A Short Story

I must see, I must see, the thought echoed inside me.

With a cry I opened my eyes, and the scales of my madness fell for a moment. Ship and sea surrounded me, glowing dimly under starlight. But how? Where had the clouds gone? And their thunder? Oh, there, off in the distance.

I lifted my eyes further, beyond the black horizon, to the heavens. The clouds had briefly opened as our ship passed through the eye of the hurricane. And there above us, Orion, the hunter, seeking to take a life.

Our ship. She lay battered and torn, creaking, moaning like a wounded animal, barely keeping her bow above water, which was forever rising. We’re sinking, finally.

Destiny, your cruelty confounds me, I thought. My friends, my family, all left behind, for nothing?

I can still see my mother’s face as she waved from the docks, hopeful yet sad, as I had been. She wore her yellow dress — she only wore it on special occasions like these. “My son, a marine biologist,” she had said proudly, as we embraced one last time. I had watched her shrink to a tiny yellow dot as we sailed away.

A moan, not unlike those emitted by our small research vessel, began to rise inside me. Shadows lie beneath the waves, menacing, their fins gently splitting the surface. “You have risen from the depths to greet me, destiny?” The ship lurched, moaning one last time, as if in reply.

There, a large beast, just briefly I saw its eye — piercing, and black like a gem of onyx. Madness consumed me. I reached for my waistline. “You doubt my commitment, professor? Am I not qualified for this mission?” I addressed the eye as I unsheathed my utility blade.

The doubts raised by the board of directors still haunted me, those fools. My voice rose to a mad howl, as I balanced, waving my knife in the air. “Am I not qualified? I implore you, am I not devoted to my research, to the sea? Am I not here, in the center of the Pacific, thirsty, starving?”

Orion illuminated the stage of my death, filling the atmosphere with a soft silver haze. Water was beginning to lick at my feet. I stood alone, broken, leaning upon the mast. Once more I looked up.

“Your aim is true, hunter. Now lets’ be off,” I whispered, wide-eyed, drawing the blade across my wrist and diving into the deep, into the mouth of the abyss.

THE END.

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