My friends will tell you there was nothing amiss with me the week I left for Gray Rock, for indeed there was nothing. I spoke as you might, a common Pacific Northwestern citizen who used such slang as "fail" and "pwned" as freely as the next person. I had had a laughing conversation with my mother over the likelihood of foul weather simply because I had chosen to take a vacation the night before, and all seemed quite usual.

But I did not know then of the horrors that awaited me in Gray Rock.
Being the somewhat dramatic person my friends have known me to be (perhaps this, then, is the reason they so willingly believe in my depravity) Gray Rock was the perfect vacation for what I intended. In the fall, I was to begin teaching a new class (for I am- was a history teacher) about ship wrecks along the Oregonian coastline. Gray Rock being home to many of them, I was quite pleased with my chosen destination, for I have always loved the stony southern coast of Oregon, with its looming monoliths carved by the sea herself. (Always have I been a romantic where the sea is concerned.)

I chose a route along the coast, visiting such favorites of mine as the Devil's Punchbowl, and Devil's Churn. There seemed a theme to me, in the naming of these landmarks, particularly when one also considered the coastal Devil's Lake and Devil's River (though it is known to locals as the D River, and these I passed by, having seen them many times). Not at all fazed by these names, I continued along the coast to Gray Rock, vistas of the ocean darting out from behind the trees and mountains of rock. I took much time, stopping to take pictures, and slowing to watch when I saw young does and fauns in the brush along the roadside. This then, was what those urbanites who mocked my hometown could not appreciate- the raw, untamed wildness of life! Certainly, they probably cowered before a mantis. (I cannot judge too much here, possessing a terrible arachnophobia.)

My car, battered and worn though it was, offered a comfortable transport, and when I arrived at my hotel in Gray Rock somewhat late that night, I was quite ready to simply sleep. So wearied was I that I barely took in the clean, colorless room before sinking into exhaustion on the bed. Thinking on it now, I suppose that that room had a similar color and arrangement as to the near cell I inhabit now- that sterile, dead feel of a hospital room.

Though I thought I would sleep quite well into the next morning, I was wakened in the middle of the night by a great clamor. A fierce storm was raging without, shaking the glass in the window, and spattering it with rain. Thunder boomed, and lightning blazed white and blinding from the darkness. I cursed, and crawled out of bed to close the drapes and turn on the light, knowing I would find no rest with a storm that violent roaring throughout the night. I was not awake enough, however, to pursue anything of use, and so I merely watched the flashes of lightning against the insufficient drapery, wondering when it would end, and if the weather was the result of my accursed bad luck in choosing vacation weeks.

Then though, a stench filled the air. It was as if the smell of a thousand scorched and rotting fish, with some unnamable, unbearable disgusting odor of the sepulcher; and it filled me with a nameless terror. I lay huddled in my bed, having extinguished the light, and praying for an end, praying that whatever created that monstrous aroma would not find me, and nigh gasping for breath as the stench thickened. A roar, not as of thunder, but as of some great animal beast filled the night, and I trembled in dread- then, the blackness took me.

I awoke sticky with my own sweat as the dawn peaked over the eastern mountains, and believed it all to have been a nightmare. Once cleaned and dressed, however, I discovered that the storm, at least, had been real. The evidence was easy enough to find- branches had been snapped from trees in the fierce wind, and some had even been uprooted! The lightning had struck so old trees, and even scorched the gargantuan rocks that leapt up from the water into the sky. Everyone in the small fishing town seemed to be talking of it, and so I gained some details sharing my morning meal with some friendly but badly shaken fishermen.

They hadn't seen a storm like this in years, and the last time they had, they said, there had been strange happenings in the water. Whales, colossal whales, had begun to wash up on shore, mostly devoured, after great storms like that one. By what, no one could seem to say. Scientists only determined that it resembled nothing they had ever seen before, and hypothesized that it was the result of some kind of water decay before the carcass had washed up on shore, but the townsfolk, who had seen the carcasses at their earliest, whispered that the marks of teeth upon the dead whales looked frightfully human, and yet impossibly large to have been so. That had been nearly thirty years ago, and it wasn't the right time for whales in Gray Rock, anyway- but one man claimed he would know the sound of that roar that I had heard, and the stench we had all smelled, anywhere. It was the same beast they had heard whenever the whales were found.

I listened with a patient ear, but I did not think there was any supernatural cause behind the storm, or any great monstrous and as yet undiscovered fiend. I was a teacher, after all! Educated, and not at all given to superstitions. I did not doubt that there was a scientific explanation for the roar and the hideous odor. Perhaps the storm churned up the water and carried the smell of dead fish, and some anomalous airstream created the roar everyone was whispering of. The ferocity of the storm, too, would explain the washing up of any already deceased and decaying whales. This I said to the fisherman, and they looked silently at me as though I were a quaint child that failed to understand. I thanked them for the company, and went out to the beach to observe the damage of the storm myself.

The giant rocks I was so fond of were indeed scorched; the small hardy flora that took root high above the tide's reach burned in fiery lines, and it seemed that it had even broken away large sections of stone and granite. I was not the only investigator. A young, overeager journalist named Mark Parsons introduced himself. "Hell of a storm, huh?" he asked me.

"Yeah," I replied, for then I still spoke as any other might. "Woke me up in the middle of the night,"

Parsons nodded quite eagerly- I detected in him the type of young man who has spent his whole life waiting for something exciting to happen, and has finally got it. Never mind the stink that could still be perceived upon the sea breeze. I directed him to the fishermen I had breakfasted with, and spent much of the morning walking the beach and seeing the damage for myself. When I returned to Gray Rock, ravenous and worn, I chose a small, seedy café in which to sup. The air was filled with kitchen smoke, and the sharp tinge of alcohol perforated the atmosphere as well. My eyes wandered, until they found the small television screen near the bar.

Young Mark Parsons was on the local news station. His gold blond hair was being tormented by the wind as he gestured the scorch marks on the rocks. I could not hear what he said, nor read the small subtitles from my seat, but I could see the barely concealed excitement on Parsons' face. Some part of me disapproved, though I could not say why. Something seemed misplaced in his animation, as if it were not quite proper, or as if he was ignorant of what he spoke of.
Sleeping in my hotel room that eve, I was wakened again by the roaring wind. It was the same storm as the night before, and I trembled to hear its fury. It was as though the thing behind it- whatever vengeful sea gods that took their wrath out upon the city- were further inflamed. Once again, I smelt that awful stench, and heard that terrible roar. This night, however, I was not taken by unconsciousness, and remained awake for what waited.
The deadening silence.

It was terrible, almost more terrible than the roar of the tempest had been. It was heavy and oppressive, a deafening weight upon my ears. I thought, in a moment of crazed and animalistic panic, that I was being hunted.

The presence my subconscious detected- or perhaps I imagined it- seemed to loom over my small hotel, and at the same time lurk back in the depths of the ocean, simply waiting for me to come near enough to be captured. I shuddered in my bed, sweat formed on my brow. I would not fall victim, there was nothing but my own nightmarish imagination! I would not let it consume me!

At some point, I must have slept, for I woke to the clamor of the townsfolk. They were all standing about in the hotel parking lot, murmuring like superstitious fools. When they saw me coming out of the door, they seemed almost relieved, and I saw one woman begin to weep. I was utterly bewildered, and understood nothing. They greeted me with cheerful and reassured hellos, and further confused me by almost burying me with offers to buy me breakfast. I consented, at last, to an old fisherman, one of the ones I had eaten with on the previous day. I asked him, after the waitress- a girl scarce more than sixteen or seventeen- had taken our orders, what was going on. His old gray eyes looked out at me from a swarthy and sea-worn face. "It doesn't do to go asking too many questions about those storms, Miss Hammond," he said softly. "You should probably just go home."

I recall vaguely being somewhat offended, though I daresay I should have listened to him. It would have left me ignorant of the madness that lurked in the watery depths. "I'm a grown woman," I protested, "And I intend to stay for the vacation I paid for. A little storm won't frighten me off." Damnably ignorant was I, and I do not blame the poor fisherman for not wanting to attempt to enlighten me. I would have laughed in his face, the poor soul.
As it was, he simply studied me with an expression of sadness, and caution.

"Alright then, Miss Hammond," he said, "But you might want to be wary of the sea at night."

It was nonsense, all of it. Of course you would be wary of the sea at night, when you couldn't see the way the clouds turned and how the waves broke upon the shore. No sane person would be out on the sand in the middle of the night, particularly not after such violent storms. I told him so, and the old man looked somewhat soothed by my arrogant words. Arrogant they were, for I thought then I was quite certain of what was going on.

I took myself to a used bookstore, on the corner of Seventh and Ellensburg, determined to take my mind off of the storm, and my own childish worries. I wandered round quite alone, and happy, for I have always been an appreciator of books. I found, in my drifting to and fro, a small and quite worn copy of a book named Monsters of the Deep. I took it to be a scientific collection of data, perhaps about giant squids and the like, but I was disproved by the table of contents, which listed among the pages Leviathan, Kraken, and, more perplexingly, The She-Demon of the Pacific.

Curiosity drew me onward, and I turned to the page listed. A colorful illustration of the supposed sea monster lay on the opposite page, showing a gargantuan mermaid that dwarfed a Spanish galleon, carrying a huge spear. Her skin had a sickly green color, and her hair was a mat of colorless tangles, filled with broken wood and seaweed. Her teeth were at first glance like a human's, but all along the edges were sharp and elongated canines and roseate gill slits were open along her neck, flared in a most dreadful manner. But the worst- by God, the most horrible thing about her were the eyes: huge and amber in color, they took up almost half her face, with a terrible fish-like quality. Dead of emotion, her unblinking eyes were turned on the wretched sailors in the painting, and their doom was certain.

The image chilled me to the core, and I was almost unable to tear my eyes away to read the text. There it described her, a monster whose hunger was nigh insatiable. She fed upon whales, and giant squid, but she did not exclude the smaller creatures from her diet. If a ship were to disturb her she would destroy it, and if there were any survivors, they would likely go mad. It told of sailors who were reduced to gibbering fools, muttering always about the eyes.
What madness possessed me to buy the book I will never know, but as I meant to retreat to the hotel, a commotion caught my gaze, and pulled it to the beach.
A whale carcass had been found. I, with all the other curious onlookers, hurried to the beach, and I alone was silent among the furious whispers of the coastal folk. My eye had caught what theirs had missed.

A massive spearhead was embedded in what remained of the whale- a piece of chiseled stone sharpened to a point, over five feet long. Unable to speak, I grabbed the shoulder of the man nearest me and simply pointed. The crowd gradually fell silent as we all stared at it. Spots of color began to dance in front of my vision, for the stench- that awful stench, that reeking odor of a thousand opened graves heaped with rotting fish- was making me lightheaded. I fairly swooned, and had to be pulled away from the thing.

I knew it then. The monstrous thing was real. No rational explanation could shake the thought from my mind- The She-Demon, or The She as I now thought of her, was real. The storms were hunts, where she churned the waters. And the stench, my God, the stench- it was her breath! Her terrible roar and the smell of the carcass she fed upon, all fed into the terrible stench that saturated the sand and the air!

I could let no one know of it. No leviathan of the sea could match the terror of those dead fish eyes, or the calculated way she hunted. The townsfolk- how long had they known? How much had they guessed at?
Oh God, it was a terrible thing!

I spoke to no one of my discovery, but it could hardly be called a discovery. I could tell from the nervous eyes of the townspeople that they knew. They all knew. How long had they kept it a secret? Years? Decades? A century? The monstrosity would have destroyed the sanity of the world, if they knew of it, I was certain! Knowing of it, I could not help but wonder- where had it come from? Were there more? Good God, did it breed and spawn? Left alone with my thoughts, it was a wonder I held onto what little sanity I had left. I avoided the water when it grew dark, and in the early morning, and the storms continued in the night.

One afternoon though, the storm came out of nowhere. I was trapped upon the sand, watching the waves thrust up against the rocks, clinging to what I could to not be sucked out into the watery depths. The ocean I had always loved, I feared would soon become my grave.

Perhaps, as the doctors say, it was all a hallucination, a fever dream of hypothermia brought on by the storm. But no! I have the scars, and they are not from debris or being flung upon the rocks! The monster is real!
I felt death coming upon me when there, there She was! She wrestled in the water with- dare I recount it- a colossal squid, and its tentacles flailed and writhed as She gnawed on it, her teeth terrible to behold. But far more horrible- God, I can hardly bear to think on it again- were those giant, phosphorescent orbs! Her amber eyes, cold and dead of all emotion! I think I must have screamed, for She turned, the gills on her neck flaring a horrible bloody red. She set those unwholesome, evil eyes upon me, and roared. It was deafening, and I watched with animalistic terror as She slid towards me, the dying squid discarded as if a child's toy. She thrust Herself over a rock, terrible and gargantuan as she was, her sickly gray-green skin covered in some unnamable slime. She was coming for me, God have mercy, She was coming for me!
Satanic, vile fiend- The She!