Background on Art:
For this commission, I requested from Faustie a scene involving two damsels strolling on the beach where they were ambushed by a creature. The creature was to be roughly like an "antlion," in that it lurked under the sand and ambushed its prey and pulled it in. This was a two part commission but I have decided to really expand on the story so it will be more than two parts.
(Prologue…)
It was 3 AM local time and outside of the luxurious beachside resort in Thailand, the only noise that filled the peaceful night’s air was that of the waves rolling in and out. Up in the sky, amongst the full moon and thousands of stars, a single star shot through the sky. Falling rapidly, it began to glow red as it entered the earth’s atmosphere. With a dull whistle it shot rapidly towards the beach, but as it neared the sea level it rapidly slowed. Still, it struck the sandy beach with a lot of force, and in an explosion of sand, it created a small crater. At that hour, there was no one about so no one saw the meteor strike the surface. If they had, they would have noticed that thing that had fallen from the sky was actually not a meteor, but some sort of glowing metal capsule. The capsule started to rotate like a drill bit and slowly dug itself even deeper, the sand around it falling on top of it as it did, filling the hole that it made behind it until it was completely buried. Still the capsule dug, deeper, hundreds of feet, for a destination and purpose unknown. When the high tide came in the water eroded what remained of the hole, filling the small crater with sand and erasing all evidence of the impact.
(story continued after jump)
(Part 1…)
I walked along the sandy beach, enjoying the feel of the wet sand between my toes and the water lapping at my feet as the tide came in. I squinted, watching the orange sun peak over the horizon. It was dawn in Thailand and at the private beach at the exclusive resort that my parents had taken us, my sister Stacy and I were literally the only ones on the secluded beach at this early hour. We had gotten up deliberately to see the sunrise, waking up at the crack of dawn, slipping on our bikinis and heading down to the beach. This was our first full day in Thailand and it was the first real alone time I had gotten with my older sister in quite a while. She had just returned from her first year of college while I had just finished my last year of high school. If somebody didn’t know us, they probably would not have guessed we were sisters. She had inherited my dad’s features and had brown hair and brown eyes, while I was a blonde with blue eyes, like my mom. She was shy and introverted; I was outgoing and admittedly a bit of a wild child. She was very smart, perhaps a little bookish, and gone off to Princeton; I was looking forward to the public party school I would be attending next year, where I would finally be away from the strict oversight of my parents. But in spite of our differences, we had been close growing up and I was looking forward to this two week trip to catch up. As the sun slowly rose into the sky I noticed something colorful up ahead. It caught Stacy’s eye too and as we neared it, I realized it was a beach ball. It was just sitting out in the sand, apparently someone had abandoned it. We both moved closer to inspect it and Stacy picked it up. “I wonder if this was carried in by the tide?” she said. She was curious about things like that, in my mind I just thought, “Cool, free ball!” She playfully tossed the ball to me.
Before I could catch it there was suddenly an explosion of sand all around us, as if a landmine had been buried beneath the ball. Sand flew all around us and I yelled out, startled. Suddenly a scream filled the air. It was Stacy. I couldn’t see her at first through all of the sand in the air but as the cloud of sand started to settle I saw why she had screamed. A dozen giant green tentacles writhed around us, each probably ten or fifteen feet in length and thicker than my arms. The writing tentacles were all around us and I realized they were coming from the sand below us, as if some sort of monstrous octopus or squid was buried beneath our feet. But I knew that whatever this thing was, it was not an octopus or a squid. It was not like something that I had ever heard of, something I was pretty sure even Stacy did not know existed. Stacy screamed again and I looked to see that some of the tentacles had wrapped themselves around her wrists and ankles. They held her limbs immobile and she tried to pull away but seemed unable to. I stood frozen, in complete shock as I watched this scene unfold, and an instant later, tentacles had wrapped around my own arms and legs. The tentacles felt slimy and sticky against my skin and it further reinforced the repulsive, horrible nature of this thing, whatever it was. I tried to pull away but the tentacles were incredibly strong. Stacy began yelling for help and I joined her, but we were pretty far from the resort at this point and I don’t think anyone could hear us. As I watched Stacy struggle, suddenly another tentacle found her. The tip ran down her belly and slowly slipped down the front of her bikini bottom. Her eyes grew wide with horror and she screamed as the writhing tentacle briefly explored her most intimate of areas. Bur then the tentacle suddenly pulled away, tearing away her bikini. I suddenly felt a tentacle run down my neck and back, leaving a slimy sticky substance along my skin. Shrieked and tried to push myself forward but the tentacles around my arms and legs had me firmly secured. The tentacle yanked at my bikini top until it came undone and fell away. It then slid lower down my back and down the back of my bikini bottom. Feeling the slimy thing slide down between my buttocks renewed my panic and I thrashed wildly but it was no use. My bikini bottom was torn away and I was now completely naked. Stacy was also been stripped off her bikini top. Normally I would be humiliated to be stripped naked with my sister on a beach but right now all I felt was panic and fear that this monstrosity, whatever it was, meant to kill me.
In all the chaos, it took me a few moments to realize that I had begun to sink in the sand In fact by the time I realized it, I had sunk down to my knees. The sand around us, which had moments ago been regular sand on a beach suddenly felt almost like quicksand as I found myself sinking rapidly. I realized that the tentacles around my legs were pulling me down, and other tentacles soon wrapped around me to pull me in. Stacy too was being pulled in and she was sobbing hysterically while I screamed as loud as I could, still desperate to draw someone’s attention. We were pulled into this pit of sand quickly and within a few seconds, only our heads stuck out of the pit. I let out one final scream, thinking that I was about to be pulled in and would suffocate. But suddenly tentacle shot down my throat, cutting off my scream, and then I was pulled completely into the sand and everything went dark. Still I felt myself being pulled in further. I realized that I was not suffocating, and apparently the tentacle shoved down my throat was providing me oxygen, like some obscene oxygen machine. I felt myself being pulled down further and further, for perhaps a minute or two,. Suddenly I found myself free of the sand and I was falling through the air. I I fell several feet and hit a dirt floor below me. The fall couldn’t have been more than eight or ten feet but pain shot through my ankle and I laid on the ground, stunned and with the wind knocked out of me. I heard a crash and Stacy tumbled down next to me. I looked around, my eyesight slowly adjusting. I realized that it should be pitch black underground like this but there was a very feint glow inside this strange cavern. I looked around trying to find its source and, more importantly, the thing that had pulled us down. Stacy’s scream suggested she had found it. I spun around to see what monstrous creature had pulled us into this underground prison.
(To be continued...)
No comments:
Post a Comment