“Wake up, you layabout cabin boy!” a gruff impatient sounding voice yelled from above, accompanied by the loud noise of a boot stomping on the deck above. “Ugh” groaned Eraum as he groggily awoke and rubbed his eyes, slowly sitting up in his hammock as he looked around the room. What greeted his eyes was a small room with three of the four walls covered in mostly empty hammocks gently swaying with the motion of the ship and an assortment of hooks hanging between them with various coats and shirts hanging from them in various stages of drying and smelling strongly of the sea. A few other crew members that had been on the night shift still slept but unfortunately there was little rest to be had as a cabin boy, there was always something else to be done. The only wall not covered in hammocks and coats happened to be the exit, through which he could see a short dirty hallway with a few doors and then the creaky half broken steps leading to the deck above. “Just another day of fishing and we will be home again, and with enough of a haul for me to finally get a new pair of boots.” Mumbled Eraum to himself as he put on his brown leather boots that had clearly seen better days. He stood up and gave himself a quick once over to make sure everything was there - his warm brown wool pants with a leather belt and his dirty white linen shirt were in order, covering his dark tanned skin and average body for a boy of 15. “Eraum! Get some food and then get up here to start scrubbing the deck!” Yelled the ships boatswain, Duran, as he stomped on the deck again even louder than the last time. Eraum slowly glanced around the room once more, giving a longing stare to his hammock, before letting out a small sigh as he walked out of the bunk room toward the steps to the upper deck.

“Im coming Duran, one moment!” Eraum yelled up the steps, lest he anger Duran even more by not giving a response. The man was in charge of the crew and could be a terror when he wanted and Eraum feared angering him too much. Eraum briskly walked to the galley and sat down at the long wooden table in the center of a room just large enough for the table and its chairs to fit. In the center of the table a large metal plate with some half stale bread and butter ready for quick meals when the crew was hungry and didn’t have time for a proper meal. He drug the plate over to himself and took a few big bitesbefore standing up and stuffing one last large piece in his mouth whole as he left the room and quickly spun around the back of the steps to grab his bucket and mop before trudging up the rickety steps and out into the perpetual daylight that graced the southern portion of the continent in its warmth. Eraum took another moment to look around and get his bearings as the light half blinded him in its suddenness. All around for as far as the eye could see was naught but blue ocean, the light waves slapping against the hull of the two level dual mast ship, clearly in need of some repairs but still sea worthy. The rest of the crew, a group of rough sailors and fishermen, were situated around the ship performing their various duties. As he was about to fill his bucket with water and begin mopping the deck, a yelp for help was heard from one of the water mages helping to corral fish into the nets that the ship drug through the water.

“Somethings wrong over here, everyone grab onto the net! Its like the water is suddenly fighting against me and trying to pull the net down!” “Quickly men! We can’t lose that net of fish!” Yelled the captain, with a return of “Aye Aye!” From the nearby crew members. Eraum rushes over to help pull up the fishing net and grabs one of the thick coarse ropes with both hands and begins pulling with all his might. Around him the other men follow suit, everyone with a portion of rope, and for a moment it does indeed appear to be working. “Heave! Ho! Heave! Ho!” The men chant as they pull with their full might but alas, it was a futile struggle and the strained rope snapped in twain. Eraum’s heart sinks, and surely the rest of the crew’s hearts as well, as he watches the rope and net holding the crews payday sink into the suddenly more roiling sea along with his hopes and aspirations for that new pair of boots. Sighing dejectedly, he turns around just in time to get slammed with a massive wall of water! Body crashing into the railing and head bouncing off the deck with an audible thump, Eraum struggles to stand back up as the crew begins crying out. “What the bloody hells!” “Where did that come from!” “Were doomed!” and other hopeless wailing sounds in the air as Eraum coughs up the salty sea water and finally manages to regain his bearings and get on his feet, soaked clothes weighting him down.

As he looks in the direction that the wave originated from Eraum sees the most gut wrenchingly horrifying storm he has ever encountered during his several years of fishing on the open ocean. Pitch black clouds are rolling across the skies at an amazing speed, stretching as far as the eye can see. Lightning streaks constantly shooting and twisting around within and a torrential downpour of rain that could easily be confused for a solid wall of water rushes across the sea and hits the boat in an instant. It feels as if the cold is seeping into his very bones. BOOOM! The loudest thunderclap any of the crew had ever heard goes off, temporarily deafening them as they stood around frozen with fear. “Eraum!” Screams Duran, as he rushes over and grabs him tightly by the shoulders. Duran struggles to be heard over the massive booms of thunder and the sound of the storm pounding into the deck as he yells “Quickly boy, begin bailing water out of the second deck! Stop for nothing, the rest of the crew will take care of anything else that happens. You must help keep us from taking on too much water! I will gather others to send, but go!”. Eraum’s ears are still ringing from the thunder but he hears most of what Duran says and nods in confirmation, fear clear on his rain streaked face, and begins running toward the steps to the second deck while dodging out of the way of the others who had finally broken out of their fear and began attempting to survive this disaster. He quickly scrambles below deck to fill his bucket with water, falling down the wet steps in his rush and cutting his left arm deeply on some of the broken steps while falling face first onto the ground. “Brace yourselves!” He hears someone above scream above the wind and rain, and a moment later the boat turns nearly on its side as what must have been a truly gigantic wave crashed into the boat in an attempt to claim it as the oceans own.

A veritable waterfalls worth of water was cascading down the steps at this point and onto Eraum’s prone body as he struggled back to his feet yet again. “Not good not good not good not good” he said to himself repeatedly as he picked up his fallen bucket and scooped up a bucket full of the now knee deep water contained within the ship. Dizzy from the repeated blows to his head he staggered up the flight of steps and tossed his bucket of water overboard. He went back for another trip and at this point several other sailors had begun the job of bailing out the ship alongside him, but things were not looking good for them. Eraum lost track of how many buckets he had bailed out of the ship, however when he came up from belowdeck this time everyone on deck was standing still, jobs forgotten, staring off into the same direction. As Eraum turned to find out what everyone was so focused on, he dropped his bucket of water onto the deck, spilling it. Bailing the ship no longer mattered he realized, as a wall of water higher than the eye could see was about to engulf the ship and drag it down to the deep dark depths of the sea. The terrifying wall of water wasn’t even the most terrifying part of this whole ordeal however as just barely visible within the wave was the partially visible form of some gigantic undersea monstrosity. “This must have caused the freak storm…!” Eraum thought to himself. Tales of horrifying sea creatures in the North had been passed down for generations, but it was all thought to be legend. Never had a fishing boat been accosted by a creature such as this, especially in the warmer waters of the South, and Eraum had never thought to experience one for himself. Several of the crew working above deck had the forethought to tie themselves to the masts before handling their duties while the rest were left scrambling to grab and hold onto whatever they could find nearby for dear life. All of these attempts were of course vain, however Eraum lunged for a rope anyway and held on as if his life depended on it, closed his eyes, and then the water came crashing down onto the ship with a power that only the primal forces of nature could ever hope to achieve.