Lexicon

(Word count 300)

Lexicon

Lexicon arched through the air, his sleek, silvery-green scales reflecting the dying light of day. Another piercing wail tore into the dusk as he drew back his gummy lips and plunged once more into the depths. Two days he had endured, two miserable, gut wrenching days.

Why me? Why did I have to take Leviathan’s word for it? This is just the kind of sick joke he likes to play, he berated himself. I’m a fool, how could I even think of trusting him?

The shrieking followed him through the depths, vibrating through his teeth into his skull. The miserable, embittered coral sucking reefer.

“You really should try it,” Leviathon had said. “The taste is out of this world, and once you’ve found one, their barnacles are so much easier to hunt than whales.”

And Lexicon, trusting fool that he was had believed.

He remembered the first sight of the ploion cutting through the waves above him. The strange smells, the muted sound of the barnacles scurrying around the decks, the surge of excitement as anticipation was replaced by action.

The hull had shattered easily under his bulk, and he had gorged on the dislodged and flailing barnacles. The taste hadn’t been anything special, they were a bit stringy and didn’t contain enough fat, but it was a new taste experience, and Lexicon would have had nothing to complain of… if one hadn’t got lodged between his teeth.

He had tried everything to quell the things screaming. It was lodged at the back of his upper jaw, breathing from a small pocket of trapped oxygen and it hadn’t shut up once. Lexicon had been unable to drown, crush or dislodge it and it was driving him insane.

From now on, I’ll hunt nothing but Whale, he promised himself.

© Copyright 2006 Mantis (UN: mantis at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
Mantis has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates and syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.