As I bolted out the door, leaving Leo's screams of rage behind me, I began mapping out the quickest way to reach that side of the rig. Many people had left their rooms to come and figure out what the sound was. Some were panicked thinking the whole rig was going down, while others thought it was merely an abnormal shift in the metal supports. Despite the differences in reasoning it was still clear that everyone on the rig wanted to know what had happened.
Only, I knew what happened. And I was DEAD. To whatever god is listening please tell me that wasn't the machine. I can't afford to have this happen. I NEED this job. I'll never drink again I promise. Just let me have another chance. Just one more.
Part of the path I needed to take went through the cafeteria. As I entered, almost out of breath, I noticed there was a new crowd gathered. What was immediately odd to me was that everyone had crowded around one guy. It was someone I hadn't ever spoken to. He was clearly losing his mind with how he was freaking out, but it was what he was saying that really caught my attention.
The man was repeating the same few phrases, "I saw i-its eyes. It broke th-the machine. It broke it. And its eyes.." trailing off into inconceivable words every so often that no one understood.
And I thought I hit the booze hard. This guy must've smoked something and had a crazy trip because of the noise. I don't blame him though. It gets pretty boring on this rig. I chose to ignore him. I had better things to worry about, like the desalination machine he was talking about. As I was passing him though he stopped rambling. Instead turning and staring at me.
"Hey.. you. YOU!" he yelled, running up to me and grabbing me by the collar of my shirt, "This was YOUR fault!! You've doomed us all!! You hear me! You've doomed us!!" before I finally managed to shove him off of me and onto the floor.
What is this psycho talking about? Even if the machine was destroyed it wasn't able to harm anyone. Despite my direct stance against his words, it was clear there was a deep fear within his eyes. He truly believed what he was saying, and that laced my skin with an anxiety over what I would find outside. As I ignored the man to continue getting to the machine, one question formed in my mind. What if he was right?
It didn't take much longer for me to reach the exit I was looking for. Before I even pushed open the door I could hear the commotion that had built up since the noise. As I stepped out onto the exterior of the rig I was hit by an incredibly strong wave of the ocean smell everyone had previously become accustomed to. In my hurry to reach the machine, this unexpected briney punch almost forced me to throw up. Barely keeping my composure I walked towards the area everyone had crowded around. Sure enough, it was the desalination machine.
Or at least, what remained of it. As I approached, it became increasingly obvious that something had gone horribly awry. Pushing through the crowd of workers I was finally able to get the full picture. The machine had been destroyed. Seemingly having the bottom half of it ripped off. And it wasn't a clean tear either. It was obvious the metal had been violently twisted before it finally gave out. It was an eerie sight. And one that made zero sense.
That.. isn't possible. The machine couldn't have done that to itself, regardless of if it was overworked for three days or three years. It just wasn't possible. This had to have been an attack by a giant squid or something like that. Yea. It's the only thing that made sense. But deep down I knew it didn't make sense at all. There hadn't ever been a reported case of anything attacking one of the desalination plants. Failures and accidents have occurred sure, but never something like this. That was even disregarding the inevitable drop in the creature's population after we started desalinating the oceans. All the facts simply didn't add up. There was something else at play here.
Getting closer to the machine, I examined the spot it had been severed at. The metal is bending inwards. Whatever did this crushed it first, and then tore it off once its structure was too weak to resist. My eyes dropped to the water in hopes of finding any sort of debris that would shine some light on the multiple questions forming in my mind. As I examined the water something did catch my attention. It wasn't the wreckage of the machine though. Deep into the sea I saw two large yellow eyes.
What.. is that? Those eyes... I've never seen anything like it. My curiosity froze me in place as I seemingly held a gaze with the mysterious eyes. Something else did strike me as odd too. The water looked.. darker than I remembered. I'd gazed down at the ocean many times, and it never seemed as deep as the eyes seemingly were. It was as if a sinkhole had opened on the seafloor, creating an isolated area where the water ran deeper than everywhere else. No. That doesn't make sense. That's not how that works. It still wouldn't look quite like that. And then the realization hit me.
That wasn't deep water. It wasn't water at all. It was the head belonging to the glowing yellow eyes staring back at me. And it was massive. As I began to understand just what I was looking at, a wave of frozen fear went over me. That's not possible. I have to be imagining it. I'm probably just dreaming, or drunk out of my mind. There is an explanation for this. This isn't real.
As if it had read my thoughts, the creature began to rise. Its size seemed to only grow greater and greater. Everytime I had thought it was close to breaching it would just continue to rise. After a whole twenty seconds, it finally broke the surface of the water. I stepped back from the edge of the rig. It was truly colossal. It rose steadily, eventually overtaking the rig in height and climbing much father. By time it had fully risen it was impossible to tell just how tall it was. But its size was not its only horrifying characteristic.
It looked like an amalgamation of different sea creatures. The head was a mixture of a giant squid and a whale. Deep green scales covered its imposing frame, and both its arms were unique in their composition. One arm led to a fixture of an indeterminable number of tentacles that dipped deep into the ocean below. The other led to a giant claw resembling that of a crustaceans crusher claw. It looked unlike any creature we had discovered, and unlike any others we were likely to ever find again.
People behind me began to panic in terror. Some were petrified where they stood, others fell to the ground screaming. But all I could do was watch. As the creature looked down upon us, ear shattering clicks emanated from its direction. They had the frequency of a tool a dentist would use, but the pitch of a loud gong. It reverberated in my mind, chewing and digging at my consciousness as I tried to block it out. Many men, including me, fell to the ground clutching our ears from the pain. What was that?! I'd never heard anything like it. There WASN'T a sound like it. As I stared up at the being through winces of pain, I noticed it was staring right back at me.
Before I could get up, one of its tentacles ascended from the ocean and grabbed my waist. It pulled me into the air, high enough to where I could see the entirety of the rig below me.
Pleading in terror I tried to communicate with the creature, "STOP! PLEASE! LET ME GO!! PLEASE STOP!" but it didn't acknowledge me, instead turning its gaze back down on the rig.
Was it.. making me watch? Why?!? Why not just kill me? As I tried to struggle within the creature's grasp its claw arm rose towards the rig. Without any difficulty the massive claw enveloped a portion of the structure, and crushed it instantly. The rig began to slowly collapse, tilting to the side that had been destroyed. People, my coworkers, lost their balance and slipped towards the water below. Those who managed to find solid ground were doomed to be met by the tentacles rising out of the water to pull them deep below the surface.
As I watched the entire crew devolve into horrid screams of agony, a thought popped into my head. Was this.. my fault? Was the crazy dude in the cafeteria right..? No he couldn't be. I didn't do this. I didn't summon this monster. I was drunk.. it wasn't my fault. It's not my fault!!
I tried to plead with the creature once more. "WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS!? YOU'RE KILLING THEM!! WHY??"
This time the being returned its eyes on me, and stared. What's it doing? Why is it looking at me? What is going on?!? Although, I was about to receive my answer as the beast's eyes began to brightly glow, burning into my retinas. Suddenly an image flashed into my mind. It was the desalination machine. And then another image, this time of the beast and its glowing eyes. As each image cycled out a flash of pain went spiraling throughout my body. The next image was of an empty bottle of alcohol, and then the headlights of a car, and finally the photo of the woman I had on the table in my cabin.
The images stopped for a moment giving me a rest from the brain sedating pain. But it was a temporary relief. As the images cycled once more I was sent into a bottomless pit of pain. Machine, creature, bottle, headlights, photo. Machine, creature, bottle, headlights, photo. It was the same every time.
It was too much for me to handle. All I could do was beg for mercy. "S-stop.. PLEASE. It's not.. my fault. It's not!" My voice so deeply entranced in agony you could barely recognize it.
But it didn't stop. Again it cycled. Machine, creature, bottle, headlights, photo. It started exponentially increasing in speed. Machine creature bottle headlights photo. I was no longer in control of myself, screaming and writhing as the cycle continued again and again. Machine Creature Bottle Headlights Photo Machine Creature Bottle Headlights Photo. My voice was starting to give out from the desperate screaming. MachineCreatureBottleheadlightsPhoto. MACHINECREATUREBOTTLEHEADLIGHTSPHOTO.
And then suddenly the pain stopped. The tight grasp of the creature seemingly disappeared. My vision was gone, the only thing I could process was the photo of the woman which still lingered behind. My consciousness steadily faded, the life burnt out of my body. The last sensation left for me to feel being the cold envelopment of the ocean water as I slowly sank to the sea floor.