Tentacles

• Alice Xie, Grade 7, Hornsby Girls High School
• Short Story
• 2017

Finalist in the 'Spread The Word 2017' competition

Eyes.
They snapped open when the call came after so long. Dimness filtered its vision, blurring the edge with thin vague wafts of light slanting down in shafts from above, vainly attempting to penetrate the depths. All that it could see, all that it had to see was those jagged shadows, those pathetic creatures who had taken the single source of joy in its bitter otiose world. It jerked its misshapen weapons; enmity welled up within it, building into an inferno which burned, flames of hatred curling into its glassy eyes. How dare they. It had roamed within its murky kingdom for as long as time, grown as the ruler of the abysses. No one dared to cross it. Not until now.
They had boasted and derided with glee of their extraordinary fortune and wit. They had celebrated through the night, the gluttonous sloshing of wine and clang of metal clear over the faint lapping of tongues of water licking the sides of the boat. When the cloak of night swallowed the world with heavens of azure dusted with vivid cyan veils with pinpricks of forlorn light constantly osculating above, they dreamt of the wealth, fame and prosperity that generously coated the petite waterlogged chest they had fished from the ocean. Fished, unaware, from an owner.
From the torrents of eerie silver lined light shattered upon the obsidian waves, a silhouette rose through the limpid water, forming it rose before breaking through the surface, its grotesque figure glimmering faintly. The octopus fidgeted, hostility welling once more. The monster greedily felt its way to the prize – that vivid glow. The treasure, its treasure, was the only radiance in its tenebrous life was on board the ship. And nothing would stand between them.
The most dangerous weapon in the world.
It lay cushioned upon a threadbare age sheened crimson velvet pillow within a retired wrinkled fatigued chest. For how long it had been before it had last seen the light? The illuminate sphere of light pondered to itself. All it had heard last was its owner’s dying screams.
Terror. It filled the air that night and rang to the heavens as the tower of light erupted, spiralling upwards. Disfigured unnameable shapes were tossed upwards, like limp ragged dolls with their crazed screams a symphony with the hysterical crashing of waves against the boat. Eerie veils of sourly glaring clouds squinted away as the light, stark against the night, climbed higher, before shattering into the stars. And the shapes, the shapes sunk down, avidity swallowed by the tides.
It was left in tatters, splinters of wood the phantom of a fine ship, drifting to the horizon. Dawn had brought a cold violet sky dusted with fine magenta. Outlined by a harsh shadow, a water soaked chest with shards of crystal and a single singed tentacle, still grasping its prize, floated into the ocean’s secrets, away from the greedy hands of mortal men. The monster had claimed its prize. And it would never let go.