Young Writers Society

You are in the middle of the ocean.

And something is following you beneath the waves.

You've been paddling--or boating--or diving for hours. And everywhere you turn, there is a large shadow hulking on the horizon, waiting, just underneath the water, to swallow you whole. To bring you to the deep, where it has built a palace to keep you, among its other prizes, forever.

You are in the middle of the ocean.

And there is no one to hear you scream.



1. When introducing a character, give us a brief background/profile on them.

2. Don't kill a character that isn't your own.

3. Don't get crazy graphic.

4. Third person preferred. Tense doesn't matter.

5. [Optional] Don't start a staring contest with the thing in the deep. It has many--many--eyes. It will win.

It's been fourteen years since Dawson has set foot in the ocean for fun.

She didn't mind the boat ride out to the little desert island. It was almost comforting, watching the horizons shift around them as they skipped over the waves. The water was gentle this far out from proper land, but got rocky as they pulled up onto the shore of the island to rest. Dawson hesitates before she steps out of the boat and into the lapping waters of the shore.

"Scaredy-cat," teases Mayra. The older woman has her short brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, fly-aways forcing their way out of her bandana. It gets hot in the Marianas, hotter than Dawson was used to before she came out here for work, but Mayra never looks bothered. The wrinkles at her eyes belie the smile in her voice. "Come on. Let's beach for lunch. And have fun."

"Don't know the meaning of the word." Dawson tries to turn it into a joke, but it falls flat on the sand. She forces her foot into the water, keeping an eye on the horizon in case she spots the shadow again.

It—whatever it was—had been following the boat since they left sight of the lab. Dawson spent most of the ride trying to ID it, but it didn't look like anything she recognized.

She splashes out of the water as quickly as possible. The boat is tied down to a solid moor on the edge of the island; this must be a place that the researchers come often. She hasn't seen any locals come out this direction, but there aren't many locals to begin with. "Hey, May—what's the biggest thing out here?"

Mayra laughs and rattles off a few types of whales and sea rays. Nothing that could cast a shadow that big. "What's wrong? Seeing squids?"

It's a joke that the giant squid lives out here. They aren't that big, anyway.

Dawson settles back on the sand and watches the horizon. "No. Just thought I saw..."

"Eat." Mayra shoves a box lunch into her hands. "And then we'll swim. We have data to collect out here. No days off," she reminds Dawson.

"Yeah." Looking out at the horizon, Dawson has never felt so small. She cracks open the box lunch and glances at the boat. It looks small, too, dwarfed against the bright blue horizon. There—behind it—off in the distance, a shadow larger than anything she had seen before. It could have been the biggest wreck in existence.

Or it could have been alive.

That's stupid. Nothing that big would come up from the deep. It wouldn't be sustainable in the low-pressure environment of the shallows.

Dawson ducks her head. "No days off."

Kellach stared up at the clear blue sky, chest heaving and sagging. His head ached, he couldn't feel his limbs, and he had no idea where he was. And that was the least of his problems.

He didn't know how he'd gotten here, either. He'd woken up to find himself treading in the middle of the sea, black spots on the distant horizon marking islands. The enormous shadow in the water on the other side of the horizon had kept him speeding towards those islands. It had been too easy to believe that the shadow hadn't been a trick of the light, a hallucination, or a mirage. It had been too easy to believe that the shadow could have swallowed him whole.

It had been too easy to believe that the shadow had been moving.

But that was silly, wasn't it?

Kellach still didn't feel any safer. His clothes were soaked, the sun baked his fur, and he could hear some kind of conversation down the beach. Pushing himself onto his belly, he crawled around the stones to watch the two people who had docked a boat on the island. Maybe they knew something he didn't.