**16th of November 2039, UCN Navy Scouting Vessel "Holland", North Atlantic Ocean**
The ship cut through the waters like scissors gliding through black satin. They had sent her to investigate the disappearance of a cargo ship that went dark in the North Atlantic.
Her sonar imaging showed nothing out of the ordinary on the seafloor. And the clouded night left her no stars to reference where the sky met the water. The night crew stared at their instruments as most of the sailors slept.
The sonar pinged. Something was moving.
-----
Eduardo Hernandez, encased in his cot, snored, much to the annoyance of his bunkmate Ren Takahashi. At first, Ren was thankful to be assigned the coveted two-man rack at the stern of the ship, but now he couldn't even hear the engine through Eddie's racket. Ren rolled to face the wall and covered his head with the hard foam pillow in an effort to block out the noise.
The ship rumbled and jolted. Ren and Eddie were thrown from their bunks. The screams of tearing metal ripped through the air and the rack was filled with red emergency light.
For an instance, everything was silent. No creaking. No engines.
"Puta..." cried Eddie through uneven breaths.
Eddie clutched his shoulder, stirring in pain. He had fallen from the top bunk and landed hard. His left arm jutted from its socket as he groaned on the floor.
"Eddie?"
Ren got no coherent response. He sat himself up. Although shaken from the fall, He had no serious injuries to speak of.
"Eddie, are you okay?"
Ren's eyes took a moment to adjust properly to the light. It was obvious his comrade's shoulder had been dislocated, but Eddie's face also ran slick with blood. The red light made the blood shine black. Eddie looked like he had been dipped in oil.
Ren knew he had to get Eddie to medical, he was bleeding too much.
Ren stuffed his bare feet into a polished pair of dress shoes and dropped a flashlight into his pyjama pockets. The ship's horn blared. Ren made sure to keep count of the blasts.
One blast meant a warning. He hoisted Eddie's good arm over his shoulder and dragged his comrade to his feet.
Two. Eddie moaned like a dying bull on his friend's arm, spitting and gurgling through his blood-covered lips.
Three. Hundreds of heavy footsteps pounded across the hull of the ship.
Four blasts meant potential emergency and danger. Ren spilled onto the walkway. Eddie hung off of him, barely conscious.
Five. Ren yelled for help. Eddie's legs gave way completely. He was unresponsive.
Six. Determined, Ren hauled Eddie into a fireman's carry and started to run. Ren felt thick, warm liquid sliding down his arm and coating his back.
Seven blasts: abandon ship
Ren sped up. He needed to get medical supplies. He had no way of knowing how many others had been injured, but he realised it was unlikely the poultry first aid supplies on the raft would be enough for everyone. The infirmary was right next to the racks. Ren thought he could fix up Eddie and grab extra supplies before escaping the ship.
Another deafening screech tore through the air, like nails on a chalkboard magnified a thousandfold. The Emergency lights flickered and the bulkheads let out a sickening groan.
Other sailors fled their racks, headed for the ladders. Their feet slapped the ground like applause. Ren's blood ran cold. His shoes were wet.
-----
Holland had stopped dead in the night. She was ensnared by a thousand black tendrils. The ink came from the depths. It pulsed, alive with malevolence. The tendrils bubbled, dragging her down inch by inch. From below, a low, resonant thrum began to reverberate. Something unfathomable was stirring. It constricted its grasp, Holland lurched and fires broke out across her upper deck.
Crewmembers on deck froze at the sights. The stench of rot had smothered the ocean air. The tendrils coalesced into boiling puddles of putrid tar and teeth from which forms rose.
-----
Ren panted. The water was shin-deep now and Eddie's limp form was weighing him down. He had made it to the infirmary, but he didn't have the strength to pull open the door with Eddie on his back.
Ren set Eddie down on the walkway opposite the infirmary door. He then set both hands on the door, one foot on the wall, and pulled with all his energy. The door gave enough for water to flow inside, then Ren could open it fully.
He bolted in to the room and began searching the cabinets for gauze and bandages. Decay choked Ren's nostrils as he rooted for supplies through blurred eyes. The lights stuttered again, then the room went black.
He could feel the soft roll of bandage in the darkness and stuffed them in his pocket. The smell overcame him and he wretched. He could hear his vomit splash in to the sloshing water around him.
Still heaving, he reached for his flashlight and clicked it on. He aimed the beam at the open door. Eddie was gone, replaced by a red smear along the wall.
Ren leaped back into the walkway and turned.
The scene before him numbed his face with terror and disgust. Eddie's feet pointed upwards; he was being swallowed whole.
The creature had no limbs. Its body was streamlined and oily. Its oozing, bubbling skin shined in the torchlight. Its bulbous black eyes gleamed as it choked and gulped down Eddie's limp corpse in a suffocating embrace. It jerked and pulsed, snapping Eddie's bones with each movement. Its fish lips dripped with blood.
Adrenaline kicked in and Ren spun and floundered through the water that had run up to his knees. He stumbled and plunged forward into the cold. The salt stung his eyes and his torch shorted out. He knew the ladder was straight ahead. Maybe he could catch a boat if he just ran.
He heard the creature's gurgles fade as he made distance. Ren squeezed the dud torch. It gave him some comfort as a last resort while he ran away.
Ren tripped forward on something hard and metal; the ladder, he crawled up and breached the upper deck. The lights were out across the boat, but the flames gave Ren light to see his surroundings once more. Amber light bathed the wooden deck of Holland, which was riddled with living tar that reeked of death.
Holland had two life boats positioned either side of her bridge. One large enough to fit all but the handful of the crew required to lower it to the water, and a second smaller raft that could be deployed by its own passengers.
The large raft hung bow first off the side of the ship; its occupants had been spilled into the sea. Some desperate survivors clung to the benches hovering above the freezing abyss. One such sailor was trying to unhook the remaining ropes at the stern, but the weight of the boat made that impossible.
Other men and women cried out into the cold night, fleeing from creatures like the one Ren had seen.
They undulated like serpents. The tar-like substance that composed their forms allowed them to flow seamlessly over obstacles, their movements eerily fluid and swift. A wet, slithering sound accompanied each surge forward. The ship itself seemed to recoil from the creatures' touch.
Ren ran across the width of the boat to see if the other raft was still intact. He was lucky that whatever was attacking Holland must have interrupted the skeleton crew.
Another monster slipped out from behind a smokestack. It noticed Ren and began lunging towards him, maw agape. Rotten teeth pointing inwards in concentric circles lined its gullet.
Ren had to get past it. The dead flashlight felt heavy in his hand. It wasn't much, but it gave him a chance. Ren backed up away from the creature barreling towards him. He stared down its flopping mass as he leaned backwards on the stern's railing. He poised as it built momentum.
The monster coiled and leapt at Ren in one fluid motion. Ren pushed hard off one leg and struck the creature's side with the steel casing of his torch. Ren's blow sank into the side of the creature's head with little resistance.
The creature's form rippled with the impact, and its skin skimmed over Ren's knuckles. The sensation was repulsive. Its touch was cold and clammy.
Ren changed the course of the creature's trajectory enough to avoid being swallowed. The creature tumbled over the ship's railing, It's speed and slippery ooze gave it no purchase on the bars as it flopped overboard.
Ren couldn't risk another encounter. He sprinted forward towards the remaining lifeboat. The few officers that had stayed behind to lower the main raft were being choked down by djinn or had sook escape by diving in to the water and drowning.
The sights of his comrades being devoured by both the ocean and the horrors that sprang from it seared into Ren's mind as he sat alone on the remaining lifeboat.
He wished for someone else to appear, a companion, neither dead nor dying, as he lowered the winch, but he knew he was alone.
Ren watched as the tendrils pulled down the embers of Holland beneath the waves. The spiralling colossus extinguished the only light source for hundreds of miles, plunging the area into darkness, leaving only silence.
He had escaped with his life, a stockpile of rations and a satellite beacon. He laid down in the darkness, praying the UNC would find him before something else did. Feeling the wet roll of bandage in his pocket, he wept.