It was a dark night and what a fog there was. The men abroad the tide of Dagon where very tired after a long day of plundering treasures and far sailing into the night. I was awake due to an uneasy dream I had. It was of blackness in a near future of some sort. I could feel a deep void of sickness and decay just beneath the surface of my mind. I did not want to sleep again that night for fear that I would be taken by some kind of creature beneath the tides of the sea. I feel there is a curse up one us after such a long life of steeling and murder. I am no saint that is for sure.
The fog in the night made the men of this pirate shop tired in an unnatural way. The captain of our ship was none other then the great Clive Killien a tall man of pale white skin and black hair. He was said to have been good friends with black beard but no one really could say. I would not cross him though. I have seen the man kill before and what a sight it was. The way he cut off the head of men that would stand against him. Most times it was in some damned drinking hole where sailors were often known to go. Captain Killien was a real devil when it came to hording loot and plundering rich men’s castles in the night.
Now it was late the night that our world had gone to hell. It was like this that the story went. The tide of Dagon vessel had been at sea not long before being over come by the fog that made the ship seem lost in the void of silence. We sailed slow but could not see a single thing due to no moon in the night. Then the ship ran aground. There was not supposed to be an island but yet there was. Captain Killien made men get out and check what the land mass was that we had come up on. Those men found that it was a black beach. The sand black as the very night we were in with no moon. The ship was stuck and could not move so Captain Killien made all of us men get off the ship and make a fire somewhat in land where there was a small grouping of trees. The trees where dead as could be but the wood burned like hell fire. We all made best of the night as the men got drunker and drunker as we watched the fire burn.
Now in the morning I awoke to James, a good friend of mine. He said the captain wanted to have us bury the treasures we had previously come up on after killing the sailors of another vessel at sea. We took everything from them all kinds of gold and silver we found. It was a great take for us all. The Captain was pleased by that. We had a grand time after we got all the loot aboard our vessel. There was drinking and lots of smoking. We made a great deal of loot so we had need of a place to hide it where no one would look.
This island would make for a great place to hide all our takes. Now when we all gathered together and began digging we noticed a smell of rot. It was such a smell of rotten decay that the men named the island Wormwood. I could not imagine what brought such a foul stench up on the earth. We still kept on digging though. The Captain stood watch over the work as the morning rain began to poor down up on us. Soon there cam a fog of sorts. It came from within the hole we were digging. It was not fog though. It was steam. It was hot there and the men began to notice that the earth was slowly moving open so the hole was getting bigger. The Captain yelled stop!! The men stopped at that moment and noticed the dirt it self was alive. I picked some of the dirt up as the rain fell over it. In my hand there lay soil but not at all. It was small, small little crab like creatures, Millions of them moving like some evil not known to men’s eyes since the dawn of the devil. I threw the damned thing to the ground and looked up to see the men where also noticing the same creepy things. James looked over and said it is evilness. We should have not come on to this island and dug to hide our loot. The Captain laughed and called James a damned fool.
The Captain said burry the treasure. The men continued and James did too knowing that the men would just laugh at him if he spoke more. The men just thought that the dirt was covered in small insects or something. They did not let it stop them. As the treasure began to cover over with the living dirt. The steam of the rain hitting the inner earth had become unbelievable. Then in an instant it all went wrong.
One of the men’s feet dropped into a loose spot of ground and he could not get his foot out. Others helped him but then he screamed out in horrid pain. He said it burns! Captain Killien came to the man and said quiet your self fool. The man was clearly in very bad pain as if something beneath the ground was pulling him in as it burned him alive. We all tried to pull the man but still it sucked him down slowly. It was unbearable to watch as the man screamed tell he had no breath to live. He fell into the dirt and then he was sucked into the mud by some evil thing beneath the ground.
The captain stood in shock as to what he saw. The crew began to tremble with fright. Then the ground gave way where the treasure was burred and there was a gapping hole where fires rose up from within the earth. Lots of men died there. The fire had some kind of control and could suck them in despite their fight to get away. Then I ran but fell to the ground when the land shook like some kind of unearthly quake. I looked back and seen some kind of sea creature come out of the mud and fire. It had a face of a giant fish creature and arms and legs of almost human design. It ate the men that it could get its claws on with its giant razor teeth. It was as big as the trees near by. This was not a creature of God but a demon out of the hells of the under earth.
I seen the Captain give fight to the beast with his sward but was ripped to sheds by the creatures raging claws. I got up and ran to try to get away. I was running with James but I heard him fall and then I heard his screams not long after. Me and some other men where running back to the ship when some kind of monsters in the trees came down and picked the men off one by one into the trees as they screams in horror. I felt my death was near but still I ran faster and faster tell I cam to the beach where I saw the ship. I was almost to the ship when I saw it. It was something of magic to the eye. It brought more terror to me then all the other doom that had rot from this place. There were shining silver wheels in the sky. They shot light down to me through the rainy cloudy morning day light. I could not move.
The silver metal shields were everywhere. They spun but stayed afloat in the air like they were hung there but still they moved freely. I heard voices in my mind that where not mine. The voices I could not understand but I knew that they where not of this earth. I gave up in that moment. I thought I was surely lost for there was to much evil here on this island. I was out numbered by unbelievable things of which the mind has not known of tell this very moment.
I thought to my self about how we were curse by our evil works as pirates, I went limp with utter hopelessness. I looked up once more to see what fate was coming to me. I was shocked at that moment when I was dropped from this evil light to my knees. I saw a light so bright above the shining metal shields. It had power over them. It drove them into the sea and out of sight. Then the burst of light went out. I was alive and free to escape the evil of the place that had doomed my whole crew. I went aboard the tide of Dagon and dropped a small boat into the sea. I got into it and paddle out to sea in hopes that a near by vessel would see me and take me away from this doomed place…
Writen By L. Rutledge 4-16-2011
