Long before daybreak, a miasma covered the entire ship. The fog had rolled in. It was unlike anything Anne had seen in her life. Mere hours ago, she could see the coastline of Brasil, though it was a long way off. Bright flashes of the beach nightlife were beacons rivaling the lighthouse on the far side of the port. Now it was all gone, as if a magician threw his dollar store cloak over the entire coast, making it disappear to the surprise of everyone, including himself.

“It’s nothing to worry about,” Al reassured her as he left the cabin. After their little dance on the deck, they had returned to bed, where they hoped to hold one another until dawn. To their disappointment, first mate Shawn almost beat the door down to announce their latest crisis mere hours before dawn. When Al straightened his hat, the last piece of his captain's attire, he held his head high with a cracking grin. As far as he knew, nothing was out of the ordinary. “We’re a little way out from shore still. Between our spotlights and Brasil’s lighthouse, we’ll find our way in time.” He kissed her on the head as he strode off in his long blue trencher. With that, he was gone; once again, she was alone.

"I wish we could’ve danced longer," she whispered in the creaking silence. Her heart raced with excitement, remembering how his hands caressed her skin. It was the first time since setting foot on the swaying ship she truly felt at ease.

Anne was no novice when it came to sailing. During their courtship, as her grandmother would call it, Al took her on many seafaring adventures. They visited many isles and crossed several inlets along the mainland. She came a long way from her maiden voyage, where she spent two hours emptying her guts over the railing. It was unwise to eat a heavy lunch of fettuccine and garlic bread before stepping aboard. Still, years later, she found she had little love for the sea.

Sitting in the dim cabin, she couldn’t help fearing what would happen if the ship crashed against the rocks. She doubted she would reach the deck in time, drowning alone as the sea claimed their lives. “Need to calm down,” she muttered. Waddling across the room, she looked over her husband’s books. He was quite the bibliophile. Most were graphic novels. Comic books. Whether they came from Japan or America, that’s all they were to her. She recognized the titles she gave him as gifts. Starman. 20th Century Boys. Swamp Thing. Not once since purchasing them had she glanced beyond the cover. She hadn't the faintest idea he enjoyed them so much. He hinted at her reading them often, but she returned little interest. Today was different. Anything was better than worrying about her demise.

She grabbed one at random. Read one and you’ve read them all, she thought. It had a funny name. Dororo. She regretted her choice. What she found inside was a horrifying tale. To rule Japan, a father sacrificed his unborn son to demons. Due to his pact with hell’s minions, the son was born with no eyes, nose, tongue, arms, or legs. When she saw the haunting image of the disfigured infant, she dropped the book, placing her hands on her stomach.

Her mind trailed back to the day she discovered her pregnancy. It was the scariest moment in her life drowning in a sea of happiness. So many doctor visits and too many nights fretting over possible negative reports. Those were the tip of the iceberg. After becoming pregnant, she discovered why her mother complained about the joys of motherhood. Anne couldn’t control her emotions, a feat that was so simple months ago. Some days, she hated seeing Al, a man she promised to love for the rest of her life. Nausea, bloating, and weight gains were unbearable. It was repulsive to gaze into a mirror. She hated that her life wasn't more like a picturesque Hallmark card, full of smiles and fuzzy feelings.

It's fine, she reassured herself, trying to maintain her composure. The boat hasn't stopped. We'll be on land soon. She rubbed her swollen belly where a childhood dream dwelled. Long before she met Al, her heart ached for a family. She wanted one boy and two girls. One daughter would be the mother hen; the other would be the family angel. She knew her son would serve as the protector, defending his sisters from any threat. Thinking of her ideal family yet to be born, her trembling ceased. Taking one deep breath, she let the anxious nerves pass from her body. "Everything will be fine," she muttered, hoping that she was right.

"You're lying," a little voice whispered beyond the cabin door. Her breath caught. Cold sweat across her skin. Anne knew she needed to ignore it, but her eyes slid toward the door. To her horror, a strange blue light seeped through the cracks, carrying a detestably pleasant odor. Deep inside her mind, a voice from the past chanted.

Seizing on her returning fear which plagued her anxious, disturbed mind, the darkness invaded again. It encroached on her peace, crushing every good thing in its snaring grasp. She cried out as her breath cut short. Her heart and head pounded. She tried to call for help only to find her lips couldn’t form a single syllable. Was she cursed? Anne was never superstitious, but her father was. He was careful to never step on cracks or walk past black cats. Everyone thought he was a little push away from being insane. Anne refused to believe it until she was fifteen. That was the day she found what he was up to in the basement.

Her mother warned her to never go into the basement at night. For years, Anne obeyed this rule without question. She almost opened the door at five when she missed her father one lonely night. A strange fragrance slipped through the door’s crevices. It wafted into her nostrils, making her breathe in an odd mixture of spice and flowers. That kept her away until nine. The fragrance piqued her curiosity. Leaning down by the door, she took in a deep breath. What scared her at five made her feel this weird sense of serenity. Who knew how long she stood there? What she never forgot was when she stopped.

Through the door, she heard the muffled voice of her father. His voice broke off into grunts and gasps. Between that came odd words she’d never heard. This kept her away until she was fifteen. On that fateful, chilly night, the power got knocked out. Her mother was out of town. The fuse box was in the basement, hidden underneath the house with her father. A mere door stood in the way.

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

She knocked, hoping her father would answer. The foreign words answered, paying her no attention. She called for him, but he refused to answer. Trembling in the dark, she knocked harder, trying to be heard over her father’s strange speech. Unbidden, the door cracked open under the weak might of her fist. Blue light poured through the opening, blinding her with its foreboding glow. Her feet shuffled to flee, but the haunting light robbed all sensation from her legs.

When it returned, along with her sight, she found herself standing on the final step of the basement staircase. The display before her made the girl long for a shroud to cover her face. It was a long time since she entered the basement, a place that served as the laundry and storage room. What she saw was a twisted version of the room in her memories. Various pots laid in precarious places around the room. One on the dryer. Another on a cluttered shelf. One rested next to a mousetrap, which held the decaying corpse of a verminous victim. Incense billowed from the makeshift urns, producing the horrendous yet entrancing odor.

Candles stood around the room in a number too great for young Anne to count. They varied in color and size with some so low they could burn out any moment. What they had in common were the flames. Blue fire danced from one wick to another. One candle held its position on the stairway railing. The melting wax touched her paling hand. She never felt a thing. Terror swelling in her heart, she stood transfixed before the horror that awaited her in the middle of the room. Her scream deafened her own ears.

Bare-chested, her father sat in the midst of it all, moving as though constrained by a heavy blanket. Bent over, he worked with obsessed interest, paying no attention to his daughter's distress. As he finished, he rose to his feet, turning in a half-circle. In his right hand, he held a long, cruel knife. Gore covered his torso and dripped from his hands. A pool of blood expanded around his feet. His eyes met Anne's. It was the same as looking at a corpse. He made no indication he saw her.

Instead, he turned again, dropping to his knees to bow his head against the floor. Looming over his balding scalp was the statue of a black dragon. It was no bigger than a toaster, yet Anne felt as if its presence took up most of the room. The shining dark scales cast the statue in an encapsulating glamor. Its slender body spoke of its agility while the unmarred flesh declared its dominating nature. This beast soared the skies unchallenged. Ten heads sprouted from the neck, a fact that sent a series of terrified tremors coursing through Anne’s body. Razor talons and savage fangs cried out of ravenous ferocity. A black pit rested at the back of the maws, threatening to devour anything that came too close. When she met the glazed eyes, Anne felt her knees give way. They burned with a cold inferno consuming all in its gaze. Every single lidless eye bore into the girl.

This was not something she should see. Clinging to the handrail, she struggled to get away. If she could reach the top of the stairs, she’d close the door and race to her room. Protected by her bed’s covers, she’d force herself to believe that everything she witnessed was a dream. Once daybreak arrived to save her from the terrible night, she’d put this nightmare behind. Her father wasn’t committing some foul occult rite underneath her house. All she had to do was climb the stairs, but it was too late. With a guttural cry, her father shot to his feet. Head whipping around, his dead eyes zeroed in on his daughter as a cat does a trapped mouse. Anne tried to run to no avail. Her feet were frozen and there was nothing she could do as the blood-stained man took a menacing step forward.

As the thin streams dribbled from his fingertips, haunting words spewed from his mouth. Years later, Anne wasn’t sure what he said. The stream of babbling speech floated between countless languages, some real while others had to compose of utter nonsense. His lips passed the rare familiar phrase in sporadic fashion. One word she well recalled: Lotan. Her father repeated it over and over in the unintelligible prattling. As he drew closer, the blue light glinted off the knife he held in a tight-fisted grip. It twitched, longing for more blood. She lost count of how many nights she found herself trapped in that basement, bathing in the blue flames as the incense burned her nostrils. All the while, her father readied his knife to sacrifice his only child as the stone dragon watched with insidious glee.

For some time, Anne had peace, content to leave the past in the rearview mirror. It was unfortunate that it couldn’t last. The horrific memories caught up, eager to make up for lost time. Both fire and darkness tormented her dreams. They had grown bolder as of late, creeping into her waking world. Was she cursed? She didn’t want to believe it; still, she knew fools ignored their own senses. This was not a normal side effect of pregnancy. Something terrible lurked nearby. As the blue light flickered through the door, she realized that perhaps it was at the threshold.

Her hands gripped the curves of her stomach, longing to shelter her baby. Flee. Racing to the far corner of the room, she pushed the bookshelf aside, sending books scattering to the floor. A small metal door awaited her. It was the only escape route from the captain's quarters. "Can't be too cautious on the seas," Al said when he first showed her the emergency exit. "Never know when pirates are gonna board." She wasn't sure if he was joking or not. At that moment, she didn't care.

Prying the door open, she found a small tunnel big enough for one person to waddle through while keeping pursuers following one at a time. A clever design even if Anne had trouble appreciating it as she stooped down. She moved as fast as her bowed legs could carry her as her arms slid along the walls, maintaining her balance. Glancing over her shoulder, she caught faint glimpses of the unnatural blue light, growing brighter in the cabin by the second. Fear made her move quicker.

The cold dark tunnel was a straight line to a ladder, which went straight to the upper deck. When her hands hit the metal rungs, she looked up. High above her head, she saw a faint red light blinking, signifying the exit point. Anne wasted no time climbing as fast as she could. Her swollen belly required careful navigation as she scaled the rungs. Sweat poured from her armpits and forehead while her arms and legs burned from the strain. First thing she planned to do after the delivery was start getting back in shape.

Persevering, she reached the top. Using her right arm, she pulled on the handle, a simple catch that would open the door at once when it popped. It was stiff from lack of use. Gritting her teeth, she leaned back, hoping her weight would give her the necessary leverage. She was right. Cracking, the handle popped and the door began to swing open. As she faced the early morning sky, she breathed no sigh of relief nor gained an ounce of comfort. Staring through the exit, a deep horror overtook her as a powerful blue light filled her vision. Blinded, she lamented her helplessness after the fog rolled in.