It was the boom of thunder overhead that woke Thomas, flooding rain drenched his face with a cold embrace which startled him back to consciousness. He stood at the edge of the island docks with arms outstretched, ready to drop a bound leather book into the churning ocean below. The maw of the waves wide open, ready to swallow whole whatever might fall beneath the surface. The sight made him recoil, his legs giving way and trembling knees crashing against the grime-encrusted wooden boards below. He gagged and coughed on his own spit, his mouth dry and hoarse, his throat felt like he’d been gargling gravel while his legs burned as if he’d ran a marathon. The last thing Thomas could remember was being crushed under the full weight of the sea, the all-consuming void collapsing his lungs as limbs twisted and snapped under the pressure, but a quick inspection of his surroundings told him how wrong he was. The lighthouse and shed were still there, nothing was out of place at a glance, a sight that made little sense. There was no way that anything on the island would survive a wave like that, not to mention that he sealed the front door shut every night, which would have prevented any sleepwalking. And yet he was standing at the edge of the docks instead of resting in his aged bed. The book in hand was all too familiar, the same decorated padlock sealed the book shut as he saw during the nightmare he had escaped from, the reality of his situation sunk in, causing his mind to shut down.
A harsh ringing in his ears blocked out the sounds of the sea, which brought on another bout of panic. With a shudder Thomas glanced over to the horizon, scanning the ocean for any signs of recession, book in hand forgotten. The yellow weather buoys that dotted the waves blinked with bright signal lights every so often, each one green to show no notable issues in the waves. The ink black waves crashed against the shoreline and chipped away at the stone island piece by piece, no matter how permanent the island felt, time was slipping away at a steady pace.
Thomas’ hands clenched around the book as he thought to the night before, uncertain of just how real it was. The memory of the stench that wafted off the beast had been too real, his legs still covered in the pain of welts from his escape that screamed in agony.
Thomas stumbled to his feet and turned to his home, which stood tall over the island as if it had never left. The gravel underfoot crunched with each sagging step, exhaustion stung Thomas’ eyes with each passing blink. At the least, the rain had receded to a light drizzle, which had soaked his clothes head to toe. His front door stood wide open upon arrival to his house, the study iron bar lay further into the house on the floor, one step inside is all it took to reveal a disaster zone. Someone or something had tossed all the furniture of the house to the floor, a chair laid in the corner with a leg snapped clean off. Once ordered in a neat stack, all of yesterday’s notes now carpeted the room, soaked with a foul-smelling fluid. The keeper groaned and cursed, which sent him into another coughing fit. Thomas worked his way around the debris, shaking with confusion and rage at the sight of his desk laying sideways on the floor. The icebox had fared no better; the door hung loose on its hinges, the inside now warm. The nearest glass of water provided relief for his dry throat, and with a gasp and groan he set the glass down, it was a struggle to hold down another coughing fit even with the water.
Thomas took a glance out of the kitchen window, brow furrowing at the sight of dark clouds above. There was no clear way to tell night from day anymore, and it had been so for years. The sole indicator for the time was his old clock, which sat on the floor jammed between two large books across the room as if someone had thrown it. He took a moment to stand one of the kitchen chairs back onto its feet and collapsed onto it, deep heaving breaths turned into loud sobbing the more he took in the state of his home.
“Why..” His hoarse voice croaked, “What the hell did I do?!” His head lolled back to glare at the sky through his ceiling, a spiteful scowl across his withered face. There he sat, tears running down his face as he curled up in the wreckage that had once been a clean kitchen, his possessions all scattered and broken across the floor. In his rage, Thomas brought his arm back and tossed the book in hand at his overturned dustbin, where it landed with a thunderous clang, he wanted no part in whatever ruined his home. From there he slumped over, face in hands, and wept, it wasn’t until he peeked through the hands that he noticed something that made his heart grow still. Massive wet footprints laid underneath the rubble, closer inspection had Thomas recoiling at the stench. Spoiled fish and rotten eggs, and then there was darkness.
Later, once Thomas woke from his fainting spell in a small puddle of his own vomit and cleaned himself, he tried his best to not look at the footprints or the dustbin while setting his house back in order. The shame of having fainted almost matched the creeping sense of dread he felt. After every sound of a chair being moved into place, every thud of a book being placed back onto his bookcase Thomas would flinch and check the room behind him. After his nervous hands fumbled with his oil lamp, that had been laying on the floor near the front door, it clattered against the wood and forced a yelp from Thomas as he dived for the nearest piece of cover. It took the entire afternoon to put his house back in order, even longer to clean up the footprints that now stained his floor. Thomas promised himself that he would ask for rugs the next time the supply ferry came.
With a painful stretch, Thomas collected his trusted oil lamp and with a click of the ignitor, it burst to life. The warm glow gave Thomas some amount of solace, light was such a rare commodity ever since the storm had blown in. The thought of the eternal storm soured his mood once more, one look out the small round window showed that the rain had ceased for the time being, but the clouds refused to budge an inch. Like vultures stooped high upon branches they threatened to lash out on anyone or anything that lost vigilance for even a second. The floorboards creaked underfoot as Thomas made his way to the kitchen for a much-needed break to eat. Under normal circumstances, he would have ascended to check on the light from the tower, but because of his past mistake, he had work that required his attention that took precedence. His face knitted itself into a deep scowl over those dark thoughts, he needed a vacation, and soon.
The bottom floor of his home was now the same as he had left it, excluding the stained flooring that would force his lunch to rise from his stomach each time they caught his eye and the now broken chair in the room’s corner. A quick gaze around the room revealed a disheartening sight, his candles were running thin, and he still hadn’t received more. With a shrug of his shoulders, he made for the center of the room, his hand fell on a footstool along the way, which he dragged along for the ride. With unsteady feet he climbed onto the stool and looked over the light, it had grown loose again and needed more repairs. A grumbled curse passed over Thomas’ dry and chapped lips, the lighting had never worked right in the old building, no matter how well he maintained the fixtures they would always break again the next day. It took several minutes of fiddling with the fixture before the light flickered to life with a sickly pale light. Thomas had always despised the harsh humming sound that came with keeping the lights on, having flinched as soon as the room lit up, he didn’t have the tools to fix it, so he had to make do with checking over his shoulder at regular intervals.
He left the footstool in place and turned to his desk, a sour taste in his mouth at the memory of his idiotic mistake with his inkwell coupled with the ransacking of his home. The thought prodded him into double checking his front door, once he was certain that the only way to get through the threshold was from the inside, he took a deep breath and set out to do his job.
With a deep sigh and a familiar creaking of his favorite chair, he sat down at his desk. The tension let out of his back as he slouched in the plush yet moth-eaten seat, his fingers worked back and forth, crackling as they limbered up in anticipation for another day’s work. Thomas took in a deep breath and prepared a fresh sheet of parchment from his the glass cabinet of his desk, book and disaster pushed to the side in favor of work. The parchment was a tradition his grandfather had kept to as the thick cloth-like rolls stood up better to the constant humidity brought on by the storm. His fingers wrapped around his pen, filled with ink from his inkwell, and went to work. His sour mood from before seemed to grow distant as he went about compiling yesterday’s data into neat lines, the sight of all his collective work in a graph gave him a small rush of satisfaction. Even with the many downsides of his work, the smell of ink on fresh parchment was comforting, a break from the chaos of his frequent nightmares. Although the night’s workload had doubled from the earlier incident, the thought of prior days sent a chill running up his spine.
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His work comprised gathering data from several sources, amount of rainfall per day, wind speeds, samples of seawater, and many more. At the end of each month he would send his findings to the mainland to which contributed to the public record, and with scientists there, they could make accurate predictions of incoming weather. This was the field of study Thomas loved. A small smile of satisfaction soon turned to a terse frown, his brows knit together as he looked back over the numbers, something must have gone wrong with his equipment. The rainfall was getting worse, there was no doubt about that, but these numbers made no sense. Thomas stood from his desk and walked to the end of the room, over to a wall covered floor to ceiling in a variety of charts and graphs sent from scientists on the mainland. The numbers showed that as the rainfall worsened, the sea level rose to match, which shouldn’t be possible. Even considering the melting of polar ice caps, it couldn’t account for the exponential rise of seawater that his data showed.
Thomas paced small circles around his room, careful to avoid the foul-smelling stains, his face contorted into a confused grimace. His equipment must have malfunctioned by the storm, that was the only logical conclusion he could come to. A pained gurgling from his stomach cut his musings short, which made the man wince; he had skipped another supper in his rush to get back to work, a habit that had formed as his interest in his work grew. Thomas put work out of his mind in pursuit of food, and gathered a plate from the kitchen, along with a few pieces of silverware to set his rather small dining room table. With an eager stride and a wince at joint pains, he swung the door to his icebox open, and his heart sank to the pit of his stomach at the sight.
On the worn and stained shelves of the icebox stood a meager amount of food, not even enough to last the rest of the day if he were to eat three meals. With an annoyed huff, he compromised and had a scrambled egg with sausage. He had run low on supplies weeks ago, and his body showed it. His arms thin and frail while more than a few ribs showed through his sunlight deprived pasty white skin, each morning he noticed more and more gray hairs growing into his once orange-red hair. It was his stomach’s urging that snapped him out of his thoughts; he didn’t need to look good so long as he got his job done. His rusted gas stove flickered to life after fiddling with it, the smell of food in his cast iron pan both pained and delighted Thomas. Food was one of the few pleasures in his life on the island, he had been rather overweight when he first settled in, which stood testament to his love of a good meal. As he mulled over his plate of eggs and sausage he returned to his earlier train of thought, something had damaged his equipment when the storm worsened the other night. With the rainfall absent he hoped to repair the damage before another cloudburst occurred, but to fix it he would have to go through his tool closet.
The thought of the tool closet sent a sour taste through his mouth as he finished the last of his eggs, his own laziness was to blame for the state of the place, yet he couldn’t help feeling bitter. The term ‘tool closet’ was, in reality, inaccurate, as the space reserved for tools and spare parts took up the entire third floor of his home. Narrow passageways between cluttered shelves would always remind him of his repeated nightmares, bringing his ever persistent migraine rearing its ugly head. Thomas cursed under his breath, his pain pills should be in the shipment of supplies, the one that happened to be late by an infuriating amount of time.
Thomas stood from his chair, washed and dried his dishes, then made way for his staircase. Along the way up the creaking steps he dared to peek out the window, the rain still hadn’t returned, but by the look of the clouds, he wouldn’t have much time. He climbed past his bedroom and into the dark upper floor, the small oil lamp not forgotten. The flickering light cast tall shadows across the room, which at one point held fishing supplies and other storage before tools and scrap piled up. Taking slow steps through the narrow shelves he shuffled to his toolbox, which held all the essentials for maintaining his machines. The floor whined and moaned under his slippers as he shuffled along, a chill ran up his spine at being in such an enclosed and dark space. Just the thought of being so vulnerable was more than enough to hurry his legs along once his hands felt the handle of his toolbox he made his best effort at darting back down the stairs. Reduced to huffing and puffing at the bottom of the stairwell he looked back up the steps, feeling eyes watching him from the darkness above. With a heavy gulp, he turned and found his way to the front door and changed into more appropriate footwear. After a deep breath in Thomas found the nerve to move the heavy iron pipe out of its holdings and stepped outside.
The first thing that met Thomas as he set foot outside was the smell of sea-salt which rode on the now calm ocean winds. He took a moment to bask in the moving air, which stood in stark contrast to both the stagnant air of his home and the gale force winds of the storm. The feeling of a water droplet hitting his nose caused him to jolt and shake his head, he didn’t have time to admire the soft wind. Thomas marched his way down a weathered gravel path to his personal weather station, taking the time to savor the crunching sound of gravel under his shoes, it was always a comfort when he could walk outside without being tossed around by the heavy wind.
The island’s weather station amounted to a fortified hut covered top to bottom with various instruments of measurement. A massive cylindrical metal tub with a glass window served as his rain gauge, which he emptied at regular intervals. Out of all his equipment, his rain gauge was the most reliable, because of sheer simplicity. On top of the hut stood both a windsock for showing wind direction and an anemometer for measuring wind speed. These instruments were old-fashioned in build as the anemometer used cups to catch the wind to rotate a bar leading down into the hut to record the wind’s speed. The outer walls of the station held up an assortment of barometers and hygrometers, to measure atmospheric pressure and humidity, respectively. These were the tools that his grandfather had used to gather and compile data, simple machines built to stand the test of time. Nothing about the equipment showed any clear signs of damage, other than the flaked paint and signs of rust in need of cleaning. It was the interior of the station that held Thomas’ addition to his grandfather’s work, guarded by a heavy padlock and reinforced door, built to withstand even the worst of what mother nature offered. The padlock key slipped in without issue, produced from the pocket Thomas kept it in at all times. It took several minutes of struggling to align the pins and get the thing open, however, much to Thomas’ chagrin. Soon enough the heavy door swung open, and Thomas entered what had to be his favorite part of the island.
Thomas’ hand wandered off to his side and flicked a light switch which bathed the room in a crisp light, much unlike the poor lighting of the much older lighthouse. Inside the station sat his generator, hooked to a vent that lead out of the building to prevent any fumes from building up as it hummed away. Thomas set his toolbox on a nearby table and shut the door behind him, locking it in place before turning to look over his pride and joy. Several computer terminals lined the far wall, each hooked up to a dedicated buoy to collect information on the open sea, with one linked to a weather balloon that flew high above the station. At first glance, none of the terminals were flashing with the telltale signs of errors, which brought a relieved sigh from Thomas. The terminals collected data and print it out neat sheets of paper for analysis, maintenance of the buoys fell in the hands of the government on the mainland, to ease him of taking regular trips out into the crashing seas alone. One by one he flipped switches to turn on displays and ran diagnostics, and as he progressed, his brows furrowed in worry. There were no reported errors in any of them, each buoy and terminal were in perfect working order. Thomas felt his heart skip as he collected the days printed data from the machines, all of which showed the same grim sight. If these numbers were correct, then all of their data and estimations were wrong. Thomas’ felt his chest lock up in what had to be a heart attack as his eyes darted from paper to paper, desperate for the numbers to prove wrong. Original predictions had the storm receding back into the sea, according to all of their original numbers, but the new numbers didn’t lie, they couldn’t.
The storm was about to get far worse than anyone had expected or planned for. A flash of lightning outside the hut made Thomas’ heart leap and beat once more. The rain had picked up again, fat droplets that sounded more like severe hail pelted the roof of the building with all the force of a jackhammer, the storm was getting more dangerous and drawing closer to the mainland every passing hour. Thomas shoved all the documents into his waterproof toolbox as he put the station back into proper order, his hands shaking at a frantic pace as his heart pounded in his throat. He had to warn the authorities on the mainland, and fast.
The winds outside made their best effort to topple Thomas over as he made his way back to the house, a sturdy handrail the sole reason he stayed upright. Once back inside his house, it took all his strength to slam the door shut against the winds, afterward he slumped against the heavy oak wood. Even with his lungs desperate for air he rose to his feet and made for the stairs, ascending them at a pace he never had before. His knees ground and popped with each passing step as he barged his way through the door to the fourth floor of the lighthouse where all of his communication equipment laid dormant. Every week Thomas would call the mainland asking about the supply ship, which they would always meet with a non-committal answer, sometimes no answer at all. Thomas shook the thought of food out of his head as he tripped and stumbled over his own feet in a desperate rush to get to his radio, his hands slammed onto the desk as he righted himself. With practiced but frantic fingers he jammed the radio to life and grabbed hold of the radio’s microphone, that is when disaster struck.