The Lure of the Kraken

February 14th

As I write this, I tremble to hear the crashing waves upon the shore, and to see the foaming white spray savagely lashing the few windows of my coastal home. I do not fear the storm itself, for these thick wooden walls have stood firm and tall after many more vicious deluges, mocking the waves and the wind for their pitiful efforts; nor do I fear the prospect of the coast flooding, for my forefathers had thought of every possibility when building this abode three generations ago, and rather than sinking deep foundations in the loose sand, instead raised it on several sturdy, stilt-like pillars, the end effect being quite akin to the huts of fishermen in monsoon-ravaged regions of Asia. No, it is not any reckless force of nature that causes my deep-seated unease on this tempestuous night. The thing that causes my incessant quaking is not entirely of this world, not something that we, as transient, insignificant little mortals should ever have to know the truth about, something whose sight and presence we were not made to withstand. The implacably rising tide and seemingly flooding beach offer a chance opening for one of the most heinous, irreverent beasts of land, sea or sky to rise, drag itself unto the dry realm above the waves and to devour all that has been denied to him for millennia past. For the depths of the North Sea, with all their murky trenches and interminable chasms, hold the gibbering, slumbering form of something I have endeavoured to prove as being a thing of reality, and not the whimsical caprice of the ancient weavers of the thick tapestry of myth and folklore that exists today. However, my quest has not won me merit among my peers, nor recognition as one who has vindicated centuries of legend. It has brought me only scorn, disbelief and mistrust, and a self-imposed exile from the world which has mocked my researches. For it is, by slow degrees, by painstakingly setting together the few scattered pieces of a cosmic puzzle greater than mankind’s wildest thoughts could ever comprehend, that I have come to verify that amongst the oldest whispered tales of humanity, at least on of them is true – the existence of the great demonic cephalopod – Kraken.

I can not – shall not – wait any longer by this window, for each volley of foaming spray summons to my mind the image of the benthic titan battening opening huge sea-worms in his sleep, before waking to winnow with giant arms the slumbering green. I must rest, for the small hours of my nights have been rent with the screams of nightmare. I pray only that I do not now go with brandy in hand to lie upon my deathbed.

February 15th

I dreamt last night of its hideous, suckered tendrils, leathery and barnacled, grasping and groping around the shore, clinging to each boulder and edifice that it could, until it had hauled its loathsome, blasphemous mass onto the beach, dripping with the filth and grime of the blackened North Sea wastes. Lumbering around, not used to the dry land, it managed to begin dragging itself towards my home, gaining momentum with each passing second, opening its obscene, cavernous mouth to a profanely wide degree, with a motion not unlike that of a snake swallowing whole and unguarded egg, its teeth hung with quivering robes of thick, glutinous slobber, before closing its gaping maw around me, my cabin, and all the evidence I have of its sacrilegious being, bringing the entire burden of proof into the blank nothingness concealed behind its chitinous tusks and fangs. It was then I awoke, screaming a bloody vengeance upon the heavens, drowning in the glacial sweat of midnight. I could not stay in the room any longer, but while the storm still raged, I could not bear to stand in any of the rooms facing the ocean, so I took my leave to the dim, dusty chamber I would have called a cloakroom, if I had ever have found any reason to use it, wherein I whiled away the rest of the darkness curled in a foetal position upon the sandy floor, gibbering curses to all the gods of existence, who had dared to allow the foul entity to befoul the waters of their world.

When morning broke, I saw that several boulders lodged in the dunes just beyond the reach of the tide had been displaced, wrenched free from the ground and hauled closer to the ocean. The were also great ruts and ridges formed in the wet sand, as though some great plough or other such device had rent the earth asunder. I soon chalked both of these phenomena up to the storm of the previous day, but my paranoiac’s disposition could not help but feel that there had been a more sinister happening behind them. So it is that I must relate the events that have led to my enlightenment, for fear that the truth may die with me, and millennia of karmic build-up will be brought to nothing.

It began with my moving into a newly acquired house in Arkford, the city about which many have whispered tales of madness and divination – tales which may have had a basis, for only three score years before had the sanatorium been built, to house the growing number of people diagnosed with illnesses of the mind. My new home was quite close to the university, and I soon became quite acquainted with several of the students and professors, especially those involved in ancient history and mythology, as the wing of the academy devoted to this branch of learning was only a few minutes away from my abode, and I was often to be seen walking through the campus’ wonderful gardens, admiring the changing colours of the trees, and gazing into the small but beautiful lake around which the grounds were built, and the town named for.

It was a promising young student named Henry who kindled in me an interest for folklore, when he showed me an essay he had written, upon the connections between the biblical tales of Leviathan, the Norse legend of Jormungandr, and the more recent stories of the devouring Kraken. I was enthralled with it, and read it several times before he submitted it to his professor, even helping him to refine it. From here, I began to research into the matter myself, poring over volumes from the university’s vast library, and haunting the harbour in the neighbouring town, in case some sailor or captain could remember tales from his father or grandfather, about some beast seen at sea, or the mysterious disappearance of some ships. It was after perhaps a month or two of this prying that Henry came to me excitedly, with a sheet of hastily scrawled text clutched in his hand. It was written, or rather, transcribed, by his uncle, who was one of the guards at the asylum, after he had been checking the cells, through grated holes in their heavy doors, on his nightly patrol. It had been nearing sunrise on the night of November 19th, and the last stop on his round was a cell numbered 173, the farthest along on a narrow wing reserved for the most severe cases. When he peered through the aperture, he could not perceive a stirring of movement, nor could he see the inhabitant of the chamber. The walls, however, appeared to be daubed with some frantic scrawl, evidently written with the man’s own blood. Summoning another guard, the door was opened, and the patient was revealed to be lying dead, curled up under the porthole. The chief doctor of the establishment pronounced the cause to be exsanguination, due to the man’s repeated cutting of his upper arm and fingers. How he did this is yet uncertain, as no blades were found on his person, though it has been suggested that he bit and scratched himself until he drew forth his own blood, daubing the walls with his fingers, teeth gritted through the pain.

What was written on the walls, however, was the most striking aspect of the whole tale. The man’s screams had seemingly stopped during the prior day, and all that could be heard from his cell were sounds of heavy breathing and grunting, ostensibly from his attempts to open wounds in his weaker arm, to provide the unsavoury ink with which to smear the walls with a message he thought needed to be known and understood. Below is a transcription of the madman’s last words, copied down hurriedly by Henry’s uncle, before the room was cleaned up for its next prisoner:

“They do not believe in him, the wretched fools. Those who even go so far as to acknowledge that there are whispered legends and rumours will fervently deny that there is even a grain of truth to the claims grasping their way outwards from the myths. Enfiladed by modern day horrors, the threat of a nuclear holocaust, the obliteration nature’s defences against the sun’s lethal rays, and the exhaustion of the squandered resources that should have lasted for aeons, it seems reasonable for the panicked nations to desire so ardently to let the persistent fables simply die. However, the only death will be the deaths of those that pass the hushed secrets along, we fleeting, scurrying mortals, whose incessant prying into the realms of science has given us more cause to murmur and gossip in muted tones of his descent further into the cerulean abyss. Our effluence has driven him deep into the all-consuming benthos, deeper than we could ever dare to fathom. With oil, with sludge and smog, we have choked him, suffocated him, but we have not yet killed him, for it is doubtful that we ever could, even if we shook off the shackles of disbelief and incredulity, and bent all of our forces against him. Our fleets would be like flies cleaning the hide of the rhinoceros with their buzzing and humming, tickling his leathered skin with their immense smallness. We have decided, perhaps not consciously, not to waste more precious resources against so great a foe, and use instead our most abundant weapon. And so it has come to pass that we have turned a blind eye towards him, bringing to bear the full extent of our ignorance upon him. We have merely forgotten him, and let him lie. This has come to be a falsehood, however, for now we are garrotting the pristine waters he rests in with the callous ligature of the filth we continue to expel into his unspoiled homeland.

He lies there still, lulled to a sound slumber by the soothing cacophony of the sea above his head. With each crashing wave, he drifts further into the realm of sleep, and we gain precious months and years in which we can convince ourselves that he is no more than idle hearsay and the ramblings of old sailors driven mad by months at sea. With each decade that passes, each century that he does not make his presence known, the race of man allows itself a hurried breath, and dares once more to think himself safe amid his foul machineries and smokestacks. Each year, those who know the awful truth, or at least hold closely the tales told in darkened corners to be the dire reality, sidle closer and closer to their demise, and the world’s knowledge of him is diluted, drowning in a sea of unawareness and a lack of belief. The advent of this era of suppression, mistrust and denial brings with it only the promise of an eerie eternity of silence, leaving our land as just a tacit orb sharing in the stillness of the cosmos.

We gave our souls, our forewarning, to free ourselves now of the endless nights haunted by visions of loathsome horror and the icy caress of our own sweat. We have bartered our future, the lives of the next generations of our kind, for a transitory reprieve from madness and terror.

Not I. I have seen, in nocturnal reveries induced by my own unexplained malady, things the like of which have driven me to the depravity you witness now upon these very walls around you. This room, this pitiful, grimy cell into which we have heartlessly thrust me, under the deceitful premise that I am of a collapsed and ruined sanity, and a frayed and threadbare state of mind, is devoid of pen, of paper. Without parchment or quill, I must scrawl these last thoughts of mine upon the walls themselves with the sanguine ink that floods my veins. I have seen it. In my wretched dreams, he has come to me, his hideous visage dominating my waking and sleeping hours alike. He has begun to stir beneath the cosmic enormity of his ocean abode, and the thrashing of his slothful form churns great waves upon our insignificant shores. Soon, perhaps centuries from now; for indeed, aeons to us are but the short-lived, ephemeral instants to him that we may see in the life of a mayfly; but in a future that is still within the reach of our civilisation, he shall rise, like the cyclopean Polyphemus or the fish-god Dagon before him, from the depths, with black murk from oceanic floors older than the most revered gods of our greatest pantheons dripping menacingly from his gnarled, yet truly gargantuan frame. With a passing whim, he will destroy us all, crushing our mighty edifices and devouring the wonders of ages long since dead. Those who can survive his wrath, flee far from the shores to the inland wastes, huddled, starving, in caves deep beneath the earth, where neither day nor night has ever been seen, will speak only one word in the midst of their slavering, gibbering delirium, for it will seem branded upon their minds with the hot iron of his indomitable evil. It will be his name, for shall ensure that none who live to bear witness to his colossal might will ever again make the mistake of letting their kindred forget. And that word will be Kraken.”

February 16th

I have begun packing my things, and I feel I must live the rest of my life away from any great body of water, before my sanity ends up devolving to the point of psychosis or madness. However, I must finish this diary, lest I fail in my attempts to outlive my lucid state of mind. The truth must be known, for we need to stand prepared, ready for any assault the benthic tyrant wishes to loose upon us; so I shall continue to recount the tale of my exploration into the subject, and how I came to realisation that it was more than just a drunken sailors’ story or an idle faerie-tale.

As should be expected, the account of the madman’s scribbled prophecy roused my interest in the stories of the Kraken to a fever pitch, and I set out with renewed vigour to find out all I could about the titan beast. I spent more time in the port towns to the west of Arkford, convinced as I was that some scion of a long-standing sailing family could help me, with stories and tales told by his forebears of their days at sea. As luck would have it, this was to prove itself as truth, and within a week after I had received the lunatic’s passages, I was approached by a weathered skipper, who told me he had heard of my quest from a young man who was a worker on his ship, and who I had apparently asked my questions a fortnight before. The captain told me his name was Jacques, and his father had been a sailor from France. He tacitly handed me an old leather-bound volume, saying that it was an old possession of his grandfather’s, which had been given to him by his father, and may help me shed light upon my studies. When I asked him how long he could bear to part with such a thing, he merely smiled a grim, dark smile and told me that I was welcome to keep the “accursed wretch of a book” for as long as I wished, for he could not sleep while it lay in his house. Puzzled by this, I thanked him, and as he turned to leave, I called to him and enquired as to how long he would be anchored at this seaport, in case I wished to speak with him again. However, he had by this time reached his vessel, and withdrew into the dark confines of his cabin, and I was too anxious to read his tome to waste time chasing after him.

Once back in Arkford, I visited Henry, for he had become as absorbed by the issue as I was, and would surely want to discover what was written within the old seaman’s book. As we sat in his study, dimly lit by a paraffin lamp, we realised the instant we opened the volume that it was an old captain’s log, and its pages still carried with them the scent of sea water and fish. Rather than do the words contained within it the injustice of abridgement, I shall copy the relevant passages outright, for I still own the log, and all the other relevant texts, stored as they are in a stern, wooden chest under lock and key. Here began the real dawning of the truth upon me, and so shall begin the same for whoever is now reading this chronicle.

“Captain’s Log
Fleur- de-Lis, Norway to Jamaica

April 6

I feel a strange sense of discomfort, an almost foreboding atmosphere, haunting these waters. I find myself utterly ashamed to admit it, but I fervently wish I had not accepted this voyage. The locals in the last port tried to warn us of some hideous, ghastly monster lurking in these parts of the benthos, and I shudder with dread as I recall their words, unable as I am to put my mind at ease. I hope that my horror is merely a transient thing, and a night’s sleep should right this whimsical mess into which I have gotten my head. I pray to God that this will prove to be the case.

April 7

My dreams last night were plagued with visions of a most foul nature. I awoke several times in the night, dripping arctic sweat, with the image of a single, phosphorescent emerald eye staring at me, unblinking. Thinking it only to be the machinations of my worried mind, I resolved to put my first mate, Jean, in charge for a day, while I walked the length and breadth of the deck, over and over, hoping that the fresh air might clear my head of these nonsensical musing about some oceanic leviathan. I could not have been more wrong, as, while I was pacing to and fro, the hour had scarcely turned nine o’clock, when a strange motion, a gelatinous undulation of the surface of the water caught my eye, though no perceptible wind set our sails quivering. As I gazed into the blue abyss, I could have sworn I saw a half-formed orb of a brilliant, luminous green, as though obscured by the movements of the water, staring out at me like some hideous eyeball from the depths. At this, I beat a hasty retreat to the kitchens, where a stiff drink of the cook’s home-brewed rye helped to steady my nerves. In my gut, I feel that those locals whispered more than hollow rumours.

April 8

I did not sleep at all last night, instead spending the evening striding the floor of my quarters in the vain hope that I should tire myself into a dreamless state. However, a faint, yet constant sound, like the low piercing cry of a harpooned whale, was keeping my wits frayed, and my heart hammering in my chest. When the sun began to appear on the horizon, I took my pistol, and, with gritted teeth, went to find the source of the horrific wail. Peering into the icy void, my strength left me as I saw, clearer this time, the shimmering green orb from the previous day, and I realised that I was staring at that ghastly eye from my chilling nightmares. Firing my pistol, I cursed roughly as I saw the fiendish thing sink deeper into the blue. I do not recall much of the last few hours, though, but I do know that I passed the early hours of the day singing to myself, and laughing when I could not sing. I fear that my crew have lost their trust in me, and I must be careful with my actions while I pry into the nature of my ungodly tormenter.

April 9

Inexplicably, I lay in a deep slumber, uninterrupted by the dreams that have held me in their thrall. Rousing myself slightly later than the crew, I could hear a frenzied whispering among them, and soon learnt that my first mate had disappeared. He had been fixing something or other on the main sail – accounts varied on this, though – and, he was, seemingly, on his way to find another crewman to assist him, when there was a scream, a cry of ‘Jormungandr!’ and a slithering sound, the sibilant grating of a vast serpent’s scaled belly, before a great splash signalled the end of my trusted lieutenant. I do not know what devils haunt these waters, but my fear is so great now that I can barely hold my quill to the page. Damn those superstitious locals and their nautical monsters! Even now I hear the loathsome crawling chaos of that serpentine beast, and am drawn to its source, to face my nightmare.

April 9, continued

I fear this may be the last entry I make in this log, for Pandemonium is upon us, and there is not a god brave enough to heed our pleas. The serpent which was the bane of my slumbering hours, and the slayer of my unfortunate first mate, has been revealed to me, and in the harsh reality I witnessed today at three of the clock, even the most hideous and heinous of Python’s minions from the very depths of Hades would be preferable as the oppressor of this vessel than the fiend which at this very minute lies waiting below it. As my clock chimed the third hour, I heard once more that horrid scraping, like scales or ridges writhing on a vermicular body, and I put down my quill and took up my pistol, before rushing out to meet this vile thing face to face. I never got the chance, however, as the ophidian beast lay scant yards away from my cabin, and I quickly loosed my shot into its head. Despite this, it thrashed wildly, and through its flailing madness I could see that it was not the great snake that gnaws the roots of Yggdrasil, as we had wordlessly agreed it to be, but a tendril, a vast tentacle akin to those of the many-hued octopi kept in great tanks of water on the coast we had scarcely departed from, and held dead but dreaming in glass jars kept in brooding academies. Its suckered, dripping mass lashed out at me, missing, before retracting back from whence it came. As I write these, my last words to the world of flesh, I know not what name this beast uses – Leviathan, Kraken, or perhaps something unutterable by the throats of men – but I do know that it will not claim me as its victim. I shall leave this log upon my ship, where someone should hopefully find it, and return it to my loving wife Margot; but I shall not go with it. I shall take my crew to the prow of our marine home, where we shall plunge ourselves into the beyond, to drown and die free of this beast. Farewell, whoever shall chance to read these words – may you remain free from the machinations of such a fiend!

February 16th

It suffices to say that this redoubled my interests in the field of the mythologies I had been studying, and it was not long after this that I realised there may indeed by truth in the stories of the great beast Kraken. It was now that my search took another direction – rather than seeking to find a connection between Kraken, the world-serpent Jormungandr, and the biblical Leviathan, I now sought to discover the creature who existence would explain the points of commonality I had already found. Taking what money I could, I resolved to travel first to Scandinavia, then to Israel, to speak with the people of these lands, in order to ascertain whither I could find this beast. Being, as I was, mortally afraid of flying, for God did not intend those without wings to traverse the skies, it was without reluctance that a ship was chosen as the means of travel, and, being also of a nostalgic bent, I was keen to travel in a great sailing ship as though from the days of history. I was in the marina, awaiting the arrival of one of these rare ships to take me across to Norway, where I would begin my mission; when a charismatic and rather brash Englishman approached me. He claimed that he had seen me express an interest in traversing the North Sea, and attempted to dissuade me, asking instead that I accompany to a small island to the north of Australia, where he had, the year before, stumbled upon an odd tribe of natives. They had been worshipping gods the like of which he had never before seen or heard of in all his travels, and, unlike the peoples of the Congo, where he had previously been exploring, these tribes posed him no threat, and soon welcomed him into their society. He did not spend long with them, but was anxious to return to them, to see their wondrous idols and statues; and to hear their fireside chanting to nautical deities.

I admit that I was rather taken with the idea of journeying with him, but refused, for I had greater priorities to which I needed to attend – or so I thought. A bitter squall had soon kicked up, and the Great Wolf Fenris, which was to be the only ship to set sail for Scandinavia in the next month, had its largest sail dashed to shreds, as an ornate weathercock was prised loose from a nearby rooftop, and tossed about in the winds, its arrow-point slicing the canvas to tatters. Rather than bide my time for the week or so that it would take for a new sail to be acquired, or indeed, to go with this Wade Germaine, as his name turned out to be, I chose instead never to even set foot upon a ship again, for, already of a nervous disposition, I now could not comprehend the bravery – or lunacy – which drove men to steer their crafts though storms and typhoons. I did, however, entreat Wade to make a written account of his stay with these people, and gave him both my address and that of Henry; that he could, on his return, enlighten us with tales of the esoteric pantheon of the tribal islands and their secretive inhabitants.

I made little to no progress in my studies in the following months, but a year, or little under one, later, I received a large parcel, which exuded a pungent odour akin to that of oceanic brine, or fresh shellfish, and a letter, which was from Wade, informing me that he had decided to spend the rest of his days with these people, but had made the voyage to Australia’s closest shore, that he could send me this parcel. Words, he wrote, could not describe the significance of the contents it held in regards to my research, and all he would say in the letter was that he had uncovered it in some ruins near a hole in the barrier reef surrounding the island that was once home to the King of Upolu. He had been diving for pearls and coral with the natives, and they had come upon a curious stone temple or palace near the reef, which, oddly enough, was sited in an area that, to the best of his knowledge, had never been above sea level. All the tribesmen with him would tell him about it was that he should not return thither, for it was the ancient Bale-Fe’e, the palace of the thunder god. Unfazed, he claimed, he broke the surface, and swam to where he had seen the ruins, before plunging as deep as he could into them. Finding his breath curiously insufficient, he grabbed what he had thought was a small boulder, to attempt to ascertain how old the site was, and, with it under one arm, returned to the shore to clean the kelp from it, only to find that it was something in which I would have a vast interest.

I hesitated, while I wondered what it could be; that could leave a man so enthralled with its creators that he wished not to leave them. I could not wait long, though, and soon curiosity bade me open the package, and remove its contents – a considerably-sized idol, almost, but not quite, two feet each in length, breadth and width; and carved intricately and exquisitely from a single flawlessly smooth block of obsidian, of the variety containing thin, capillary-like threads of a jade green colour running through it at sparse intervals. It depicted an almost amorphous shape, which, after a great length of bemused puzzlement, I perceived to be that of an immense octopus, except with a fanged maw at great tusks where instead its beak should be; a wizened, barnacled hide seemingly made of a thick, leathery skin than a rubbery coating; and eyes that, even without colour, could be seen to glow with a baleful red, and even without life, could be seen to seen to blaze and writhe. It was rearing up, I suppose, for it seemed to be arched back, with six of its eight tentacles pulled up and back, preparing to smite a foe, and the remaining two firmly gripping rocks and boulders to brace the beast. It was mounted on a gilded base, into which were engraved several characters I could not recognise – though two words seemed to read ‘Fe-e’ and ‘Kraken’ respectively, for the symbols from which they were composed resembled our alphabet closely, albeit more runic in nature. All told, it was a masterfully crafted piece of work, doubtlessly the progeny of years of toil, and destined to sit atop a mighty altar. What soon wormed its way into my mind, however, was that it did not seem at all like the carvings and statues of the Polynesian islanders, which are all seemingly characterised by stylised proportions and grotesquely leering faces, and were never, from my very limited experience in the matter, carved from such beautifully rare igneous glass. How Wade managed to convince the locals to part with such a wondrous totem, I shall never know, but it was not long before I made a telephone call to Henry, requesting him to visit immediately, that we could discuss the significance of this latest find. I believe that the distant and wistful tone of my voice, more than what I was actually saying, aroused his interest immediately. While I waited for him, I merely sat staring at the object, and, after a while, became aware that I was so dumbfounded by its presence that I had lost the will or ability to speak.

Within the hour, the front door opened, and Henry rushed in, panting heavily and gasping for breath, to find me still sitting in the position I had been in for somewhere in the region of forty minutes. His arrival, however, managed to rouse me, and I found myself babbling excitedly about the statue, a striking contrast to the utter silence I had found myself in scant moments before. Pulling some notes out of his valise, Henry bade me to slow my discourse, and, as I was repeated myself more cogently, he began underlining or otherwise highlighting sections of text, before showing me what he had found. It transpired, according to his annotations, that the tribe of Indonesians which Wade had found were known as the Samoans, and worshipped a wide range of gods, many taking the form of exaggerated sea creatures. The deity which this icon represented was, in fact, known as Fe-e, and was a god of thunder and war. The legend went that, after the King of Upolu had refused to allow Fe’e to marry his daughter, he had grown tired and disgusted with the mortal realm, and after knocking a great hole in the reef surrounding the King’s island home, had retreated from his great underwater palace to obscenely deep regions of the ocean floor, biding his time until the right moment to resurface and destroy the races of man for their crimes. Staring at the statuette, a morbid taciturnity descended upon the two of us, and the veil was lifted from our eyes. Henry slowly arose, transfixed me with a glare which was at the same time both enraged and beseeching, and moved to take the effigy which lay before us. I somehow knew what he intended, and bluntly refused to allow him to take it, instead lifting it myself, and leaving him standing mute in that dimly lit front room. I went first to the university, and told several of the professors how I had come into possession of the carved sculpture, offering it to them to keep in their mythology wing, coolly lying about my reasons, telling them that I did not trust my clumsy self with such exquisite rarity. As I left, I breathed a sigh of relief, and took a brisk walk though the grounds to clear my head. Upon my return home, I first entered the front room, where I saw that Henry had burnt his papers in the fireplace. I could not, however, see Henry, and, despite calling aloud his name, received no answer. I could, however, hear a slow, faint liquid sound, as though that of dripping or splashing. The cause of this noise, however, still haunts my dreams to this day, perhaps more so than the beast I have sought to uncover. As I entered the kitchen, which I perceived to be the source of the sound, I saw that one of the knives was missing from the ornate wooden block, and I sharply spun on my heels, and rushed through the house to each of the rooms. It was in the last one in which I looked that I discovered what it was I had heard – Henry’s pallid corpse, blood flowing profanely from a self-inflicted wound across his throat.

February 17th

It was not long after this that I packed my things, and moved as far away from that cursed place as I could, which brought me to this old house by the sea, sold to me at an extortionate price by my own uncle. However, I did not mind, as all I cared for was to get away from the scene of Henry’s suicide, which still disturbs me to this day. I do think, though, that I shall have to move again soon, as I can no longer stand the crashing of the waves and frequent storms by this shore. Each howling wind screams with the voice of the Fe-e, each bolt of lightning cracks with the power of his tendrils, and each pounding swell resounds with his fury. I must leave this place. I must… Oh God! On the horizon! I must run… The Kraken… it comes! God speed my flight…