Chapter 492

The coastal town of Port St. John in South Africa, usually a vibrant hub, now lay still beneath an oppressive, leaden sky. A strange quiet had settled, replacing the familiar calls of seagulls with an unsettling stillness.

Even the relentless crash of the ocean seemed subdued, as if holding its breath, waiting for something unknown. The change wasn't immediate but gradual, like the subtle shift in the tides, but it was enough to cause unease among its residents.

Alistair, a marine biologist with eyes that reflected the gray of the sky and a soul wearied by the vast indifference of the sea, had felt the shift the most profoundly. He lived alone, not by choice but by some inherent loneliness, a small hut perched on a cliff, far enough from the town to allow him the space he needed from what he now saw as simpletons and dull people.

Alistair wasn't like most. His connection to the ocean was profound; he heard it not just as water crashing against stone, but as a great, breathing entity, a being of profound age.

Or that's what he told himself anyway. He spent his days observing it and was far from the beach itself.

It's strange because Alistair wasn't a surfer, or swimmer, he simply just loved the beach and found his space to collect samples from all the bizarre fish the tide leaves for him.

He started hearing them a week ago, the voices. It wasn't like any sound he knew.

It was not quite singing but like mournful, resonant tones carried on the wind from far out in the water. At first, he thought it was some whale's strange call.

The tune was sad, a dirge with multiple voices all weaving in harmony. It would have been peaceful if it hadn't felt wrong and deeply unsettling to his very core.

"Sounds like some demented chorus" He said aloud. The tune seemed to follow his own moods and every step.

The song made him feel cold and like the world had lost some colors in the past few days.

He didn't mention it to the townsfolk, convinced they wouldn't understand.

Instead, he spent sleepless nights at his window, listening as the strange chorus intensified with every passing sunset, watching the ocean which would remain as the only still and silent thing within the world, which made him think he was going crazy.

One morning, after a restless night, he made his decision to uncover the source. It felt wrong, yet, he was compelled, like a moth to a malevolent flame, his curiosity trumped the common sense his inner conscious so desperately tried to bring forward to protect him.

He told himself, "I'll just listen and note my findings." He prepared a small boat, checking his equipment twice over, making sure his recording devices would do well to capture this strange noise.

He even made extra precautions and triple-checked all the cables and all his measuring equipment he might want to bring along, just in case, a faint memory of an uncle, whom he hated, came to the front of his mind telling him to "do better."

"He would be proud" He bitterly muttered. As the first orange glow kissed the horizon, he set out.

The air was thick, heavy with an expectation, but with a kind of melancholy sadness that clung to the breeze. The ocean was a mirror reflecting the dull sky.

The rhythmic push of the boat seemed an echo of the morbid singing he had grown to dread yet somehow craved, and this thought deeply disturbed him. He rowed for hours until the coastline had shrunk into a hazy line on the distance behind him.

Then he cut the engine, waiting for any form of sound. The absence was as startling as any sound.

"There" He said, it began as faint strains and gradually grew louder and clearer as the water grew darker in the depths. He activated his recorder, but the equipment was of low quality and the sound quality it did receive was low and he knew there was more to it than this muffled tune his machines were picking up, "useless."

He then closed his eyes and truly listened. He heard a choir with voices layered over one another, creating a web of melancholic tunes, it was an elaborate pattern weaving and rising out from below him, reaching him with full volume at his boat.

They were definitely in the water. Panic tightened its grasp on his chest.

They sounded sad, almost despairing, yet the quality was terrifyingly inhuman, like something ancient. As he listened to it and the world seemed to fall out from around him, and he wondered where this madness would all conclude to, but he somehow just let it be.

The voices reached the zenith of the symphony when, he realized he felt it in his very bones. He dropped his equipment and covered his ears in a desperate attempt to silence the otherworldly music.

But it did not cease, it resonated from deep in the sea as if something was being projected in him rather than just something he was hearing, the resonance was in the very air and he did not think his ears had much to do with his sudden torment, Alistair screamed.

He then noticed the water began to shift, large, black shapes moved beneath his boat, circling him slowly, getting closer every turn. "This isn't happening" he yelled, not understanding if his mouth even had made sound for the choir was just too damn loud, drowning all outside noises, it seemed to just continue to get louder, stronger, its pitch somehow increasing and changing all at once in some unexplainable form.

He rowed with renewed fear. His oar kept hitting something hard.

It felt alive. Alistair knew what he was feeling in his hands, he was scraping the top of their backs.

He looked behind him to notice these creatures' backs were as dark and obsidian like, reflecting the sea into distorted images that stretched too long. Each turn grew darker and seemed like they were reaching an endless void.

His panic increased with every second. The song did not stop and neither did the circles the black beings seemed to make around his small boat.

It only got louder with each circle that constricted to the point it felt like the creatures' presence was as deafening as their song.

His boat suddenly jerked violently as one of the beings nudged the side.

He lost balance, plunging into the icy coldness, the sea wrapping around him, pulling him into its dark grasp. "No, no, no" He cried aloud as water flooded his ears, and all of what was previously known to him, suddenly changed.

The music increased again in tone. Deeper, it took an aggressive, dominant melody as a chorus of deep bass came out and filled him, but even through his sudden dread he somehow was taken aback by it's beauty.

The black creatures emerged, no longer shadows but dark and enormous silhouettes against the light, a mouth like the deep, the size of boats, revealed themselves. He knew their form and for the first time saw his uncle in the black void.

And he hated him once again. The voices became a roar that threatened to shatter his bones and as it got louder he could see the open mouths of these beings with some form of teeth, jagged and layered like the rings of a dead tree.

It got even louder with their coming close, some pushing him from below, moving and forcing him directly to a dark cave-like maw. He began to struggle harder, thrashing and pulling.

Every effort only brought him closer, like the hand of destiny grabbing him ever tightly. They did not care; they would not care, these beings, his uncle.

This entire act was indifferent and would continue regardless. Alistair didn't expect mercy from a malevolent sea that only promised madness and pain.

The voices of the monstrous choir reached an unbearable, bone-rattling volume as he felt himself pushed up the insides of one of their open mouths, his head reaching past the razor sharp and irregular teeth. All Alistair could now do is brace.

He looked around for the last time at this chaotic, sea and noticed a small ray of sunlight cut through a small spot in the clouds, and the sun itself. "A brief peace," Alistair had said as he closed his eyes to only open them into total and complete blackness.

As his eyes tried to adjust to the blackness of the cavity he realized they hadn't done what he'd have normally expected. Instead of death he was gently lowered in what could only be some massive form of an organic tunnel that contracted slowly in a constant motion.

It wasn't painful, rather it was cold and oddly smooth. The music and chaos from before seemed farther away, almost nonexistent in these tunnel walls he now walked in with complete submission.

He stumbled a little bit forward trying to regain a bit of what was known and with a small effort could see the form of some kind of egg, as large as himself resting far down the end of the organic hall.

With curiosity he decided that walking toward it might have answers to it all, for the music had somehow subsided and now only left some sort of resonant echo through the hallway as if this place too had been caught in some time.

As he moved ever close the echo turned into his name, he could barely discern it but the feeling that called was warm and somehow familial and as he got close he rested a hand onto the smooth but sticky surface of what now seemed like an even larger egg than previously believed, it moved a bit when touched but still remained sturdy.

From deep within it he could now see that the name they were saying wasn't of him, it was an old name. A very, very old name, it echoed not from this hall or sea but some old primordial plane.

The name was as sad as its song and as beautiful as these deep caverns of teeth, it brought upon a sudden feeling that the creatures themselves also might have lost to something just like what he has felt as of recent.

"Alistair…the void has brought a brother" It said to his mind without using a word. And it sang, only once but it's meaning forever etched inside Alistair as something he felt that no other could experience.

"Rest brother, rest." It had said. Alistair's hand fused with the egg, a part of the new form, the echo returned back to the deafening tune and he suddenly wasn't cold, his very essence was being ripped out as new shapes replaced the old, every organ and part being consumed with no trace that the boy Alistair ever lived.

In his last fleeting conscious act Alistair simply knew it was done and there was nothing he could have changed in his short miserable life. The shell sealed over him.

The ocean returned to its normal state the very next day, and no trace or piece of equipment of the boat was found to say something went awry. The only form of noise the townsfolk would listen to, were that of waves, as their memory had now forgotten any other type of music, and continued living their lives until their short inevitable ends.