I’ve been wanting to write a Lovecraftian short story for some time, but had yet to find just the right artwork. Most were either based on an existing story or too on the nose for my tastes. This one, however, was perfect. Unique in so many ways, yet fitting into the mythos so well. I had to find out what the story was.
Thanks for reading.
Artwork by Tatyana Kupriyanova
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/ykPZER
DISCLAIMER: This work has not been edited beyond what was done in the video. The goal is to capture a story in a short amount of time and keep it as raw as possible.
The Story
She had a name once. The sky wouldn’t tell her. Textureless, it hovered above the sea with apathy. The sea wouldn’t tell her. Full of texture, it frothed unintelligibly in a language she had yet to learn. The birds wouldn’t tell her, for they frolicked both in air and water, allied with both.
The dock stood silent in decay, when it should have been bellowing its misery, for it had become a carcass. An old scab, picked at until even the wound it protected bled no more.
She moved across the gray sand, because walking would be a lie. She supposed there was another word for it, but she had still to attribute herself to such things.
The birds avoided her, as they should. The water, too. Inching closer to it, she tested its sentience. Sheets of it, clothed in foam, retreated no matter how she configured herself. So many configurations. She hadn’t counted, had been sickened by it, even looking at it. Them. They slithered, squirmed, writhed. All hideous words that brought bile to her throat. Metaphorically, of course. The disgust was a remnant of what she used to be. Who she used to be. Or was she still her? In some regard, she was.
Thoughts could become tangible. She would make them so. If she could become this, then anything was possible. These thoughts drew her closer to the dock, where something waited, something tangible.
The birds and water watched her, the sky. Their many eyes on her back were itches she couldn’t reach. Content to observe her agony in their squawks and crashes and gales. How could they keep it from her? After the nibbles of bread, the billow of her hair, the cut of her thighs?
She stopped, mere strides from the dock, remembering what strides were. She looked down, feeling the sand between her toes, how it molded to her arched foot, sinking at the heel and ball. A swirl of black looked back at her, moving of its own accord, an entity both separate and one with her. Her throat burned with acid, but she swallowed air.
She found the wave’s mist avoided her as well, and, in doing so, revealed a barnacled rope, tied to the dock, severed by the sea. Thousands upon thousands of bites, weathering it away, fiber by fiber, two severed ends slaves to the whims of the current.
Severed. As she had been, then regrown. Again and again. Multitudes. Enslaved. As she had been, then given agency. Or perhaps it was all an illusion, and she was part of the colorless symphony, merely lighter and darker shades.
The rope ends tapered as the water coursed over them, through them. Her scalp chilled. A spray of water, the wind spreading it over her scalp in icy fingers. She touched it. The flesh cold, the skull soft beneath. Except for lines, scars, disturbances. She removed her hand and wiped it on her gown, one that flowed like . . . she couldn’t think it.
Atop the dock now, the sea finally spoke. It told her of a man. Not a lover or friend. A caretaker. Footprints it couldn’t wash away, a hull it couldn’t shatter. Tied to a dock it couldn’t splinter. And when it wasn’t, it was master of that sea, cutting through it like a knife, using it against itself. It would go as far as it wished. Perhaps to the other side of the world. To another world, where there was no color, just shades, from white to black. Where promises might be found. Gifts.
She felt a weight on her arm. That weight settled at her wrist, heavy. It tugged her down, drawn by a force stronger than her, but not stronger than what she had become. She lifted it. Regarded it with eyes that both knew and didn’t know.
It hummed with life, sent ripples over her skin as if water. It told her of a girl on a beach who liked to watch the water, to dance in the waves, to sing to the wind. A girl who enjoyed the stormy skies and the chaos they brought, because that chaos drove everyone else from the shore, and she could be alone to bask in its power. A power given to it by the stars, unseen but there, in a sea far bigger than this one, in a place and time far more ancient. One that beckoned her with many many arms full of many many gifts. Promises.
She said yes, had said yes, and the stars had answered with everything she had never wanted.
She threw her arm to be rid of it, but her hand was too wide. She pulled, skin sliding, tearing, until she could take it no more. There, she cried. Tears were a memory, but remember, memories were tangible. Could be. But not today, so the memory was all she had. At least she could still close her eyes.
When that darkness reminded her too much of the night sky that had brought all the pain with the gift that bound her, she opened her eyes. A bird, dark of feather and long of beak perched on a dock post, cocked its head. She opened her mouth to speak to it, but only water came. She would have given it crumbs, if she had any, but her arm was shackled, behind her back because she couldn’t look at it, held there by her other in case the stars chose to utter their false promises.
She let the wind take her gown, flutter it about her chest. A useless artifact from a time she wished she could make whole. Free of it, she left the dock, the severed ropes, the beach. The waves did not shun her. They welcomed her as the stars had once, as they still do now, fallen, anchored to her wrist, to usher her to a place as deep and as black as the place where she had left her name.
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