The Rising (Drake's Venture, mild horror fic)
Since I can't rely on my connection, I've decided to post my Spook Me Ficathon stories a day early.
Betaed by blakefancier and k_haldane
The Rising
The prompt was Aquatic monster- I also used this photo prompt:
A different ship, and a different monster
Thomas Doughty had blasphemous thoughts as the ropes cut into his swollen flesh. Three days tied to the mast. Three days whilst he could neither avoid the sun nor the rain nor the stink of his own body, clothing inevitably fouled when he could no longer control himself.
Three days whilst the man he had once thought of as a friend, a man he would have given his life for in Ireland, the man he had given more intimate regard than was quite proper... three days whilst self-titled Captain General Francis Drake sneered at him and laughed when the crew added to Thomas's public humiliation in any little degrading way their low-born sailor souls could imagine.
Three days without food, and the only water filthy buckets flung in his face, or lashings of cold rain. He had blasphemously begun comparing himself to Christ on the cross, hating himself for his weakness. On the third day he looked up into the sun and muttered in a cracked voice so low he could barely hear himself, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" In his delirium, the cloud that swept across the sun seemed answer, a face turned away from him. He wept dryly, eyes unable to give him even that relief. He turned his head as far as he could, looking across the Pelican to the gray-green depths of angry waves. The sea, the sea was as large as his anger, as full of hate, of pure blind, cleansing mad rage, as he.
His hands were free enough to gesture, his lips able to move, his heart able to burn, his mind able to remember the words and rituals he had once been so horrified to discover in Doctor Dee's most secret writings. He had known from the moment Francis tied him to the mast that he would be killed, killed as nothing more than an example to terrify the crew and Thomas's soldiers and the gentlemen adventurers into following blindly. If Drake could murder him, then none of them were safe. Francis had even whispered in his ear what tortures he intended for Thomas's brother, John. That... he would not allow. Better that John should die swiftly, here and now.
Drake looked at him as the last incantation slipped from his mouth and the ropes turned into serpents, striking at the crew. Thomas smiled amid the screams and spread his arms wide, embracing Francis one last time, accepting Francis's sword sheathed in his heart. As blood burst from his mouth, he kissed Francis and whispered, "Thank you."
And then the tentacles came from the depths, Cthulhu rising in madness too early to claim the earth in torment. He broke the Pelican like a child's toy, and picked sailors from the sea to squeeze into bloody pulp before the unseasonable stars forced him back to nightmare slumber. He grasped the caller, and the one entangled with him, gulping them both down, the dead and the viciously fighting. The imprint of Drake's fists and feet could be seen traveling down into the otherworldly depths of Cthulhu, alive and in agony, for as long as Cthulhu chose to keep him.
Reluctantly Cthulhu sank beneath the bloody waves, while the rest of Drake's small fleet watched in horror, belatedly sending out boats to pick up the few survivors. Among them, a white-haired young man who had once been John Doughty, wept.
Betaed by blakefancier and k_haldane
The Rising
The prompt was Aquatic monster- I also used this photo prompt:
A different ship, and a different monster
Thomas Doughty had blasphemous thoughts as the ropes cut into his swollen flesh. Three days tied to the mast. Three days whilst he could neither avoid the sun nor the rain nor the stink of his own body, clothing inevitably fouled when he could no longer control himself.
Three days whilst the man he had once thought of as a friend, a man he would have given his life for in Ireland, the man he had given more intimate regard than was quite proper... three days whilst self-titled Captain General Francis Drake sneered at him and laughed when the crew added to Thomas's public humiliation in any little degrading way their low-born sailor souls could imagine.
Three days without food, and the only water filthy buckets flung in his face, or lashings of cold rain. He had blasphemously begun comparing himself to Christ on the cross, hating himself for his weakness. On the third day he looked up into the sun and muttered in a cracked voice so low he could barely hear himself, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" In his delirium, the cloud that swept across the sun seemed answer, a face turned away from him. He wept dryly, eyes unable to give him even that relief. He turned his head as far as he could, looking across the Pelican to the gray-green depths of angry waves. The sea, the sea was as large as his anger, as full of hate, of pure blind, cleansing mad rage, as he.
His hands were free enough to gesture, his lips able to move, his heart able to burn, his mind able to remember the words and rituals he had once been so horrified to discover in Doctor Dee's most secret writings. He had known from the moment Francis tied him to the mast that he would be killed, killed as nothing more than an example to terrify the crew and Thomas's soldiers and the gentlemen adventurers into following blindly. If Drake could murder him, then none of them were safe. Francis had even whispered in his ear what tortures he intended for Thomas's brother, John. That... he would not allow. Better that John should die swiftly, here and now.
Drake looked at him as the last incantation slipped from his mouth and the ropes turned into serpents, striking at the crew. Thomas smiled amid the screams and spread his arms wide, embracing Francis one last time, accepting Francis's sword sheathed in his heart. As blood burst from his mouth, he kissed Francis and whispered, "Thank you."
And then the tentacles came from the depths, Cthulhu rising in madness too early to claim the earth in torment. He broke the Pelican like a child's toy, and picked sailors from the sea to squeeze into bloody pulp before the unseasonable stars forced him back to nightmare slumber. He grasped the caller, and the one entangled with him, gulping them both down, the dead and the viciously fighting. The imprint of Drake's fists and feet could be seen traveling down into the otherworldly depths of Cthulhu, alive and in agony, for as long as Cthulhu chose to keep him.
Reluctantly Cthulhu sank beneath the bloody waves, while the rest of Drake's small fleet watched in horror, belatedly sending out boats to pick up the few survivors. Among them, a white-haired young man who had once been John Doughty, wept.