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The night sky's a hazy sort of blue-black, the stars swimming throughout the wispy clouds as fish do through the coral below the calm waters. From where he sits, wood solid below him and murky depths beneath that, Steve sees not much more than the two blending together; night sky meeting ocean waters in a never ending blur of uncertainty, intrigue and mystery.
Whispers between lips and the ears of strangers and kin, stories have been told seemingly for centuries. Forwhat lurks beneath the clouded waters is what seals the fates of many men. Only the scarred and hardly lucky left to tell their tales.
It'd been an elder fisherman who'd told Steve of an evening from his past. Dark eyes, porcelain skin and water wet curls accompanied by the deadly hymns of a creature that'd pierced his skin with nails black as the night sky and dragged him to what he assumed to be his death.
The docks were busy as they'd sat side by side, the screeches of gulls in the distance and the nattering of the market to their rear, old Gus had muttered with whiskey stained breath as he continued.
“ ‘twas a scary thing boy, ain't no other thought in my mind than I'd die right there. I ain't even remember much of it. Seems to ‘ave faded with time I think. Jus’ when I saw that thing's face and suddenly I was under water, bleeding from my arm and pulled along by those damn claws.”
Gus had paused for a moment then, scratching at the greying scruff of his chin as if in thought, ageing clouding eyes squinting into the midday sun, he grumbled, “Ain't even remember how I got back to town for Christ's sake. Woke to the gulls screaming something awful right here on this bench, soaked from ass to teeth, head throbbin’ and m’ arm wrapped in a mess of seaweed.”
At the time Steve had simply hummed, hat hanging low on his head shielding his eyes and mole dotted cheeks from the sun. He'd stopped to take a nap in the warmth before he set out for a noon-hour fish. Truthfully he hadn't asked Gus a damn thing, the old bastard just plopped down next to him with a grunt and sorta just started rambling.
But that was days, weeks ago now and with the nerve to find something of substance, to track down the creature he'd heard so much about, Steve was out on the waters for what felt like the 100th night in a row.
He's yet to have seen anything of grandeur, only ever the whispers of hymns in the breeze and the ripple of water when scale skinned bodies have dove from his devoted gaze.
Though that's not to say such creatures' eyes haven't fallen upon him.
Beyond the stillness of death tainted waters, nestled in the jaggedness of stone and rock nearest the shores, floats with a sense of ease a creature whose eyes reflect the starry onyx of the night skies and the silent but waiting silhouette of a man who it hungers for.
This being knowing with a sense of certainty that someday soon the breaking of golden flesh would be felt beneath its teeth and the sweetness of the man's very life's force on its tongue.