2A/N: This was a dream I had several years ago when I was going through tough times. I finally decided to write it down, obviously. The basic plot is the same, but I just embellished a few details here and there.
~Sea of Nightmare~
Gray water was all around us.
My brother and I clutched the narrow log to our chests, clinging on despite the numbing coldness seeping in from the surrounding ocean. Everything was a drab gray color, from the endless sea to the cloudless, sunless sky in the horizon. There was nothing else in the world except us two. There was no color, no sound, no wind, and no movement, save for the gentle motion of the waves, lulling us to sleep. They whispered in our ears, phantoms of voices from long ago, murmuring to let go. It was so tempting to obey, to sink slowly into the water with barely a ripple to announce our leaving, leaving this world.
Without warning, a dense mist swept over us in a freezing cloud. Our pale gray surroundings turned black into a terrifying darkness. A current began pulling us forward, and we held on tighter, too weary to wonder about our destination, if indeed there was one in such an empty place.
After a timeless moment, the darkness turned into a dark gray as the mist opened up before us. A distant island became visible as a tiny speck on the horizon, which gradually increased in size as the mindless current dragged us ever closer. There was a rickety murky brown hut in the middle of it, with a dying palm tree accompanying its lonely existence. Dead grass littered the muddy-colored sand in shriveled clumps. The place was framed by the dark gray mist which blocked out the sky.
The log slipped from our grasp just as we reached the shore, and we lay on the sand, panting. The driftwood floated away from us and disappeared into the mist, never to be seen again. My brother and I glanced at each other, then scrambled up wearily to stumble to the hut. Just as I reached for the holey, termite-infested door, it creaked open.
An old man stared out at us from sunken, baggy eyes. His wrinkled skin was covered in silvery white hair and his lower face had a long, tangly beard which reached to his belly. He had a holey, old, tan-colored cloth wrapped around his body and dirty sandals with nearly-broken straps. His mouth had just opened to say something when we heard an eerie wail in the distance.
As one, our heads snapped up to look behind the hut to see dark, black-violet shapes swirling on the far side of the tiny island. They were advancing towards us, slowly but surely.
"They're coming," rasped a hollow, cracked voice.
We turned to look at the old man, but he didn't spare us another glance and was instead rushing away from the hut to the side of the island. My brother and I looked at each other in fear as the wailing sound increased in volume, then ran after the man. The dead clumps of grass suddenly yanked at our ankles and the sand sunk like liquid beneath our feet, threatening to drag us down. We desperately stumbled after the old man, who was by now inside a rickety, canoe-like wooden boat that we didn't see before. He was waving his arms and yelling at us, judging from his open mouth, but we couldn't hear him at all as the howling sound emanating from the dark shapes grew even louder.
Finally, we arrived at the boat and clambered in together as he took a couple of oars and rowed furiously away from the island, into the dark gray mist. The dark shapes halted at the edge of the water, their shrill wails becoming even louder, to the point of ear-shattering, as they clumped together and rose in a gigantic shape, reaching high into the air.
Then there was a flash of lightening, and the sky turned into a fiery orange as angry clouds swirled above the island. The water turned murky black and began tossing the boat back and forth along its waves. The sky collapsed and we were instantly drenched in the sudden downpour. The waves grew taller and more violent, and it was all we could do to hold on.
The old man began laughing, at first a soft, deep chuckle, one which quickly grew into a loud, crazed cackle. Bewildered, we stared at him, but he didn't stop, not even to draw breath. His laugh continued on and on, filling our ears and making us nearly deaf. My brother shook his head and grabbed an oar from the man, who offered no resistance. Likewise, I did the same to the other oar, and the two of us rowed as hard as we could away from the island. But each time we strained our oars against the water, a wave would crash over us, bringing us just a little bit closer to the place we were trying to escape.
We looked at each other again and, ignoring the crazed laughter and the storm raging around us, my brother and I pressed onward. After an endless moment, we began making progress against the roaring waters. But as time passed, our motions became slower and less powerful. Fatigue was finally catching up with us, and we struggled desperately against the waves as they pulled us, once again, back to the island.
Suddenly, the boat shook and nearly capsized as something crashed against its underside. A hand with rotting flesh hanging off its bones in thin strands reached for my brother's ankles and dragged him down into the water. In panic, he called my name and I turned my face to him, eyes widening at the sight, flailing toward him from my end of the boat, tripping over the oars, but reaching him nevertheless. We grabbed each other's arms, and I heaved backwards, trying to pull him back into the boat and away from the bony hands which had suddenly appeared in the water all around us.
There was a jerk as the hand let go of my brother's ankle and fell into the water in a sickening splash. We hugged each other, squeezing the breath out of the other, confirming that we were, indeed, still together. Then the boat rocked again, and as I looked down, I spied several holes in the bottom of the wooden canoe. Water seeped through them at an alarming rate. We were sinking!
Without warning the boat rocked again, and I felt a skeletal hand grasp my ankle. Strips of half-rotted flesh wrapped around my leg, and I felt myself being slowly dragged downward. I cried out to my brother to help save me! But as I looked back, the old man had a bony hand clasped on my brother's shoulder. He was paralyzed, unable to move, but his mouth hung open in a horrified expression as he looked on at me, unable to help. The man's hand looked exactly like the hands in the water all around us, exactly like the one who had grabbed hold of my brother earlier, and exactly like the one who had my ankle in a death grip right now.
The old man was still laughing as if he had never stopped. But slowly, the laughter changed into one not quite so foreign sounding. It sounded almost familiar to me, somehow.
I looked into the man's face, but now he didn't look like an old man anymore. He looked like a man that I had known for a long time, a man who was family to me. But just before I could comprehend who he was, I was dragged down, down, into the dark, murky, violent water below.
Yet his laughter still lingered, echoing.
Update: Thanks Hitsu-Chan for your suggestions, even though I decided on a different title. (Sorry! o_O)
And, as usual, reviews are awesome. :D