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Benjamin ‘Goby’ Maris had never felt this panicked in his life, not since that blasted storm that had swept him into this odd lil place or when— didn’t matter. Here, right now, this was the problem at hand. Or well, he wrung his hands together, it had been the problem at hand? He was fine now, didn’t feel it, but he had seen that damn thing turn away as he’d pulled his ship to dock.
He glanced at the waters, swallowed thickly past the dryness, and quickly made his way down to his cabin.
He couldn’t quite help but pace. His heart still racing from the chase; it must have been a chase, right? He had felt bloody damned hunted out there, after he’d spotted what he’d first thought was a fellow ship until he’d heard that foghorn and felt the hair on the back of his neck raise.
It hadn’t been a person, he was pretty sure of it, that wasn’t a fuckin’ person. He may have been tense enough to be struck by a heart attack right then and there, but he could have sworn what he saw had been real… it was real, right?
It— it had to be real. He had never hallucinated something like that, never that detailed at least. Sure Goby wasn’t exactly the most… sound of mind, he tended to get paranoid and he got right twitchy when dealing with other people for too long, but he also knew himself.
That hadn’t been normal. But then again, what about this place had been?
A place full of fish with barely a scattering of those willing to toss a rod out. A place haunted by fog that never lifted or thinned. A place where no one introduced themselves by name, they ain’t even asked his when he’d come to, just all called him by ‘The Fisherman,’ like a title. Not to mention the things he’d seen so far…
The bulbous, bug-eyed ‘mackerel,’ felt like a liar for even implying that thing had been a mackerel with how it had appeared, had been the real turner if he thought it over. The moment he’d hooked one of them odd critters, it was as though all the other strange things began to seep through the cracks.
The fellar out on the water claiming to have been chased into the shallows by a sea monster, the odd rocks scattered on island beaches that glowed at night, and the flocks of red-eyed blackbirds that had gathered to harass him as he panicked back to the lighthouse’s light.
It wasn’t normal. None of this was normal, his hands buried into his hair as he took a sharp breath in, brow furrowed. And yet, yet he still was here, it had been what, two weeks now? Since he’d rammed his poor boat along the rocks and collapsed on the dock? And despite it all, despite the growing feeling that he was being watched day in and day out, he stayed.
It… it had been refreshing to come here. To feel useful, to feel oddly wanted. He was helpful, people asked him for small tasks and it was satisfying to see it through. Folk smiled at him, tossed a hello and a wave his way, hell, even if some of them were right off-putting to chat with, folk had been overall welcoming. Sure, there was sometimes an undertone of ‘you shouldn’t have come here’ or ‘these waters hold their own secrets’ when speaking to the old lighthouse keeper or that Collector fella, but still.
He felt content like he hadn’t in quite some time. He just set out in his boat, filled his cargo, and settled in for a good read over a book during his lunch. No one pressured him to act like someone he wasn’t, folks didn’t hound him for his blunt and straightforward talk, no one tried to drag him into trouble (the Collector lad was about the closest to someone he wasn’t too sure of), no one tried to pry his story from him, and for the most part? He was left to his own devices.
And that was something he’d been craving for some time. To settle in place while not being expected to play some new role or dragged along to sociable hell.
Goby groaned under his breath, dragging his hands from his hair to go down his face, tugging at his beard a moment. “Christ… whatcha gotten yourself in?”
He sighed, slowly dragging himself back to the deck, peering out with a wary chuckle. “At least… whatever it is, it has some kinda rules. I can play along, can’t I?”
He squinted out into the fog, swearing for a moment he saw a dark shape out past one of the lighted buoys, but when he blinked, it was gone.
With a low hum in his throat, he headed back down, maybe he should just focus on getting shut eye now. Like hell he was headed back out there tonight.