The Kraken

The captain breathed a sigh of relief with the dawning of the new day. All through the night, his crew had been pulling out all the stops in a race for survival. Every hand at the oars, the ship had practically flown away from the danger of that thing. The captain believed it was an enormous pirate ship, robbing unarmed merchant ships, and then sinking their victims. The crewmen, however, were haunted by stories told in the dark of the night at the taverns in town. The legends claimed a horrific beast roamed the seas, preying on ships, eating them whole in the night.

The Kraken! The beast would appear during the worst storms, rising out of the sea, wrapping its tentacles around the ships and crushing them. Rumor had it that the previous night the ship SeaStar had been transporting spices from India to England when it hit. First the clouds came, then the rains, then the sleet. The sailor in the crow’s nest had spotted it first. A large shape—black against the fog of the night—was gaining on them! The captain, concerned for the welfare of vessel and crew, had ordered the crew to sail northeast toward the coastline away from the storm and the phantom. They had fled in frenzy, fear feeding their speed toward the sunrise. The captain looked to the dawn again. Whether it was a pirate ship as he suspected or a large sea monster, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that it never showed itself in the daytime. Now that the sun was up, the crew gave a resounding cheer. They were safe for the moment.