Soundings
By Corinna Schmeckpeper
The water was cool as I dipped my hand in, an icy contrast to the bright, warm sunlight beating down on us. The rhythmic rocking and quiet splish, splash of the water against the hull of the boat were the only noises out here in the middle of nowhere. We continued fishing, the familiar scent of salt and seaweed lingering in the breeze as we cast. My shipmate never talked much. I didn't mind. The quiet had always been kinder to me than words.
By midday we'd barely caught enough to fill the bottom of the bucket. Not unusual. Some days the fish simply weren't interested.
A ripple had spread across the otherwise still water, though there wasn't a breath of wind to claim it. It passed beneath the boat and was gone almost as quickly as it had come.
Neither of us paid it much attention.
Around an hour later the water stirred once more, bigger this time. It rocked the boat hard enough to force us both to steady ourselves, sending little waves slapping against the hull. We exchanged a worried glance before I leaned over the side. A dark shape moved somewhere beneath us, so deep the water swallowed its edges. I watched it, trying to make sense of it, but the longer I looked, the less certain I became of where it began or ended. Before I could decide, it slipped back into the blue.
"Whale?" I asked, though I wasn't sure whether I meant to convince him or myself.
My shipmate didn't answer. He was staring toward the horizon, his face drained of what little color the sun hadn't already stolen. I followed his gaze and, for a moment, I couldn't understand what I was seeing.
The sea looked wrong.
Far out where the sky met the water, the surface had begun to rise. Not with the sharp crest of a wave or the rolling swell of a distant storm, but slowly, steadily, as though something beneath it was lifting the ocean on its back. White water burst outward in every direction. The swell reached us long before its source ever did, rocking our little fishing boat with impossible ease.
Then it surfaced.
It did not erupt from the sea. It rose.
One dark coil at a time, the ocean pouring from scales too distant to make out and too immense to comprehend. I waited for it to stop. It never seemed to. I remember waiting for its head to appear. It took so long that I wondered if the thing had no end. Each length of its body climbed higher than the last until I found myself wondering if I had mistaken it for a mountain somehow hidden beneath the waves.
By the time its head emerged, it looked as though it might brush the clouds themselves. Perhaps that was fear speaking. Perhaps memory has made it taller with each passing year. But I know this much: it stood miles away, and still it dwarfed the horizon.
The sea broke against scales that flashed green whenever they caught the light as it turned slowly, its body disappearing beneath the water in the same great spiral with which it had risen. The sea rolled for what felt like an eternity after it vanished.
Most who've heard this tale have smiled politely before changing the subject. So call me a liar if it pleases you. I would have called myself one too, had I not watched the sea rise around it with my own eyes.
I remember looking up and realizing I had never understood how small a man could truly be.
It was only years later that I understood why that frightened me more than anything else. Whatever moved beneath the sea had been so far below the surface that it appeared as nothing more than a shadow, and yet it had stirred enough water to reach us. I have spent more nights than I care to admit wondering how large something would have to be to do such a thing.
I have never found an answer that let me sleep
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142,249 Literary Works • 677,084 Reviews
Hiya!
This is amazing, it really feels like a campfire story and you're really good at creating a subtle lead up to the actual monster. Really good creepy foreshadowing.
I have a few suggestions;
This is more of a personal preference, but perhaps this could be reworded slightly? I love the depth it gives to your speaker, especially as the rest of the piece revolves around the monster, but it doesn't read that smoothly. Even shortening the amount of words, like maybe 'kinder' instead of 'more kind' might help
I absolutely LOVE this imagery, it's the perfect mix of creepy and realistic and I can picture it perfectly in my mind's eye. The way you can't decipher the true size makes it really ominous and us as readers apprehensive. Definitely a horror trope.
This is a realllllly cool image and incredibly unique too! I love how you're showing us the wordless terror, it feels much more real.
I get the idea you're trying to convey, and dwarfing the horizon is a cool image, but being farther away that any ship they've ever seen? As in it's big enough to be seen when a normal ship at that distance would be too far away to see? Again, might be personal preference, but from the lead up to that observation I was expecting something a little more dramatic; like the dwarfing the horizon.
Ooooo this is so satisfying, it puts the whole thing in perspective and it just feels so RIGHT in the place you've put it.
The next paragraph is more amazing description, but I wonder if it gets a little repetitive? You just start describing it again. Maybe this chunk could be moved, because once your speaker interrupts themselves with hindsight it feels like the memory part has come to a close and then it's like "oh there's more". Again, personal preference.
TheY kEPt fIsHInG?!? After that? They're braver than me I would've packed up and called it a day. Then probably never have gone fishing again.
This is excellent! I think it's the perfect ending because it belies how terrifying the experience really was and how much it haunts your speaker. Sleep is always an interesting horror thing because how close it is to death, there's something innately creepy about it and you've captured the nightmarish feel perfectly!
Overall it's brilliantly creepy, it plays really well into all the Kraken/sailor/monster myths, and my suggestions are just suggestions so feel free to ignore if they don't fit!
Thank you! Im really glad you liked it and your suggestions are great. I will definitely be thinking them over and implementing them<3
Hello there, human! I'm reviewing using the YWS S'more Method today!
Shalt we commence with the jinxed S’more?
Top Graham Cracker - The narrator and his ship mate are looking for fish. They don’t find any, but instead, they find something much bigger and more foreboding. Something so strange that they don’t even know what it is. Still, he is sleepless.
Slightly Burnt Marshmallow - I have no recommendations to make as of right now, but if you would like to edit this, you may.
Chocolate Bar - I like how this creature rises slowly from the water as if the water were being lifted, it gives an impression that it’s otherworldly. I also like that the narrator wants to think it’s a whale at first but knows deep down that it isn’t. He saw a creature and it’s making him lose his mind.
Closing Graham Cracker - Overall, an eerie story about what lies in the deep. I have enjoyed reading this and I will think to read any of the other stories you’ll make. This was quite spookifying for Halloween and…
I wish you a marvelous day/night! ^v^
Thank you so much! I havent heard of that method before and will definitely be researching XD
Yw!
I really enjoyed reading your work! I think you did a great job of creating a mysterious atmosphere and making the reader feel like they are actually out on the ocean with the narrator. At the beginning, everything seems so peaceful and ordinary, with the boat gently rocking and the two characters fishing. I liked how you included these small details because they made the setting feel realistic and helped me imagine what it would be like to spend a quiet day out at sea. It also made the sudden appearance of the creature much more surprising because I wasn't expecting anything unusual to happen.
One of my favourite parts was how you built up the suspense before actually revealing the creature. The little ripples in the water, followed by the boat rocking and the dark shape moving underneath them, made me curious about what was happening. I liked that you didn't immediately explain everything because it gave the reader time to wonder and almost experience the characters' confusion themselves. The part where the ocean starts rising in the distance was especially effective because it made the creature seem unbelievably huge without having to explain its exact size. I could really picture the narrator looking out at the horizon and slowly realising that something was very wrong.
I also thought the way you wrote the narrator's reactions made the story more believable. They don't immediately start screaming or explaining what the creature is. Instead, they seem confused and unsure of what they are seeing, which makes sense because something like that would be impossible to understand in the moment. I particularly liked the ending, where the narrator reflects on the experience years later and admits that they still don't know how large the creature must have been. It leaves the reader with questions and makes the story feel like a memory that has stayed with the narrator for a long time.
Overall, I think your writing is really engaging, and the descriptions of the sea and the creature are what make the story stand out. You have a great way of building suspense gradually and keeping the reader interested in what might happen next. I would definitely want to read more about this creature and find out whether anyone else has ever encountered it. I think you should keep writing because you have created a really interesting story that is both mysterious and memorable.
Thank you! This was really encouraging as I write a lot, but I get really anxious to show anyone my writing. I'm glad my writing came across in the way I had hoped