It was during a heavy rainstorm when the coastal city of Newport shook. Car alarms rang and vehicles veered off the already slick roads. Windows cracked and shattered, supports buckled, and facades of buildings sloughed away onto the streets below. Pedestrians slid and stumbled on the wet, cracking pavement, in their bids for cover under doorways and tables to protect themselves from falling debris. Some of their choices for safety would betray them when power lines and water mains broke, and some older structures around town collapsed.
On the nearby beaches and harbor, the ocean water receded revealing stranded fish and trash too heavy to be carried away by the tides. Not more than a minute later, a wall of water hulked towards the city, washing away all close to the shore. Anyone not fast or lucky enough to reach higher ground vanished under the galloping ocean flood. Many of those trapped under rubble during the time drowned, unable to escape their initial fortune of not being crushed to death.
Meanwhile, above the towering ocean waters, the lone captain of the small, sailing yacht Carcolh was trying to keep his vessel from capsizing. Bengt’s dream for retirement was to leave his hometown in Sweden, and sail across the Atlantic from France to the Americas. He was prepared to handle squalls, but none as big as this one. It got increasingly harder to control the boat, riding massive ocean waves as the seething seas crashed on deck, unsteadying the craft’s balance.
As Bengt fought the waters over control of the vessel, he felt his stomach drop before realizing the boat was falling from under him. It felt like he was about to go flying off when he suddenly fell back down and hit the deck. A moment after, he didn’t feel the boat move anymore. Bengt lifted his head off the floorboards, with raindrops and wind rinsing blood into his beard from a cut on his chin and cheek. Lightning flashed across the sky to emphasize a curved peak off the boat’s stern, reaching upward to at least 40 feet in the sky. Looking then towards the bow, a rock was jutting out of the wrecked doorway down to the cabin. Trying to see if there was any space to squeeze by to enter, there was no such luck. Upon his closer inspection of the rock, it appeared to be covered in bleached coral that was partially broken from the impact and penetrated through the boat’s hull.
Bengt had to find another form of safety out of the storm currently stinging his face. He opened a nearby storage compartment and took a bag of emergency supplies, before grabbing the handrails to pull himself up to view the surrounding terrain for possible shelter. The land appeared to be a vast, bleached, and rocky coral reef, with old debris and marine skeletons strewn about the scape. Not too far away was a hole in an old, shipwrecked steamship, settled against a wall of reef rock. Seeing no other viable option to choose from, he leapt over the side of the yacht to make his way there. He almost sprained his ankle when landing, but he was able to jog it off as he made his way to the wreck.
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Reaching the breach in the hull, Bengt climbed through and lit a flare to view his surroundings. It was old; very old. Everything was waterlogged, barnacle encrusted, and had a musty, dead fish smell. Water dripped and streamed from the creaking ceilings and walls, likely from both the storm and the fact the vessel was just underwater not long ago. It was still better than being outside. There appeared to be a plaque on a nearby wall, which he gave a quick wipe down to read: Neustria. It sounded vaguely familiar, but from where?
Bengt moved further inside the ship, as the sounds of the maelstrom raged outside, and the wooden boards creaked around him. Catching glimpses of small creatures like crabs and such scuttling in the shadows of the flare’s red light, he noticed despite the smell, there was a lack of dead fish. He reached an area of the ship where it turned into a natural wall of limestone. In that wall was a hole about two meters wide and almost the same height as he was. It went deep like a cave, and despite the jagged look, appeared to have been created via boring. Peering inside on the edge of its entryway, he could have sworn he saw something green, glimmering in the dark from his flare.
His light was dying, when the supposed sound of what he assumed was the vessel settling, drew closer. Bengt didn’t think much of it until that moment, because it was now as if someone was moving their way towards him, scraping thick nails against the wooden flooring. He turned to face the noise, but whatever it was, quickly lunged at him from out of the darkness. The flare fell and the light finally died. Bengt wasn’t given the chance to make a sound. Even if he had, the thunder and rain guaranteed that he wouldn’t be heard by anyone outside.
A couple days after the earthquake and tsunami, news reports estimated over 50,000 were dead, injured, or missing, and the damage being in the billions of dollars, along the effected coastal region. For the more positive side of reporting, some of those who were lost were found, and only around a few nautical miles offshore from Newport, the region had been gifted a new, over half square mile of island. It was given the name Aspido, and as the initial shock over the disasters subsided, the island began gaining interest.