The ocean village was small, nestled against the jagged rocks, its wooden houses sitting unevenly on the shore. Its people were fishermen, laboring under the unrelenting sun, their faces hard with the salt of the sea.
It was a place where time moved slowly, as if trapped by the water that surrounded it. But for all its quietness, there was a heavy dread that hung in the village, something the people couldn't name.
Thorne was one of them. He had lived his whole life here, born to the water and the land that met it. The ocean was his father's curse and his inheritance. But lately, something had been different. The ocean, usually a source of life, had become cold. It felt as if it was watching, waiting. And something from its depths was moving closer.
He remembered the first sign. It had been a strange feeling, a gnawing unease, the kind that crawls under your skin and makes you question the silence. He had been fishing, alone, when a sudden pressure had seized the air.
The boat rocked more violently than it should've, the waves growing wild around him. He'd checked the weather—nothing. No storm. The wind was calm. But the sea had been restless. Thorne had rowed back to shore quickly, but when he reached the dock, the village was oddly quiet. Even the birds had stopped.
It wasn't long after that when the first disappearance occurred. Fishermen who had ventured out alone never returned. One by one, they vanished without a trace. They said it was the tides, the deep waters pulling them under, but Thorne had his doubts. He knew the sea. He knew its moods. This was different. It felt like something was hunting, something far darker than the tides.
The others laughed it off. Old men, wise from years of weathering the sea, would tell stories about strange creatures that lived deep beneath the waves. It was nothing more than drunken tales, they said. But Thorne felt the dread gnawing at him, tugging at the edges of his sanity. He could feel it watching him.
One evening, the sky turned dark earlier than usual. The sun seemed to die, sinking into the horizon like a bruise. Thorne stood at the edge of the docks, staring out at the vast ocean. The water was still, an unnatural calm that made his skin crawl. He felt a coldness, an unnatural chill that wasn't from the wind. It was something deeper.
His father, old and frail now, had warned him about the ocean's wrath when he was younger. But Thorne had never truly believed the stories—until now. There was something in those dark waters, something that had been waiting. Thorne couldn't name it, but he knew it was hunting him.
He was never alone after that. At night, he would hear the creaking of wood on the docks, the slapping of waves against the shore, but there was no one there. Sometimes he swore he saw something in the water, something large and dark moving just below the surface. But when he blinked, it was gone.
The village began to fall apart. Fear grew like a sickness, spreading from one person to the next. More fishermen disappeared, swallowed by the ocean with no trace. The people whispered about an ancient creature, an enormous squid that had been disturbed by the village's greed. The thing was hunting them, they said. And it wouldn't stop until it had claimed them all.
Thorne didn't want to believe it, but deep down, he knew. The ocean had always been unpredictable, but this was different. The way it felt now—the way it pressed against his chest, suffocating him—it wasn't just the tides. It was something more.
The whispers began to fade. One by one, people abandoned the village, fleeing to wherever they could find safety. But Thorne couldn't leave. He was trapped. The ocean had become his prison, and he knew that no matter how far he ran, the thing in the depths would follow. It had already claimed too many lives. His was next.
One night, Thorne stood by the docks again, the faint moonlight casting a pale glow over the water. The village was quiet now, the streets empty, the houses boarded up. He was alone, save for the sea. He had to leave. He had to escape.
But as he turned to go, something stopped him. The water. The water was moving.
A massive shape, dark and shifting, rose from the depths. The surface of the ocean broke like glass, revealing the terrible creature that had been hunting them all. Its enormous body writhed in the water, its tentacles stretching out, reaching for him.
Thorne froze, his breath catching in his throat. He had seen it before, in his nightmares. But now, it was real. And it was coming for him.
The creature's eyes glinted with a cold, inhuman intelligence, its gaze fixed on Thorne. The air around him felt charged, crackling with the promise of violence. He couldn't move. He couldn't run. It was too late.
One of the creature's tentacles shot out, its suckers making a sickening sound as it struck the dock. Thorne stumbled back, his heart pounding in his chest. He could hear the water sloshing against the wood, the deep, wet noise of the squid's body shifting beneath the surface. The sound was deafening, suffocating.
And then it attacked.
The tentacle shot toward him, faster than he could comprehend, wrapping around his waist with a force that took his breath away. The creature pulled him toward the water, its grip tightening. Thorne fought, struggling to free himself, but it was no use. The strength of the squid was impossible, and with a final, powerful yank, it dragged him under.
The water closed over him, cold and dark. Thorne kicked and flailed, but the tentacle held him in place, its suckers digging into his flesh. He could taste the salt of the sea, could feel the pressure building in his chest as he was pulled deeper. His lungs burned, but he couldn't scream. There was nothing but the darkness, the suffocating blackness of the ocean.
And then he saw it.
A single, enormous eye stared at him from the depths. It was too big, too alien, its coldness radiating outward. Thorne's mind screamed, but there was no sound. The water pressed in on him from every direction. It was everywhere, swallowing him whole.
The tentacle tightened, crushing the breath from his body. The last thing Thorne felt was the slow, grinding pull of his body toward the depths. He tried to hold on to the surface, to fight against the pull, but the ocean was too strong. And the squid—it—was too strong.
The creature's body surrounded him, its crushing weight sinking him deeper and deeper. There was no escape. The village, the life he had known, all of it was gone now. The squid had claimed him, just as it had claimed the others before him.
And in the endless dark, Thorne understood: the sea wasn't just a force of nature. It was something older. Something hungry. And it would never stop.