The Leviathan's Graveyard

         Saneoth watched as the water rippled in around his submerged foot. It rushed into his boot and he flinched from the icy cold. Then he began to stride purposefully down into the wavy shore. As the water rose up over his shins he felt the fabric of his trousers clam up against his skin, again in the cold. As the water continued to chill each part of his body, Saneoth looked back at the cluster of townsfolk who were standing at the top of the ridge, watching him go to what they felt was certainly a painful death. Then he plunged down.
         The water stung his skin with its iciness, and this discomfort was only matched by the fear Saneoth felt at not being able to see. The water was a murky brown, and he was swimming downwards blindly.
         Saneoth continued to swim, now beginning to feel faint at the lack of oxygen. Then all at once it was seemingly too much to bear; he started uncontrollably screaming silently on the inside.
         But then he was momentarily distracted from his agony. The murkiness of the water was suddenly behind him, and laid out below him like the skeletons of beached whales were hundreds and hundreds of shipwrecks. The Leviathan’s graveyard, the townsfolk called it. It had been the curse of this certain stretch of Annillan coastline for years now. You see, the reason that these ships had all collapsed in this place here was because of the leviathan itself: a horrible dog-like serpent named Scylla.
         Saneoth knew that Scylla was a land-breather, and so he knew that the monster must have some form of an air pocket down here. This is what he was looking for, and when he saw the ruins of a massive warship that had Dragonfly painted on the side with barnacle-encrusted letters, he knew that it was the perfect size for a monster like Scylla.
         And so Saneoth continued to swim down through his agony, hoping that he wasn’t wrong about there being trapped air in the old battleship. Luckily, he wasn’t mistaken, and when he turned a curve in the ships deck and entered a gap in the ship’s deck, he was greeted with refreshing, albeit musty, oxygen.
         Saneoth spent several minutes spread-eagled on the ship’s interior deck, sucking in breath after breath of air. And then he stood up, reaching for his sword from its hilt.
         Saneoth drew his sword and stood in the old ship, before continuing through a hallway that was half submerged. Under the water, the boards here were littered with human bones. Saneoth shuddered; the townsfolk had previously explained to him how Scylla, if failing to have a ship within its grasp, would go up to the village and demand a sacrifice. Only a human life would drive the monster away, and if the townsfolk didn’t give it, then the monster would simply take what it wanted by force. And so they were terribly excited when Saneoth arrived, claiming that he would vanquish the monster himself.
         As Saneoth neared the next corner, he was met with a horrific sight. He had entered what appeared to be a massive ballroom, (Saneoth was beginning to wonder if his presumption that the Dragonfly was a battleship was incorrect), with massive panoramic windows on the sides going out to the Leviathan’s graveyard itself. And taking up the majority of the room was Scylla itself; the massive serpent was curved and crowded into almost every nook and cranny in the room.
         Saneoth gasped when he saw the thing’s face. It had a canine like powerful jaw that was crowded with blood stained teeth, but its upper face and ears appeared to be almost human. Its head was of a massive scale, and Saneoth briefly wondered how it kept its head up when it was on land. But then he saw the extent of the body, and realised that it would take a lot more than a several ton weight of head to slow that behemoth down. It had sinewy muscles that rippled cat-like under its blood red skin, and its long body curved and swerved like a road. Its legs and arms protruded from its elongated torso like branches on an evil old pine tree, knobbly and red. Its hands and feet again startled Saneoth; they were almost human, too, in appearance. It almost looked like it had opposable thumbs!
         And, Saneoth realised to his luck, it was asleep. Snores rocked Scylla’s body like the waves at the beach that was now above them. Saneoth slowly crept past the monster, sword in trembling hand.
         As he approached the thing’s macabre face. It stopped snoring. He froze in place, and felt slightly embarrassed, even through his fear, as warm urine began to seep through his trousers. Scylla rocked its head from side to side, and stretched out over the entire room. And then she continued to snore.
         Saneoth sighed in mind-wrenching relief, and briefly considered getting out of there. But then he though of the townspeople above, and how the chief’s daughter had said she would only take his hand in marriage if he slayed this monster. He cursed silently, and looked back at the monster.
         To him now, it almost seemed like a giant, lobster-red baby. It rocked and cooed in its sleep, and then returned to its usual slumber. And so Saneoth continued to creep up to its face, looking for a weak spot in which to plunge his sword.
         Carefully keeping watch of the monster’s face, he snuck up to it. Then he saw a spot on its forehead that looked almost insubstantial enough to be a passage to the thing’s brain. And so he came around to the forehead, and raised his sword, ready to strike…
         The sword sunk into Scylla’ flesh with a meaty thud, and the monster’s eyes opened in surprise. Then it began to bawl in a horribly human way. Saneoth looked over it hesitantly, unnerved by the child-like quality to the thing’s death throes. It didn’t even seem to have seen him.
         Then he heard a booming voice in another part of the ship. It seemed to be coming closer, so he grabbed the sword from Scylla’s head and ducked behind a large pulpit of a dragonfly that was in the room. He waited for the source of the noise in fear, and Scylla continued to cry.
         Suddenly, a dark shadow filled the room, and Saneoth saw to his surprise another monster had entered the room. It squeezed through the doors like toothpaste from a tube, and then straightened out into a creature that looked somewhat like Scylla, only much bigger and with strange archaic markings set into its skin. Its eyes were gone, and Saneoth had brief thoughts of its eyes wearing away over the course of the thing’s eternity of a life. At least this one is blind, he thought. Maybe it won’t smell me.
         The large serpent picked up Scylla in a way that was to Saneoth again eerily human, and began to squeeze out of the room making comforting noises to the baby in its arms. It was speaking to Scylla.
         “What’s wrong, baby?” The speech seemed to be deafening, but he could only hear it inside his head. He knew it wasn’t in English, but he was perplexed to discover that he could translate it into English sub-consciously within his mind. “Did you have another nightmare, baby? What’s this…” Saneoth saw the thing caress the wound on Scylla’s forehead, and he shuddered.
         “Is somebody in here?” The thing telepathically boomed, and Saneoth knew that if he hadn’t relieved himself only moments ago that he would do it again. “Hello?”
         Then the large serpent was feeling around the room. Saneoth crept back against the parapet he was behind, and waited for the cold, deathly touch of the monster. Sure enough, it came.
         When the big monster picked up Saneoth, it held him in a fist. It brought him up by its nostrils, and took a furtive sniff. And then it swam away, Saneoth in grasp.
         Saneoth tried to scream at the monster, but it cut him off.
         “Are you one of those humans who is trying to kill my baby?” It boomed. “You have really hurt her.” It sniffed at him again. Then it dropped through the boat quickly, and Saneoth saw that he was in a massive cavern under the sea. Torches flamed around the edges, and Saneoth saw more serpents, some even bigger than his captor, snoring on large stone beds. And then he was thrust into a cage and the door was locked.
         “To teach you a lesson,” his monstrous jailor said. “You are going to stay there while I have my nap. When I get up, you can go home. You shouldn’t pick on children.”
         Saneoth sat down in disbelief. The thing was talking! At least it seemed it would let him go, though. This was possibly the best outcome that he could hope for!
         “How long will your nap be? Uh… Sir?” The serpent looked down at him and replied as it walked over with its baby to its stone bed.
         “Not long at all, just forty winks. I should wake up in.. Say, about four thousand years? Just a short bit of shut-eye. Got to work later, you see? Got to pay the bloody rent for this place.” The monster raised its arms and motioned to the nation-sized cavern they were standing in. But all Saneoth heard was four thousand years. Then he dropped to his knees and began to sob in his hands, calling out to the monster.
         As the hours turned to days, Saneoth reflected on two things: Capitalist society can lead to a monotonous repetitive routine for giant sea serpents, and heroes should be made of sterner stuff than he.
         Poor Saneoth. His failure in his quest had given him a low self-esteem. For this reason I do not envy him.