Leviathan Rises - Chapter One

For 4500 years he had lain there on the seabed, crushed under a weight of rocks and sediment. A creature of the ancient world, mainly he slept, always he was hungry, brooding waiting for his moment when once again he would be free and could swim in the dark ocean depths in search of food. When freedom came it was at first a surprise. The ocean currents had moved enough sediment to release his tail. He moved it around with more and more force shaking himself free of his rocky tomb, wiggling his gigantic blue form to break the rocks and sand that encased him. Finally, he was free and used his strong blue arms to push himself off from the ocean bed.

His hunger now drove him to look for food moving through the dark desert of the ocean deep. He swallowed jellyfish and giant squid, but these were not enough so he looked up into the blue above and rose to waters with more life. He found a pack of hundreds of sharks and swallowed these, restoring himself as the apex predator of the seven seas. The creatures of the ocean scattered in terror before him. He looked upwards towards the light remembering the life that had lived in such abundance there. He saw a shadow on the surface, a large net spread out beneath it full of small fish. He bit the collection and felt a sharp pain in his mouth before he gulped the contents of the net down. His mouth had been cut by the material of the net but the catch inside it had been worth it and his wounds would heal. He wondered at the shadow above him and rose to check it out.

"Captain, our nets are gone," said the First Mate.

"Captain, there is a large creature of some sort down there, it just ate our net and all our catch," said the Sonar Operator.

"How large?"

"It is about 1000 feet long. It is not a whale as it has arms, " said the Sonar man.

"What!? Let me see that," said the Captain, shaking his head in shock as he realized the man had been telling the truth.

"We have ourselves a bona fide sea monster guys. Hard at port, then full speed ahead, let's try and run away."

But as the ship began its turn, a blue monster rose from the depths with a head like a dragon of the myths of old. Its scaly plate mail skin glistened in the sunlight. Strong arms, much smaller than its body, though each a hundred feet long and heavily muscled under smaller scales reached for the ship with sharp-clawed fingers. The monster reared up over the 330-foot factory ship and then plunged back into the waters causing a wave that almost capsized the vessel. Its tail unlike the rest of it was not scaly but immensely powerful. It was the last thing to disappear into the waters.

The Captain turned to the Communications Officer and yelled, "Broadcast what you just saw, to whoever will listen!"

He yelled at another crewman,

"Take pictures and send them to Company Headquarters right now, use your mobile camera and the ship wif fi to upload to the satellite link, you have my authorization. Do it now!"

As he turned back, he heard the Communications Officer yelling down the com and broadcasting the message and saw the crewman waving his phone in the direction where the monster had come last time. The monster reappeared and reached out grabbing two men from the deck and popping them into his mouth before disappearing again.

By the time the monster reappeared it grabbed the boat with its two hands and started to rip it apart. It found the hold with the fish from previous catches and gorged itself on these. Having eaten these it ripped more and more of the boat apart apparently searching for more food. The boat started to sink.

"Abandon ship," said the Captain, though he knew in his heart that no one would live to tell of this.

Word Count & Notes ▼

PROMPT:Picture used as cover
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Chapter One   (18+) Write the first chapter of a book, inspired by the prompt. #2251577 by Cubby~Cheering House Florent!