legend has it [thoth]

He didn't like the sea. Anyone who knew him knew that, and no one who knew him could blame him either. Even for those who got the sanitized version could easily understand why. He'd lost his arm on the ocean. He's nearly lost his life, and his teammates. Of course, the fact that he'd seen the thing that lived in the ocean.... well, most people didn't know that. That was something he'd kept hidden, burying the secret along with the rest of his team.

No one had to know. No one could know, because then they'd assume he'd gone mad. Anyone would. If someone else told him they'd had a boat destroyed by an unstoppable monster, he'd think they were crazy too.

He hated boats, and he hated the ocean. He hated everything, but there was very little option. It made him even antsier than usual, and he found he couldn't sleep. It wasn't a very big boat - more of a ferry than anything, meant to carry people on the long journey to Corsica. Some people dozed in their cars. Some had tiny rooms. Nicolas had what amounted to a broom closet.

Standing on the edge of the boat was a bad idea, but he did it anyway. There was a high guardrail, but he felt like screaming just looking out at the water.

He hadn't really looked at the sea in years.

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Tag to @"Horus" ​

Nicolas did not like the ocean, and when there was a noise - something strange and alarming - he could only stand there. Had he even heard it? The nature of the boat meant there was nowhere he could go. That was what made it truly terrible - because if the thing came for him, there was absolutely nothing he could do. If a man tried to kill him, he could defend himself. Even without a gun, he could fight back. He knew how. But nothing could defend him from a monster.

He didn't even get to fully finish the train of thought, and then something had grabbed him, hauling him over the side. He very nearly brained himself on the side of the boat on the way down, hitting the water with a slap that literally knocked the breath out of him. He twisted, forcing himself above water for only a moment, long enough to grab a breath, before he was dragged back down.

It was hard to do anything but panic and try and hold his breath as he was dragged into the dark water, eyes squeezed tightly shut as his lungs screamed.

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Tag to @"Horus" ​

Humans did, in fact, need air. No amount of good intentions would replace the fact that to function he needed air in his lungs, and while Nicolas considered himself to have a decent amount of stamina, he was only human.

Underwater, he could see the glow. He knew things were moving, that he was being held up by a rag doll. But he kept telling himself that he was dreaming, that it was all a nightmare. And even when he was jerked, his eyes flashing open for only a moment, he told himself it wasn't the same thing. He told himself it was something else. That he wasn't there. That it was anything else.

If he wanted to stay sane, to cling to that last rapidly diminishing bit of oxygen, he needed to keep telling himself that. He had to keep telling himself that he wasn't facing down another one of those monsters. That one hadn't come out just to snatch him. There was no way it was a current, not with the tight feeling around his waist, and the sudden jerking motion as they took off to god knows where. He had to keep telling himself that, even as his vision started to go even blacker than it already was, his lungs screaming for air.

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Tag to @"Horus" ​

It was like all his nightmares had come true all at once. No, that wasn't even quite right. His nightmares were more tame than this. His nightmares were just seeing the thing again. His nightmares were going into the ocean at all.

He broke the surface with a desperate gasp, sucking in air to fill his pained lungs. Every breath was deep and desperate, trying to make up for the oxygen he'd lost. He'd almost died, almost given in and sucked water rather than air, and even in combat he'd never had so much adrenaline pumping.

Opening his eyes made things worse, not better. He was dangled near the surface, high enough to breath but with nothing he could do but hang there (or attempt to tread water). Even worse, he was surrounded by the... by the heads, if you could even call it that. The thing had literally surrounded him, and now it was doing exactly what it had done after it had destroyed their boat: It was watching.

If he hadn't peed just before coming on the deck, he might very well have peed then and there. His heart was not so much hammering in his chest as it was threatening to beat through his ribs and escape to safety.

But there was nowhere to go. In the ocean, even if the thing just let him go he'd drown before he found anything. He would die out there, and the only question was why. Why? Why had it come for him? Why had it hunted him down? Why hadn't it at least eaten him?

There was a flare of real anger that managed to punch through the fear, however temporarily.

"If you're going to eat me, just fucking do it!" He shouted, even if he couldn't tell for sure if he'd even be able to understand.

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Tag to @"Horus" ​

Fuck, it was laughing. That was what it was doing, wasn't it? It was so wrong, like suddenly seeing an animal laugh. He supposed it was an animal, in a way - more animal than human anyway. It was something, anyway. He didn't really want to know what it was. He wanted it gone, out of his life. He wanted to have never seen it at all.

And then it talked. Talking was a thousand times worse then laughing, and he jerked backwards more out of instinct than anything. It was loud, but it was also so wrong. So clearly not a human talking. So clearly something else.

He felt the sudden desire to puke, and he only just pushed it down.

"Then just - just say what you want, fuck!" He felt the urge to swear, but he held his tongue. Nearly literally - he was a bit worried he was going to bite his tongue on the next wave if he flapped his gums too much.

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Tag to @"Horus" ​