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Briney Logs 5

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2nd May 2016
Saw a man-eating shark today. Well, a sealman. We need a better name for whatever we are now. The meat’s weirdly tasty, kinda spicy and strong, but takes ages to cook, never mind how long it takes to actually kill one of those things, they’re tough freaks. The last one was beached and took a bloody long time to kick the bucket- but then we had an entire pack start following us at some point during the night! I was shaking all the way, but Mum advised us to scare them off while there were only three, so we dropped the anchor on one.
They’re really like giant pirhannas, once they get riled up they go for jumping and charging at the boat- yeah, sure, most of their spines are collapsible, but there are whopping great horns too. They’re not spear proof, and being so big now, we’ve got a lot of raw strength too so whenever they got close we jabbed them in the face or gills. Took a few goes but they’re not Jaws; after a few jabs they figured out this meal wasn’t worth it and swam off, bloody pricks.
Mum somehow skewered one- as in spear shoved down its throat skewered like a kebab and it still took half an hour to kill it properly. I can’t believe I missed it, stupid fish must have been coming straight at her for her to get that angle; she could’ve got bitten without me noticing till it was too late. Yeah, great job thinking happy thoughts there, brain.
It feels good to get revenge, and there’s enough flesh on it to fill us up, it’s glorious! Ew, almost got dribble all over this journal, it’s getting wrecked. Hard to write when your hands are the size of freaking A4. Pencil’s like a toothpick, honestly- why am I even griping about this? Like I’m so used to this damn stupid sea isolation that it’s stationary I’m worried about. Don’t know, it’s like I’m convinced we’ll make it now, we’ve got the Leviathan on our side.


3rd May 2016
They smuggled the Fuzzsnakes in the cargo hold. My little blisters are insane, it’s no wonder the brats didn’t get all teary when we left the island; they brought those living scarfs on board somehow! I’m still trying to figure that out, Betty can’t be quiet for the life of her, but easy for them to hide down there- us three big ones can’t fit. We only discovered them because they started wailing in the night and even we don’t make noises that weird.
Da’s furious, put them both on cleaning duty- again, for us to reach the cleaning supplies, we’d have to crawl on our elbows so that’s not much of a surprise. Guess he wants to make sure they lend a hand. Ah damn, wonder how long it’ll be before I can make that joke to his face? He’s working fairly well with one arm , but I can’t tell if it’s an act or not. Not used to reading these new faces. He’s come up with the tactic of wrapping his tail around things he wants to carry and dragging them along. Mum helps him a lot too, guess we all have to stay closer together now.
She’s not even too annoyed at the Fuzzsnakes, she figured out they’re a male and a female so the three of them are coming up with names now.  Girls.


5th May 2016
Land ho!

Another island. Two or three times bigger than the last one, but more rugged and windy, not a lot of trees. Good to explore, and we can swim a load more around the shore without fear. Loads of birds around and some little rabbit things too, but pretty barren grassy place overall as far as I can tell. The fuzzsnakes like the space, Da’s trying to convince the girls to leave them here but it’s not working well. I mean if all else fails it’s good to have some spare meat lying around, presuming they have any flesh under all that hair.
We’ve dropped anchor nearby. Da and Mum are exploring now and looking at the wildlife so apparently I’m babysitting my siblings who are not there because they can freaking swim whenever you take your eyes off them.  Great, peace and quiet, I’m half expecting Betty to surface with a fish in her mouth, wild little brat.


6th May 2016
We’re not alone!
There’s a life raft in the ocean.  Only spotted it because there’s seagulls going for it. Hopefully no sharkupines.

We got them on board, they’re humans- two living, but another guy’s dead. Gruesome, he was a man, mid-twenties I guess, auburn hair, slight beard, he must have been strong but now he looks smaller than Betty. He was covered in blood, encrusted with it, with loads of wounds down his front, through his throat. The seagulls were hungry for him, we’ve wrapped him up in sheets, still getting over the sight, the stink. Seen my Da lose his arm, huge sharks die and float, but not seen a dead… person before.
Almost did, at great Uncle Rob’s funeral, they had the casket open for a final goodbye to the old geezer. I didn’t go up, I was bored, didn’t think him dying would affect us. My laugh sounds weird now.
The other humans are in bad shape, one’s an old geezer that looks starved, the other’s a woman, about thirty or something. She’s a little better, she managed to ask for help when we reached them but she fell asleep fast. They look weird. Where’d they come from? Either earth like us or the mainland. The lifeboat looks like it’s from a larger ship- we don’t have one on the old groany. Need to ask when they wake up, but for now we’ve tied up near the smoother shore of this island. Betty’s been playing there all day, she’s terrified of the body. I don’t blame her.


7th May 2016
The old man woke up… and fainted. I mean c’mon that’s just rude, we look like SEALS, noone’s scared of seals! Well, seagulls should learn to be, they keep coming to try and get the corpse and I keep hitting them a bit too hard- these ones are even stupider than the ones back home and I thought that was impossible!  We found a freshwater spring on the island though, so spending a lot of time collecting clean stuff- I don’t know whether it makes a difference for us, but it’ll help the humans.

Woman’s woken up, started bawling and screaming for us to get away, calling us infected monsters. She’s crazy, she scrambled down and locked herself in the storage room- well, she didn’t, there’s no lock and even if there was it wouldn’t work against us. But Mum says to let her be for a while, to calm down. I vote for sending Charlotte in to be friendly but she’s either fishing or cleaning or exploring with the fuzz. She doesn’t want to be anywhere near the bloody dead body, not that I’m keen on it either, it stinks and there’s something wrong about it, even wrapped up and hidden.
I’m keeping fishing with my spear. I’m getting better but it’s harder to hit the little ones- Sharkupines are big and aggressive, they don’t try and dodge, but the little ones know to swim away when they see something like me coming. Some are really weird too, there were a couple like manta rays but smaller than my hand, and another thing that looked like living sea weed. I let that go, I’ve tried sea weed before and it is horrid.


8th May 2016
Raining acid again, it’s not so bad like this but Mum insisted we go and wash in the spring to clean us all up a bit and then we buried the body; Julie says his name was Gareth.
That’s the woman’s name, Julie, and the old guy’s her granddad, called Tim but he’s in a bad way, sleeping tons. Americans, got really strong accents. She opened up a bit when we buried the body, said he was her little sister’s boyfriend. I don’t know how many she was with; there were only the three of them in the life raft but she made it out like a big group of them nicked it several days ago. Can’t believe it- we know more than they do, we’re actually the lucky ones in this situation, that’s messed as hell!
All she knew was the ship they were on couldn’t find land, even after weeks and weeks passed, so this lot decided to strike out into sharkupine infested stormy waters that sometimes rain acid, in a life boat. Bloody idiots, dumbest thing ever, we barely survived in the yacht and… it’s no wonder there’s only two living, don’t even want to think what happened to the rest of them.
She wants us to go help, since we know where the mainland is- because, you know, it’s not like it’ll be a challenge to find a ship in the middle of an ocean with the rough parameters that, “We drifted for three or four days”.  That sounds horrible, but it’s hard, we can’t navigate like we used to, and we were trying to get to land ourselves- we’re a yacht for pete’s sake, what, are we going to tow a ship?


9th May 2016
The Leviathan came. It brought Julie’s little sister, Rachel. She’s a bit different from her sister- got lighter hair, a little smaller, looks to be about mid-twenties, and she’s a mermaid. Like the one I saw back in Darwin, before everything- human upper body, big long colourful eel tail, gills. I think she got changed like Betty almost did but all the way through. That or their parents were a really weird couple. She’s not in a good way, staying near her own family, but she trusts the Leviathan too. As far as I can tell she went swimming with the life raft but got washed away in the tides and the Leviathan found her and saved her.

Glad to see the sea serpent now, it can help, it’s going to go search for the ship. Seems annoyed about something, it’s sorta terrifying, it says it didn’t notice the ship. Guess it’s a big ocean but Rachel isn’t sure whether the sailors will trust it. Wouldn’t they have to if they’ve been adrift for a month or more? Sure, it’s scary but less scary than starving or dying and it seems to actually care.

They’ve decided we’re sailing to find the ship; we can guide them even if they’re too bloody dumb to follow the Leviathan. Same thing as following it of course but guess if it makes a difference, fair enough. Just means we don’t find the mainland for another few weeks, but that’s fine it’s not like we gave up our humanity for it. If we did anyway; does it count as giving up humanity if we still talk and write and eat and everything? Genetically and everything we’re not really human but our minds still are, more or less.
Anyway, it’s getting to be a full boat now- we’ve got five seal Finnegan folk, two humans, a mermaid with a flipping massive tail and two fuzzsnakes that are basically becoming therapy to stroke. Stupid fluff-balls love all the attention.
Anyway, humans get the actual cabin, the brats are in the cargo supposedly and Mum and Da keep their bed. I’m taking the life raft, we tied it on so that’s a tiny bit of extra space- at this rate we’ll probably find a whale that needs a lift.


11th May 2016
We found a whale, struggled to fit it on the boat…
Nah. Don’t know if this world has whales. Would be cool to find one, I guess now that we’re like this they’re practically our cousins or something aren’t they? That sounds weird, but had a peaceful day at sea, nice clear weather, good winds, no sign of anything scary in the water except, well, us.
I spent most of the day in the water with Betty and Charlotte and Rachel the mermaid swam a little too. Guess that’s natural, she has freaking gills and scales, more like a fish than us, and she was probably trying to get away from Mum being a mad biologist and asking her all about her anatomy.
Didn’t work very well, Betty’s thrilled to have a mermaid around and she’s not got much of a reign on her size and strength yet. Best way to occupy her is have a swimming contest, see who can stay under for the longest. It’s not even that hard, we don’t hold our breath; we just stop breathing and keep moving, play tag or try and grab any fish or just float and chill out under the boat. Hull looks a little worse for wear after all of this, but still holding well. We managed to hit forty minutes today, and then Betty realized that the girl with gills would probably beat her and kicked up a fuss. Kids are really damn insensitive, got no sense of timing, she claimed it was cheating- even old Tim found it funny; he’s getting back on his feet but he needs tons of layers and we’re not doing very well for food. Guess if it gets too bad there are the fluffballs, we should’ve dumped them on the island when we had the chance.


12th May 2016
Another nice day. Feels weird when this happens. I think it might be because of the Leviathan sticking close- it stuck its head up today, Charlotte ended up on top of it- but the ship’s definitely close. Julie and them are getting nervous- or more nervous. They’re a bit more used to us now, she helps with the cooking and inside jobs, Old Tim chats to Da a bit on the deck, lends a hand. Pete’s sake that wasn’t intentional. Rachel’s not too bad either, she talked to the Leviathan for a while too.


13th May 2016
You’re flipping kidding me. We can see the bloody ship. It’s the same one from earth, the big Accordion cruise liner that we saw at Darwin! Apparently called Arcadia, but hey, close enough, it’s a bloody giant ocean liner, like for round-the-world cruises. Better than our round-the-world cruise anyway, looks like it can carry hundreds and hundreds; it’s more like a super-giant floating factory or a town than it is a ship!
Half wrecked too, it looks like its anchored dead close to a little island, loads of damage to the outside and not many lifeboats left attached. Then there’s the sharkupines, gotta be at least fifty of the wretched beasts near it, probably even more. Can’t tell without going in the water. We’ll swing around to the other side of the island, they’ve set up some camps or there’s people there anyway, tons of humans.

Mind the boat, Kai.
And the fuzzsnakes. And Old Tim. They’re kinda one thing now, he wanted something warm up on deck and they wanted stroked, think it’s what they call symbiosis.
But just the four of us now, they needed to leave someone mature and responsible to take care here and for some reason I got nominated. Remind me to fling Betty in the sea more often if this is what behaving gets me! They’re all going on a cruise ship to tell the captain how to find land and see all these people- how long’s it been since I saw more people than just this stupid boat?  Nearly two months. Good thing I’ve got this journal or I wouldn’t know.
Don’t look like a cheery bunch from what I can see, they’re pretty ragged and sunburnt and cold, most look starving. Lots of old folks, guess that’s what rich old folks do, just cruise and get to see all the world before they kick the bucket. No offense to Tim, but just seems weird, having adventures when you need a walking stick. None of my grandparents ever went cruising, Gran’s never left Ireland in her whole life, but Great Uncle Rob really badly wanted to.
That’s why he had this yacht, Hope.

They’re not back yet. It’s… midnight, I think, hard to tell when both moons are nearly all black. Stars are out, really bright. Not like home, you can see so many stars when you’re at sea, there’s no light pollution at all. Don’t tell the time though. We should fix the clocks to the right speed, they’re still completely wrong.
Don’t know how long they should be, Tim thinks there could be a bit of trouble, he’s still up here. Says the Arcadia was in difficulty when they left. Everything was going fine after they left Darwin and continued around the coast, until a few days later there was a lot of commotion on the ship and they saw a monster racing around, attacking people. Actual monster, massive, six legged slimy thing with four eyes chasing a woman, smashing into people in its way until their security- apparently cruise ships have security- managed to take control and it went over the side of the ship. Lucky lot, they don’t have to worry about monsters coming back up with such a high hull.
Anyway, several people became ill or changed quickly enough on that first day- not all the same, I think Betty might have been one of the lucky ones, growing tentacles slowly. Some went through all that in minutes or hours and turned into even worse monsters that they rounded up and locked away. They didn’t know they were humans at first, and then they thought it was an illness, that they would infect and change more people like werewolves I guess. We didn’t even think about that. But then, none of us followed suit did we?


14th May 2016
Old Tim’s laughing at me, says it’s funny to see big hairy giant scribbling away with this little notebook and pencil. It’s like I’m interviewing him, he wants to see what I’m writing about all this- not a chance, and anyway his eyes aren’t good enough to read just in the moonlight.
Same as us it was these twin moons that made them realize something was really up- apparently people morphing into monsters wasn’t a big enough hint for them. There was a panic, everyone was sent to their rooms, they figured out that radio technology wasn’t working properly and that they weren’t where they were supposed to be. Got assured they’d get back on course soon enough and the Captain did announcements and got everyone calmed down. Cruised for a couple of days but all the ill people were still beginning to change and they locked them but they couldn’t get to see Rachel. So Gareth disguised himself as an ill person and disappeared to the Doctor too.
Couple of days and no one was fooled, the staff and passengers were complaining and wanting answers, the crew put them on rations and the hotel lot, cleaners and everything stopped working from the panic. He said it got even bloody worse afterwards, like there were fights, people broke locks and stole more food, some folk disappeared completely. That must’ve lasted weeks judging from the time, they tried to fish and sent out some staff on life rafts to look for land but none came back.
Hell, thought we had a hard time, Tim and that were just clinging off with no information on that huge lump of metal until it hit the island. Might’ve starved to death or something but then he says that Gareth woke them up a while ago, he’d broken out of the isolation somehow with Rachel and them and some other guys grabbed a boat. Then, storms and rain and sharkupines and us.
It’s raining again now- not acid, it’s really pure water, and the sea’s starting to swell. The Leviathan’s at work, can’t see it, but can almost feel it out in the dark water, circling around.
Hehe, here we go again, some more of Kai's story. Now we're getting to interesting bits, I didn't just include that cruise liner in the first part for no reason! That was actually the original version of this story, I'd tell it from the perspective of a security guy on the cruise liner, but I don't think I'd be able to do it justice, and I like this journal-entry format. 

Part 1: fav.me/d8igbv4

Part 2: fav.me/d8jdw39

Part 3: fav.me/d8jmedp

Part 4: fav.me/d8jz6nl

Part 5: Guess where?

Part 6: fav.me/d8lknhh

Part 7: fav.me/d8nhn8i

Part 8: fav.me/d8of9f6

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Bahogar's avatar
Very interesting! I love how you indirectly show their horrified reaction when they're rescued and how Kai is frustrated.
You really like those fuzzsnakes ^^

It's a very synthetic version of the events of the Arcadia you're telling us here. It's nice, but my curiosity isn't quite satisfied. I hope there'll be more crunchy details here and there, like an interview of another guy, who knows? On the other hand, the lack of details or information makes these events very believable. Still, I want to know moar :D

* * * * *
My little blisters are insane, it’s no wonder the brat’s<brats> didn’t get all teary when we left the island

but the little ones know to swim away when they see something like<me?> coming

No offense to Tim, but just seems weird, having adventures when you need a walking stuck<stick>.

We should fix the clock’s<clocks> to the right speed, they’re still completely wrong.