Terror From the Deep - Chapter One
the first chapter from my forthcoming novel
CONTENT WARNING: ALL OF IT. HORROR AF.
Note from Daphne about music: A part of my process involves finding music which serves as a kind of soundtrack for my writing within each chapter, along with a song I tack on the end as if this were some kind of television show with credits. It’s just my thing. Please know you have my sincerest encouragement to simply ignore me if you only want to read. However, please know that I never chose music with lyrics up top, though it might get pretty loud sometimes when shit’s going down, and the suggestion would be to repeat that track while reading for a unique experience more alike my own while writing it. I think that might offer something pretty cool to those willing to try it out. Regardless, I hope you enjoy this in any way that calls to you. Thank you for reading.
Terror From the Deep
by Daphne Garrido
One
Cora was awake.
She’d not show it for some time, holding fast to the knowing that strictest observation of this deposit into The Hellrath’s flesh-pit she’d made herself a part, would be of no consequence to such a craft, nor to that machine of a man so felt behind its evil doings.
This was the lowest and most abysmal moment of her life, covered in the viscera and disembowelments of those bodies above her. There would be no place she’d ever find herself with less hope, more overwhelmed, or needing the comfort of some godly presence of righteousness to stand by her side.
Her belly ached, shoulders carrying such immense burden. The one she’d done this for, who she found herself doing everything for after they’d taken place by eachother’’s side — her greatest love; Ruth — they’d be safe if she could see this through, but they’d not ever touch each other again. Cora would nevermore hold or taste that one who’d chosen to stand by her side through the worst of it all, finding strength to honor the feelings in their heart no matter her ways, and would carry that forward as a greatest challenge of hopelessness.
This was a suicide mission she’d undertaken.
Ruth was back home, too close in reality to consider, and Cora would witness here most plainly the horror which would befall her and their people if this terror she aimed to end was allowed to live on.
The Loose Cannon was the name her people had bestowed upon their ship. Painted boldly upon its broadest cut of hull, chosen in favor of the colonization vessel’s proper name, one made of strictest military definitions and prescripted serializations based on its planet of origin and generation; Throxum 13G-221.
Cora smelt sulfur in her nostrils, rotting flesh, burning hair — she’d not known how to categorize it all, simply too much olfactory awfulness to process at once — she tried her best to project her mind back home; that smell of Ruth’s hair, how it felt to lie beside her in bed.
Something wretched; a skittering of metallic parts, thrumming of mechanical heartbeats, some dreadful scaping had seemed to be growing nearer.
She’d not thought this plan out, beyond the necessary tactics to get herself onboard The Hellrath. Now here, having gotten her wish, there was an immediacy to the regret overcoming Cora Etheros.
That carving grind upon the blood-stained, gut strewn, rusted steel floor was just behind her now. She’d felt whatever it was, as if her booted feet, protruding only just from the mound of desiccated humanity she found herself a part, could perceive the radiations of evil off whatever beast of burden was prowling this wretched chamber.
Monsters were very real, and they were born upon The Hellrath.
Nothing made sense to Cora anymore. Life had been turned completely upside down in no time at all. Her waking cycle on The Loose Cannon had been known as ‘third wave', and that meant she’d plenty of time to acclimate to life upon their ship as they’d burned towards Omega — that planet they aimed to make home.
This place was cursed by some vengeful force of wrath, an evil unlike any heard of throughout The Periphery.
Such choices were made in the moments of its arrival. The way her people turned on one another was a horrendous sight. She found it all quite sickening to see how low people could get when the tides of change shifted against them.
Cora felt others should work like she did, and take care of each other, but was often disappointed to find herself a rare breed. Ruth worked quite the same, although, her life had been a great struggle of sadness. She found her work in healing and sharing that with others through authentic creation.
Ruth was a musician when the atmosphere allowed it. There had been much time spent in their chamber upon The Loose Canon in the half-cycle spent on burn towards Omega, charting course through its newly discovered system on the farthest reaches of The Periphery; Caluga.
There hadn’t be much else to do but listen to Ruth’s songs, reawaken their bodies and passions after such time in suspension, and execute their roles as guardians, organizers, and leaders of this new civilization which would be made upon the planet. Cora had immersed herself in it all most completely.
In retrospect, those times would prove to have been the best of her life.
It was that very day in which they’d awoken the fifth wave, a final mass of people who’d meant to meet the population requirements for their first settlement upon Omega to be successful, when the devil-ship arrived.
The time which passed in wake of its phase-birth from deep space had been of shortest order to the conscious mind of Cora. Each action and step which led her to take this bravest leap, choosing to face down evil herself in its womb, was made through bold strokes of adrenaline and necessity.
Each hardened pelt of erratic movement echoing through this warehouse of carnage, by whatever beast seemed to be patrolling the edges around its massive heaps of human viscera, was sending vibrations through the flooring most felt by Cora’s palms so pressed upon it, and her chest bearing down with the weight of bodies uncounted.
For a time, its smattering of soundwork had faded, along with those vibrations of its movement having dimmed, before they’d grown back again in force. She could tell it would be walking right past her smallest field of vision, that she’d see this beast, whatever it was.
Cora had still not been prepared for the sight. Unlike evil’s invading army they’d faced down upon The Loose Cannon, those corrupted husks of humans, and the micro-terrors which had filled their atmosphere with horrific and quite realized intents to maim and ensnare free-will, this thing was an atrocity to vision itself.
All the clamoring was made by its quadrupedal base, each crudest steel leg hinged at the half, moved by pneumatic force, supporting an underplating of corroded armor, atop which rested a growth of most unnatural making.
This thing had been created by that devil which was the Hellrath, a reflection of its own making. It’s torso — for lack of a better term — was a globular mass of curdled flesh, so raw and dripping of those fluids meant to line the innards of mammals — its rotunda of eyes, their forms many, were connected by a webbing of neural fibers into some foulest, ancient-looking machine at its peak.
Ruth had seen much of what was happening here through her inner-vision. Songs dried up with the arrival of this ship and the evil inside it. The channel she’d used for cultivating loving compassion turned dark, it spoke of what they’d face, and she would not make song of what it told.
Still, she’d found means to discover a truth which had not yet been proven, but of which the awareness was held by Cora now. Her consideration that it might just be true, would be the very thing which would keep her alive long enough to see the outside of this hell-chamber she’d found herself deposited within.
Every part of this ship, each monster it birthed and wielded as weapons of its war upon life, was of one consciousness alone.
There was a corruption of soul at the helm of this craft — its captain, a demon; The Hellrath itself. Some man who’d lost himself completely into becoming a purest tool and channel for evil itself, making hell with every creation it birthed to being, uncaring the lives it took in all its horrendous manifestations.
Cora had come here to end it for good.
