Estimated reading time — 11 minutes

As I sit here in this damp, dark cell, my only friend the warmth of the flickering candlelight illuminating this scrap of paper, I have to wonder how I got here and why I just couldn’t stop when I had the chance. Every few minutes, I find myself freezing, perfectly still, listening to the water dripping from the cold stone ceiling onto the cobbled floor, splashing beside my bare feet, and sending an icy chill from the tips of my toes to the top of my spine, jolting me back to action. Silence. I think they are coming for me when the dawn bell chimes. Until then, I will try to explain how this happened.

It started as these things often do, an ordinary day by all accounts. The sky was clear and blue, the sun had begun to shine down on my little village on the east coast, each cottage seeming to burst into action one by one as if choreographed I would watch the people from my bay window leaving their homes and going to work on the fields, or travelling down to the harbour for a day of fishing with the local guild. Despite the good weather and bustle of life, I found myself oddly unnerved. Did I? Perhaps this is just hindsight colouring my memories to make sense of the day.

No, I was happy, relaxed, optimistic even.Despite it being a working day, my job as a desk clerk at the Daily Happening afforded me some flexibility in my day. We are a small paper, with only a couple of journalists and a desk clerk – me. Most days would consist of me making cups of tea for Mr Dawson and Mr Cowper, listening to them argue about what constitutes a worthy story for the front page of our very local newspaper. I must admit, thinking about it now, I miss their silly arguments about “what a very serious problem cow tipping has become” or whether Mrs Reynolds will win this year’s apricot conserve competition.

Is that what you think about? I can’t fathom that another living being will ever read this, but I hope that if you do, all you need worry about is jam and the occasional cow bothering.

I remember leaving my home with my shopping basket in hand, the handle resting over the nook of my elbow and travelling down the winding paved path that led from my home on the hill down to the market, which was already heaving with life and the babble of voices carried over the air as easily as the lavender from the fields. It’s funny what you remember when things are dire, like how the scent of oranges in the market mixed with the lavender to create this beautiful, fresh aroma that I don’t think I will ever forget, but at the time, I don’t think I paid it much heed. I grabbed some oranges from Mr Jones, crusty bread rolls from Mr Burns and then… Yes, I headed down to the harbour to find out if the fishermen had been successful this morning. They often had young men working night shifts to catch a haul for the morning market – sometimes they would set some aside for me, in exchange for a slice of my famous chicken pie.

That is when I saw it. This was the moment that set everything in motion, when everything became inevitable.As I passed the market and began descending the wooden steps connecting the village to the beach, I spotted something curious out of the corner of my eye. A mark, carved deep into the wood under one of the wooden platforms. I must have seen it when I made one of the many turns on the steps, for the beach is significantly lower than our village.

Although my job at the paper is mainly to type up Mr Dawson’s ramblings, I have also picked up some skills by listening to them talk to each other over the last two years since I applied for this position. Specifically, Mr Cowper used to work in the city and had many exciting stories that, looking back, were probably greatly exaggerated, but at the time I listened to him with wide eyes, soaking up every minuscule detail. Oh, how I dreamed of moving to the city, perhaps even enrolling in some evening classes and becoming a real journalist myself. I know, it seems far-fetched, but I was born with a raging ambition in my blood despite my gender and position.

One of the habits I have picked up from Mr Cowper is to always carry a notebook and pen, and when one notices something interesting or unusual, one should make a note of it, as it could be significant later. The mark was strange, unlike anything I had seen before. I would assume it was perhaps the work of a bored teenager had the mark been something rude or amusing, but it was neither. I sat on the step as close to the mark as I could get and reached over to trace my fingers over the wood. The mark was in the shape of a wonky oval, unbroken with a neat circle inside of it, and a square with an odd squiggle at the very centre.

I can’t remember why it called to me so. Perhaps it was just how out of place it looked, but as soon as I sketched the mark into my notebook, it became all I could think about. The rest of the day went by as quickly as a blur, the market, the harbour, the paper, it all melded into one quick succession of memories and the next thing I knew, I was sat in bed at midnight, using my bedside lantern to scour through the most obscure books I could find in the library, trying to find any reference to this sigil.

Remarkably, I found very little. The only book that seemed to hold any kind of information about the mark was one that spoke of the folklore in this area, and I did find it quite interesting at the time in a sort of fantastical way, like the writing of Mr Tolkien or Mr Lovecraft.

The story goes that once upon a time, this whole area of the coast was mainly submerged underwater, and the “people” that inhabited the land shared many characteristics with the people of today, but had the ability to spend inordinate amounts of time underwater, only had one central eye, and their arms and legs were framed with fins for better movement in the sea. They were known to the humans living farther from the cliffs, and the story passed down from family to family says they assimilated with the humans, even mating with them, and that is why our village, in particular, is so successful at fishing, but the tell tale signs of the people who lived here before, noted as being called the Irnonian people of the deep, have long evolved out of our species.

The sigil I found corresponds to the sign of the Irnonian people, so my immediate thought was that this must surely be some kind of obscure joke. Why else would they have carved it on the steps leading to the harbour?

That night, when I finally managed to close my eyes, stinging from tiredness, my dreams swirled in a way they never had before. The silhouettes of strange, grotesque creatures rose from the shores in my mind and laid waste to the village, shrieking in a language wholly unknown to me, but the passion and the tone surely held a deep-seated hatred that could only be satisfied with blood soaked into the very core of the Earth. I writhed in bed, engulfed with heat and then shocked awake with a cold sensation that felt as if I had been hugged by the sea itself. When I awoke, for a split second, I saw one of them standing at the end of my bed, staring at me with an unblinking eye, looking unnervingly human in so many ways apart from the jade green fins on the side of their arms and legs, fanned out and glistening in the light of the moon shining through the crack in my curtains.

As quickly as it had appeared, it was gone.

I can’t even recall the following days. Spring turned into summer, and summer rolled into autumn. I was gripped with these horrific nightmares, the sigil flashing in my mind, consuming me from the morning till my last tipple of gin to help me drift off into sleep at night. I found it so difficult to close my eyes, for I knew they would be there, as if waiting for me in my own personal sleeping prison. Always rising from the deep. Always watching me. Always… Waiting.

I had travelled to the neighbouring villages to try and find someone, anyone, who knew about the Irnonian people, but alas, I was met with confused looks and weary smiles, gently encouraged out of the door of the libraries and advised that perhaps I had already found all there is to know about this fairy tale.

But something inside me was gnawing away, pushing me ever closer to the brink of madness.

As a last-ditch hope, I decided to make the trip to the farthest edge of the coast before leaving our hamlet, to a small, unassuming cottage beside the sea that seemed to always have a fire sending smoke up through the chimney, regardless of the time of year or whether or not it was cool outside. I remember that day I rode my favourite horse, Chancer, out over the cliffs to the cottage, feeling the salty breeze of the ocean through my hair and the song of seagulls overhead, Chancer’s hooves clacking and thudding over the dirt path and his chestnut brown fur shimmering in the sunshine.

I hope he is okay.

When I arrived, I tied Chancer to the fence and dismounted, stepped up to the door and knocked firmly, thrice. Silence. I knocked again, but still nothing. On my third attempt, I decided that perhaps announcing myself might help. “Hello? Is there anyone home?” Perhaps there was a certain amount of conviction in my voice, for the next thing I knew, the heavy wooden door swung open, revealing the person inside I had come to visit. He was a tall man, rough in appearance with shaggy grey hair and a long beard, dressed in shabby, well-worn plain clothes and the thick boots of a fisherman. He regarded me for a few moments before speaking, his voice booming and deep, an air of curiosity in his tone.

“I don’t know you. You look like you are from the village up the way. Why are you here?”

Before I knew what I was doing, I stood on his doorstep and explained everything, producing my notebook and showing him the sigil, recounting my nightmares with teary eyes, expressing that I just needed to know what this mark meant. He stood with his hand still on the handle of his front door, listening to me with seemingly sympathetic eyes, waiting for me to finish my story.

“Alright, come in.” He grumbled.

“Thank you, thank you,” I remember vividly the feeling of relief washing over me as I walked into his cottage, taking a look around the living room and taking in everything I could see. It was a small, quaint cottage. In one room, there was a comfortable and well-loved armchair and a stool, a small table that had a couple of books on it, and from there, one could see the tiny kitchen and the fireplace crammed into the corner, which had a pot hanging over the fire, bubbling away with some sort of stew in it. On the walls, there were various ancient-looking paintings and sketches, the light of lanterns dancing over every stroke of the brush. I found myself stepping over to a painting hung next to the armchair, my mouth slightly agape as I regarded it.

“Ah, I should have known you would be drawn to that one there.” Hank remarked as he limped over to stand beside me, his evidently wooden left leg occasionally scraping over the floor as he walked, his other leg bearing his considerable weight with slight difficulty. “This one was passed down to me by my grandfather, who told me that his great-grandfather painted this from what they called the Reckoning. He said he was there, if you believe such a thing.”

As my eyes traced over the painting, I found myself speechless. Surely enough, the image captured on the canvas almost exactly mirrored the nightmare I had been wrestling with for months. A hulking great creature, tall and muscular, one-eyed and limbs framed with dark purple fins, skin almost human-like but patches reminiscent of scales, climbing out of the sea to a village engulfed in flames, tiny humans screaming in the distance, barely visible through the open windows and running up the hill to escape the massacre. The rich colours and mixes of forest greens, sapphire blues and deep reds reminded me of the work of Hieronymous Bosch, with equal measures of disturbing characters and captivating scenes.

“This.. It’s not possible.” I recall mumbling under my breath. “I have dreamt this, I was there in my dreams. How?” My last word was spoken at a louder volume. I looked at Hank, who slowly sat down in the armchair, and picked up the book on top of the pile beside him on the table. He opened it, tapped a page, pulled some round spectacles out of his shirt pocket, and put them on, resting on the bridge of his nose, angling the book towards the fire so he could read aloud the written word in his naturally commanding voice.

“Be it 500, 1000, 2000 years or more, Irnon will rise from the depths and take back the lands stolen by the hands of man.” He cleared his throat and continued, not taking his eyes away from the page, “They shall use obscure magicks and a bargain with the Gods to purge their enemies with unending embers, and pull the Coast of Irnon back down into the sea, giving it back to its rightful owners.” He closed the book and placed it back down on the table, taking my stunned silence as an inclination that he could continue. “Did you know that the coast used to be larger?” He gestured to one of the larger framed sketches on the wall. My attention was drawn to this sketch, which appeared to be a map of my village, with a detail that was a stark contrast to what I know of my home. It appeared that the harbour, where it is now, should be approximately a mile away from the shore.

“So… According to your book. My dream. My nightmare. It has already happened?“

“It has happened, and if we believe this book, it will continue to happen until Irnon has been completely consumed by the sea.”

“Why? Why would they do this?” I gestured back to the painting, transfixed by the horror before my eyes, I barely noticed Hank get up from the armchair and wander over to a nearby bookcase. He mumbled to himself as he flicked through the thick volumes on the shelf.

“Ah, here.” A ghost of a smile flashed briefly across his face as he turned back to face me, open book in hand. “These books are all that’s left of this folklore, I almost gave them to the library but..” He trailed off for a moment as if momentarily locked within a memory of his own. “I wasn’t sure if they would be cared for. This volume speaks of the Sigils of the calling. They are marks that are carved into buildings and landmarks to sort of create a net around the land, so anything within that area will be pulled down under the sea. That’s the story anyway.” He handed me the book, and surely enough, the first mark I spied on those pages was the very mark that had started all of this, the one chiselled into the wood of the harbour steps. I turned the page to find a series of further sigils, ones that I had not yet seen, but then again, I wasn’t necessarily looking for them at the time.

“Do you think we could stop this?”

“Stop this?” He let out a low, gruff laugh, taking his spectacles off and popping them back into his shirt pocket. “This is the stuff of fantasy! I’m not sure how you knew enough about this to have nightmares about it, but that’s all it was. A dream.” He softened his tone slightly at the end and gave me what I assume is his best attempt at a comforting smile.

“Can I borrow this book? Please?” I pleaded, resolving that this may be something I need to investigate on my own. Hank shrugged, then nodded resolutely.

“Well… I can tell you’re no ruffian and will return the book to me. Yes, you can borrow it. But you must look after it.” He said firmly.

After giving him my thanks and taking a lantern to guide me back in the dark, I left the cottage and returned home. As I entered through the door and took off my jacket, I remember being overcome with emotion. Anxiety, sadness and determination burned inside me, and that night I knew I was not going to be able to sleep.

I sat at my desk, just like I am sitting here now, and pored over the book I received from Hank and my notebook, trying to come up with a plan, any plan that could possibly prove that what I read has happened, will happen, and save my village from being engulfed by the sea.

As the dawning sun peeked over the horizon, washing my study in shades of soft orange and pink light, I leaned back on my chair and asked myself the most important question of all.

Is this real, or am I descending into madness?

Credit: GDLBB