AM TRAVELING to an island to do a piece of journalism on what appears to be a small community a hundred miles north and east of the Bahamas. I was picked to follow a small team of geologists and anthropologists to investigate what was happening in that forgotten corner of the world. This is not my first rodeo, though certainly one of the most interesting assignments I’ve been tasked with.

We’d found aerial photographs and GPS imaging from some time ago, all blurred. Someone was able to dig up the coordinates and attempted to capture better images with updated tech, but those attempts failed. Every time someone tried to get a photo of the islet the equipment malfunctioned or the image came out fuzzy. At first they chalked it up to coincidence, but they realized that it had something to do with some magnetic anomaly in that area.

With the coordinates the team and I made a plan for our expedition to the mystery site. There were a couple of experts on local indigenous cultures that got added in case there were indeed humans on the island. We hoped we could make peaceful contact. The whole trip took a few months to get going after plans were set, funding needed to be secured, we needed time to get everyone up to speed and so on.

We shipped off from the northeastern side of Florida, traveling quickly. It was about three in the morning and the early spring air was cold. I quickly put on the jacket I’d smartly thought to pack in my meager suitcase. 

There were no sounds but the boat’s engine and the sound of the waves gently passing by. The moon was full, and we had come far enough out by this time to see the stars in all their glory. 

For a while I drank in that cold, quiet peacefulness. 

Then I got seasick.

I’m not used to boats, and I gave everyone on board a laugh when I hurled over the side. The whole ordeal was rather miserable for a land animal like me. After I finished losing the entire contents of my stomach, I cleaned up and was given some drugs for the sickness. I thanked the young woman, an anthropologist named Sallie, and went below deck to lay down.

We stayed on course for five, six, seven hours until the tiny island appeared faint on the horizon. Another three hours and we’d make it. I suppose my catnap turned into a much needed session of rest. I felt good. It had been a long time since I’d had a proper night's rest. I take what I can get. 

I struck up a conversation with Sallie again after getting some coffee from the 4-cup maker kept in the small kitchen.

“I’m so excited!” she exclaimed, “this is unheard of!”

I had to fumble with my full coffee cup to take the binoculars she was thrusting into my hands. We were close enough to see inland and stopped briefly to observe before we disembarked.

“Look out there—see those?” She asked.

As she turned to point, the light glinted off her silver hoop earring, blinding me momentarily. I squinted as I looked out on the horizon.

“Yeah I see ‘em.”

I was shocked.

There were structures on the island unlike anything else found around these waters. They were certainly old from the looks of the architecture, but had no signs of decay, like they had been built just yesterday. How they got there would be a mystery to anybody—maybe even enough to turn what we know about history upon its head. 

They were wooden houses, painted white, with windows, porches, and chairs. They looked to have been built by European settlers but there was no record of this island on any map anyone had. No documentation existed.

The crew was clamoring about, peering through a couple of shared binoculars. I was scribbling in my notes and Sallie was chomping at the bit to get on that island. The crew got their belongings together and prepared a couple of dinghies.

Just as we set off in our little boats a storm came on us out of nowhere. The sky had been clear—we had no reason to expect it. 

Yet here it was.

The monsoon brought a curtain of battering wind and pounding rain straight down on our violently rocking vessel. We tried to get closer to the island, but a great wave rose up and capsized us. 

I thought I was dead. 

That is the last thing I remember before waking in a warm bed in an empty white house.

Pure golden light broke through the open windows, heralding a comforting warm breeze. I took a long deep breath—the sheets felt so soft and I felt better than I had in years. Damn near perfect, actually.

Eventually I rose, feeling light as a feather, noting a commotion outside. 

Voices. The crew? 

I had almost forgotten them in my surreal awakening. Had we been rescued?

Following the voices I could hear from the outdoors, I passed through the small but well equipped kitchen, noting the stocked pantry and immaculate cookware. It seemed staged perfectly, like I was expected to be there. 

As I emerged into the outside light, I saw many elderly folks wearing pure white robes. They smiled as they saw me. I'm sure I looked confused.

Gingerly, I made my way down the front steps of the ornate porch, all the while being watched like a hawk. Was this some kind of island cult for retirees? Were they going to hold me here against my will and indoctrinate me?

Dread rose in my chest as I considered that possibility. Hopefully I was wrong, though I couldn’t shake the dreadful feeling as I gazed back at the congregation of smiling geriatrics. 

As far as I could see there were identical little white houses on the gentle, emerald-green rolling hills. The people, having taken their eyes off me, went about their business as usual. 

Relief washed over me as I continued walking through the neighborhood. It was a strange sort of peace I hadn’t felt before, but after what I had been through I welcomed it. 

I was waved at and greeted by a great many of the folks I passed. Some peered at me, smiling from the windows of their immaculate dwellings. Some were carrying golf clubs, gardening, or gently strumming on guitars, mandolins, and other instruments I wasn’t able to readily identify. 

All looked and sounded blissful.

***

O SIGN OF MY CREW. I had been keeping an eye out for them as I walked along. The people I came with were much younger than these folks.

I wandered down to the beach. I had to find out what happened and if my crew were alright.

One by one the old-timers gingerly made their way to gaze at the spectacle that was me. I was young and they were so very, very old—eighty, ninety, a hundred. They’ve been that way for some time, according to a man calling himself my neighbor. He hadn’t seen any other new people in quite a long time, but he’d help me look.

I gave him a list of names and general descriptions, but it would be hard to miss some undoubtedly bedraggled shipwreck survivors.

I thanked him and we set off in separate directions.

Why was I the only one of the crew here? Who had given me the bed, anyway?

Should have asked my neighbor. 

I searched all day, calling Sallie’s name. Embarrassingly I seem to have forgotten the others. I knew my memory could be unreliable, but something seemed amiss.

***

VENTUALLY I CUT off my search and found my neighbor sitting on his porch. He’d found a small silver hoop earring on the northern part of the isle.

“In a tide pool,” he said, “Belong to your friends?”

“Maybe.” I inspected the jewelry. “I think so, yes.”

He nodded. “I didn’t see anybody, just some starfish in the pools. I have a golf tournament to get to, but if you want to look, head straight north up the coastline.”

I thanked him and headed north to double check, preparing for the worst. 

Upon arriving at the rocky north shoreline, I found the tide pools aforementioned and set about scouring each one. I assume the neighbor was simply too frail to traverse the uneven terrain, because just over a small incline there was a cave I could see the concave side of a cliff face.

Maybe my crew had made it in there to take refuge, and were too tired or wounded to come out? 

I had to make it in, so I scrambled over the craggy ground and gingerly made my way down a series of outcroppings on the small cliff until I could access the entrance to the cave. 

The air coming from within was cool, and brought with it a strange scent unlike anything I’d ever smelled. I called out Sallie's name and heard nothing but the faint crashing of waves and the warm wind. 

I walked further into the dark cavern and kept calling for whoever would answer me. The air grew cooler around me as I stepped deeper within, and my vision dimmer.

After a while I turned around and saw that I had wandered deeper into the cave than I realized, the entrance barely visible.

My eyes had nearly adjusted to the pitch dark of the cavern.

I turned them downward as I stumbled back towards the entrance and noticed a glinting in the dim light. 

Bending down I saw it was another earring identical to the one in my possession. 

Sallie.

I called her name louder, practically screaming in the dim cavern. My voice echoed off the walls and still all I heard in response was the wind and waves faintly in the distance.

I changed my mind about leaving and headed back into the depths. I had to at least find a body. 

Trudging along, feeling my way through the ever darkening tunnel, I yelled until I thought my voice would give out.

Suddenly I felt sick, and fatigue washed over my body.

I nearly fell over as I sank to the floor of the cave. Then I smelled a scent like rotting flesh. The stench was overwhelming and I tried to yell for help, that’s the last thing I remember.

I awoke again in my bed, which was somehow even more soft and welcoming than it had been this morning. I don’t know whose house it was, no one had come by to check. Everyone seemed alright with me living there so I didn’t worry about it.

***

T'S BEEN ABOUT a week now, or maybe a few months. I’m not sure. No one knows what day it is and there are no clocks or televisions or any device by which one could mark time. I’ve tried writing things down but I keep losing my paper. 

I swear I put it on the nightstand, but it keeps disappearing. I usually find more in the kitchen, but there’s no note paper. 

Still no sign of that girl I came here with. Were we dating? 

Or maybe it was something else.

My neighbor doesn’t really speak anymore. He used to look different, too. 

Or maybe that was someone else.

I feel guilty not remembering these little details. I feel crazy…it’s being on this island. Time passes differently here.

***

NE NIGHT I had this vision—a massive centipede-like creature swam up from the ocean and crawled up to my bed. It had a face like a fish with these round, wide, and terrible glowing eyes. A permanent smile cut across its visage, jaws lined with plaque-stained human teeth. He smelled like rotting flesh, and breathed heavily as his long body heaved itself across the earth. Then I saw him enter one of the houses and drag out a poor old woman. She kicked and screamed and then was silent. Her flesh and bones filled his gaping maw, cracking and tearing under the force of his jaws.

I shut my eyes tight and held my breath.

I yearned to wake up, I wanted him to go away. I called God but I knew he wasn’t in this place. God had left long ago. I tried to run, to get up out of my bed and go far away but every time I ran I woke up and lay there in bed again with the creature over top of me, gazing into my spirit. The hell-spawn held dominion over my mind and body, the dreadful claws which clutched me not loosing until that beast had extracted some essence from me, but what it was I lost I do not know.

God, please help me, please, if you are there, take me away from this.

***

INCE THEN I have not felt quite the same. I see the sadness in my neighbors eyes where I saw joy just days before, I started to remember who I was in brief glimpses like frames in a reel of film. I feel too young sometimes, like I never should have aged so fast, but as far back as I can think I’ve been here. Maybe I should be happier, thankful I could live out my life in peace.

The visions are all I can remember now. 

The sight of the centipede’s awful yellow eyes felt burned into my retinas. I don’t recognize my neighbors' faces anymore, and I don’t go outside. 

I can’t go out there anymore—it comes after me, and no one does anything about it. That thing won’t leave me alone. It knows I can see it. It knows what I think about and what I'm feeling. I can’t escape it’s terrible eyes and that soul-sucking grasp. The skin around my eyes is sagging and dark from sleepless nights, my flesh is grey and loose around my aching old bones. I pass mirrors and windows and see a corpse staring back at me.

How did I come to look so horrifying? I was young once. 

I tried to escape him. It took all my strength but I stayed awake all night, and when I heard him coming I ran.

He screeched as he saw me run through the halls of my house, but I fell in the kitchen, tripped by one of his legs as he chased me.

***

Y LEGS ARE BROKEN I can’t move anymore. I lay here for a day without food, unable to die, though I wished dearly for death. The centipede stayed curled in the dark corner of my kitchen and watched me. I can see it clearly now, the segments of its body covered in reliefs of the faces of the dead frozen in expressions of horror. I recognize the faces, but I don’t know how. It won’t kill me—just feels me with those long antennae and clacks it’s teeth. Sometimes I can hear it whisper to itself, though I don’t know what it’s saying. 

The world is growing dark now.

I’m not sure how many days it’s been since I fell. I don’t hear the worm, but I smell his stench in the air. It smells like death.

 Finally I feel the cold and the void calls. One last time I call to God, and then I see a face—it’s glorious, brilliant, white. I can’t see anything aside from the eyes which unto themselves are suns.

Then comes the smile, and the suns grow black as the maw of the centipede grows wide. I scream and that is the last of me as I was then. I feel a rush of energy, and a mighty essence fills my bones and a voice rings out.

“I am Ithidroth, bringer of the night and father of the moon. Before you I reigned and after you are gone I shall remain. Your ancestors feared me, and worshipped me. Their flesh I devoured and their souls I reaped. Just as I do now with my cattle here.”

As his words pierced my ears, the pain of my death and the memory of my life faded away. I am reborn as a part of the great beast, by flesh and spirit. I was chosen to sustain him, like the others before me. What an honor it is to be the substance that feeds this ageless and hungry god. Through this I am one with him, and we will inherit the world when he emerges at the end of days.

“None can escape my grasp, no man nor world. Be at rest, my child, and let us two become one.”