Caught out in the Changing Sea

A group of old men drifted out across the open ocean in a weathered trawler, their fishing lines cast into the lucid, glassy waters. The sky above stretched out, cloudless and a crisp blue, the sun gleaming down on their leathery skin and well-worn gear. Poles bobbed on the sides of the ship as they reeled in fish from shimmering schools below.

Hours passed. They spoke little, content in the rhythm of the waves and the pull of the lines.

But as the sun began its slow descent, the ocean started to change. The light dimmed. A chill crept into the air. The captain, a man with deep blue eyes and the calm wrought from age, and staring down death on the ocean before, stood at the helm. He watched the horizon tighten.

Clouds gathered like smoke from a distant fire. The sea, once still, began to churn.

The captain scanned the rising swells. "Tie everything down!" he shouted. His voice cut through the wind. With their poles already set aside, the crew sprang into action, rushing to securing the nets and batten down the gear.

The waves rose—higher than any the captain had seen in years. Foam sprayed into the air as the boat rocked violently. They had waited too long. Land was far behind them now.

Then, from the deep, a sound echoed—a low, resonant wail. The captain froze. He recognized it.

A whale. Not just any, but his whale, he had seen the great creature on earlier voyages. This time, it wasn’t alone as beside it swam a smaller shape, fragile, clinging close to its mother.

The captain smiled despite the storm. New life, here, in the deep. A reason to hope.

But the sea didn’t care. Winds howled harder. Waves slammed the hull. The boat groaned as timbers cracked.

"Hold the mast!" the captain bellowed. "Tie yourselves down or you’ll be swept off!"

As the ship pitched and heaved, the whale circled them, carving a calmer path through the water. Its great body split the storm’s rhythm, disrupting the chaos. For a moment, the crew dared to believe they might survive. Then the second sound came.

It didn’t echo—it devoured. A cry deeper than the trenches, older than stories. Not the whale. Something else.

Something rising from the deep blue sea.

The ocean cracked and not just the surface—the ocean floor ripping open a rift.

The captain gripped the wheel as his mast shattered. Crew members vanished, torn into the dark.

The young whale panicked, slamming into the boat’s side. The hull splintered. The ship staggered.

Still, the captain held his course. “Let the beast have me,” he muttered, “but not the calf.”

The whale surged ahead. The water around it boiled with fury, its wake pulling them forward. The captain steered into that path, willing the remains of his ship to hold together.

The rift below split wider. From it came whispers, claws of current, the scent of old bones. But the whale shielded them, bearing the storm’s wrath.

The captain braced for the end.

And still, the whale swam.