#a bit of submechanophobia

[official-trafficblr-bingo]

This turned into a little bit of worldbuilding but here’s some ramblings:

Hot take love the sea creature mean gills headcannons but hear me out mean gills being kinda uncanny and kinda unsettling in the same way people with submechanophobia are unsettled by man made objects being submerged underwater

I have an explanation too! I like to think because any changes to a player due to environment or whatnot are for better or worse because of watcher involvement. I just like the idea that sometimes these changes just look off and there’s never something that you can specifically point out, it’s just a general unease.

They’re not even supposed to be there, none of the players are supposed to be there, not really. Pulled into the games by something unnatural, the beings that feed of the negative emotions from the games. I think it makes sense for them not to perfectly mesh with their environments, any adaptations they develop are unnatural and uncanny because this isn’t a natural environment. A server created and manipulated for the purpose of feeding of the negative emotions of the players.

I hope this makes sense and if it doesn’t don’t make fun of me or I will cry

#this might be incoherent #no clue #admin sal #trafficblr #limited life #limited life smp #life series #mcyt #mcytblr #go crazy go stupid #mean gills #martyn inthelittlewood #inthelittlewood #scott smajor #smajor95 #not bingo #but like fr #I want them to look so uncanny that everyone is like bestie are you okay

[bereft-of-frogs]

It is August 1 and so that means theoretically this is the last month of my little ocean horror phase/detour (I mean let’s be real will I stop? Probably not, it will probably extend into September at least but go with it). That means:

1. Last Call for Recs for ocean-horror related things.

Here’s what I’ve read/watched so far:

The Deep, Nick Cutter | Our Wives Under the Sea, Julia Armfield | “Fear of Depths” + “Fear of Big Things Underwater”, Jacob Geller | Into the Drowning Deep, Mira Grant | Underwater (2020) | r/thalassophobia + r/submechanophobia | The Deep House (2021) | 47 Meters Down (2017) + 47 Meters Down: Uncaged (2019) | The Toilers of the Sea, Victor Hugo (trans. James Hogarth) | Dark Water, Koji Suzuki (trans. Glynne Walley) | “Fear of the Deep”, Nexpo | Sea Fever (2019) | The Abyss (1989) | Open Water (2003) | From Below, Darcy Coates | Love, Death + Robots, “Bad Traveling" | “The Fog Horn”, Ray Bradbury + “A Descent into the Maelstrom”, Edgar Allen Poe collected in Stories of the Sea ed. Diana Secker Tesdell | Subnautica (2018)

And here is the queue:

Sphere (1997 adaptation)

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (either book or adaptation, we'll see what I have time for)

Whale Fall, Daniel Kraus (releasing in August! hoping I'm the first hold at the library, they have it listed as 'on order')

Leviathan (1989)

They Came From the Ocean, Boris Bacic

The Luminous Dead, Caitlin Starling (reread)

Anything glaring I’ve missed? I’m trying to avoid pure creature features, so that’s why there’s no Jaws despite it being a classic. Though it’s hard to avoid (honestly most of these have a creature) so I’m ok with there being a little creature as long as a substantial part of the fear/dread comes from the setting at first, rather than just a shark or cave monster or whatever. Anything submarine/diving/caves/etc, books/films/shows/podcasts, whatever you've got! And as you can see from the list of what I've got so far and the queue...doesn't have to be "good". XD Just has to involve the ocean and maybe be a little creepy. It's also ok if it's a little silly.

Not so much ocean horror related but my inspiration list is a little short for the second half of this fic (where the ocean gets a bit more metaphorical): anyone have anything good about near death experiences?

Drop recs in replies/in askbox!

2. Getting started on a new, thematically related knitting project that I am so excited about

Look at these colors. I am so excited.

#ocean horror #sea dread #seeking horror recs #knitting

[hideawayintheimaginationworld]

Rank all Fazbear Frights story's from least to greatest. Explaining why they ranked the way they did is optional. But you get bonus points if you do.

35. In the Flesh: I think you understand why. Matt was not a likeable character.

34. Sea Bonnies: Another body take over story, I rate it so low because the concept of sea monkey like creatures taking over someone's identity is too bizarre for my taste.

33. Sergio's Lucky Day: Another kind of unlikeable character

32. The Prankster: the ending was a cliff hanger and it's not clear who the villain was which is why it's low on my list.

31. Friendly Face: I only remember how many memes people made of the book cover.

30. Gumdrop Angel: similar to Lonely Freddy, it could be argued this is a lot worse of a fate for the victim which I agree with. Also I hate the step father, whatever his name was.

29. Jump for Tickets: I don"t really remember this story much honestly.

28. Kids at Play: I didn’t understand this story very much to be honest.

27. Pizza Kit: I really hated Marley, who tf pretends to be dead like that just as a prank? It's not funny.

26. Together Forever: the ending is a bit grizzly. But in these stories, it seems to be, if you mess around with something, you'll find out why you shouldn’t have mess with it in the first place.

25. Find Player Two: The concept could be interesting, but the story felt a bit flat.

24. He Told Me Everything: Faz goo is not scary.

23. Dance with Me: I like Ballora as a character considering her mechanic in Sister Location, however, in this story she never felt like a real threat, but rather a reminder to the main character of what she did.

22. 1:35 AM: This wasn’t strongly written, Ella was an okay antagonist, Delilah didn’t really grab my attention as a protagonist.

21. Bunny Call: How is Ralpho connected to Fazbear Entertainment? That's my real question. I like the idea of him being alike to King from the Owl House or Bill Ciper. Bob himself was an okay character, especially when he decided he had to protect his family from Ralpho at all costs.

20. Room for One More: Stanley's reason for not going to the hospital felt a bit like an excuse to justify why he never went to the hospital. It would have made the story more interesting if he did.

19. Coming Home: It was a nice story, and it had a nice concept of a child trying to say goodbye to their sibling, but it wasn’t scary.

18. The Cliffs: The idea of a missing kid is just terrifying to anyone, one thing about the story I didn’t like was how quickly the bad thoughts left Robert's mind, it doesn’t happen that way, those feelings don’t just disappear immediately.

17. The Scoop: Reading this story was interesting, I could see a character like Mandy in the FNAF universe.

16. Blackbird: Blackbird is a good concept by itself, but it doesn’t really feel like a FNAF story.

15. The Breaking Wheel: The suspension was built quite well, however Reed did make some questionable decisions about ignoring the loud sounds from outside.

14. Hide and Seek: Shadow Bonnie as a villain was interesting to me, and how they were portrayed as a shadow that always follows the main character.

13. To Be Beautiful: This story shows a twisted idea of being beautiful at a cost. One of my biggest questions was why didn’t Sarah feel any pain? Did the illusion disc also block pain?

12. The Real Jake: It did explain the story of the StitchWraith, however it wasn’t really scary.

11. What we Found: I like how it was explained how the FNAF 3 hallucinations do happen, I don’t like the ending, it felt extremely undeserved to Hudson. He clearly needed some form of mental help.

10. Felix the Shark: a story about Submechanophobia? Yes. Felix is a interesting idea for a story, considering how we never had any animatronics that could work underwater in the FNAF series.

9. Step Closer: Foxy being a villain that curses a kid, while good, can be improved upon, he could have actually been stalking Pete which would have made him seem like more of a threat to Pete and his brother.

8. The Man in Room 1280: I did like the character of Arthur Blythe, he seems to what to believe the best in everybody.

7. You are the Band: I'm upset this story isn’t consider as part of the main series, it was very good and it included Michael, seeing as we know so little about him, having a story with him as a character is great.

6. The New Kid: Devon was a change from the other teenaged protagonists, someone who is jealous of someone else getting attention. Kelsey was a good character and clearly wanted to be friends with Devon and Mick.

5. Count the Ways: Funtime Freddy was a fun villain, showing a version of him that knows a lot about history and has a straight forward purpose, Millie meanwhile, I can understand why she developed a crush on Dylan, however her being rude about Brooke after finding out she was dating Dylan felt a bit jarring.

4. Fetch: A unique concept, I heard that Fetch could be based on the old Sparky hoax, while I'm not sure about it, having a dog animatronic that can “fetch” whatever you desire makes for both a interesting and dark story.

3. Into the Pit: A great story for the first one! The concept of seeing a child actually escape from a murderous rabbit is welcomed especially after we hear that many kids in the history haven’t been so lucky, so I like SpringBonnie acting like the dad and vacuuming the carpet.

2. Lonely Freddy: it's obvious it's a favorite of mine. Alec and Hazel's sibling dynamic feels realistic, especially with the concept of Alec realizing that he had hated his sister for no reason and it was his parents fault, the reason why isn’t number one is because of the big bad himself, Lonely Freddy, the concept of being body swapped is scary, and the ending is truly heart breaking when you realize that Alec likely never made it back home, but then again, REJECT CANON, EMBRACE FANON.

1. Out of Stock: The best story, full stop. Oscar is a realistic take on a boy who lost his father and feels like the world has been unfair to him, Plushtrap is also the best antagonist and well written, he is a real threat, he is smart and he knows how to mimic voices, making him much more dangerous.

#I feel like I missed a story but I can’t remember which one #This is my opinion btw #Ask #Fazbear Frights #Anonymous #EDIT: I realize I forgot the Puppet Carver #Which I do rate that low because of fazgoo

[teawiththegods]

So I need a bit of advice on two issues that are connected but separate: first, worshipping a deity who isn’t well known beyond connections to other deities and mortals, and second, worshipping a deity when you have phobias connected to part of their domain. This is about Thetis, for me, but I sincerely doubt I’m the only one in this kind of situation. She reached out to me in her domain as a mother, of both Achilles and, adoptively, Hephaestus, and I really want to pursue this relationship with her, but it’s difficult when there’s so little information on her in general and when I have both Thalassophobia and Submechanophobia 😅. Any advice for me?

Hello, love!

@death-witch-envy has a great blog post about worshiping minor deities.

Personally I think one of the biggest struggles worshiping a minor deity also happens to be one of the biggest advantages. The lack of information actually gives you plenty of space to build and shape a devotion thats all your own. You also get to learn about a deity directly from them as opposed to other outside sources.

As for the phobias, a lot of it depends on how your phobias manifest specifically for you and how they impact you. For example, does seeing the ocean physically in front of you cause fear or does images and even thoughts trigger the fear as well? I say that because if its the first one, you can still work within that domain without going anywhere near the ocean. If its the latter than I suggest staying away from that domain altogether and putting the focus on the mother part of her aspect.

Remember you don't need to interact with all areas of a deity you worship or work with. Not only is it kind of impossible to do so because they are entire universes but its just not necessary. They have epithets for a reason.

You can even tell Thetis about your phobias so you both are on the same page.

Hope that helped! <3

[heartnosekid]

for the assumptions thingy, I assume you really like sea animals and stuff and find them cool but have thalasso-phobia

And for another one, I assume you eat the sides first when you have a big dinner and then the main course after all the sides are gone

Last one. I saw on your card that you write stuff so I assume that you write high fantasy or dnd novels with creatures and dragons and elves

ooh interesting assumptions!!!

as for the thalassophobia one, i actually don't believe i experience that! i have been out in open water with no ocean floor in sight and kind of felt calm, oddly! i do believe i have a touch of submechanophobia though, but only in real life. pictures / gifs don't bother me! also, yes i do love sea creatures quite a lot ^^

for the sides one, i usually try to eat a little bit of everything like in equal amounts throughout my meal, and save a good bite of everything for last :P

eee thank you so much for reading my carrd!!! that makes me really happy ^^ however, i must deny this assumption, i pretty much only write psychological horror, sci-fi, murder mystery, supernatural, and monster focused stories!! :3 magic is in some of my novels / stories, like in my most recent wip, but it's not something i usually dabble in!!

#anon #ask games

[lesbiten]

need therapy so i can play subnautica

#OGHHH ITS BEEN LIKE 6 YEARS SINCE THIS GAME CAME OUT HOW AM I STILL SCARED OF THE AURORA #i think if i ever really sat down and tried to play it i would just use commands to get the stuff out of the aurora #even then i cant sit down and play the game because LOOKING AT THE AURORA GIVES ME PANIC ATTACKS #LIKE. #GIRL !??!?!!??! #submechanophobia kills #no bc im always like 'ok its not that big i can just stay away from it' #and then i spawn in the game and its SO FUCKING BIG and i like have to turn away from it every time i pop my head out of the water #so that i dont see it #i need help of the serious variety i just wanna play my funny little game #</3 #the little broken pieces of aurora scattered around the map give me anxiety as well #i remember i was trying to Man Up and play subnautica and i came across one of the medium sized bits of wreckage and i had to quit the game #pain and hatred #simon says

[luimneach]

I got submechanophobia from the jaws ride at universal studios. I was already terrified after watching the movie, and my dad figured the best way to conquer my fear was to go on the ride without telling 7 year old me what it was. What he didnt know is that I got sat in the exact spot where the shark came up. Though I do know that sharks arnt as dangerous as the movie portrayed, and have a great deal of respect for them, I refuse to go in water if I cant see or touch the bottom.

well now that would put the fear of god into me😰 the pier where i go swimming has really really murky water so i’m kinda used to it being muddy, plus i can’t see anything when swimming cuz my eye prescription is so high- but when it’s clear and i can somewhat see the bottom and loads of seaweed strands coming from the bottom it spooks me! i used to think i might touch something stuck in the bottom in the mud... like a hand

😿

#anonymous #personal #my dad told me the mannequins in this museum we used to go to come alive at night #im still a bit :S about like models in museums n stuff #blah #submechanophobia #what awful luck to be sat WHERE THE SHARK COMES AT U

[spiltcandycoatedpunkblood]

why do my phobias concern mainly open water and the shit that may be underneath it

#open water?? i do not fuck with that not one bit whatsoever #also pool drains?? #been terrified of those for like?? my whole life #thalassophobia #submechanophobia #bathophobia #god fucking dammit open water is TERRIFYING and i'd like to stay a million miles away from it thanks

[fandom-imagination-ss]

Image: Running into your best friend Joel Dawson when he comes too your bunker for Aimee unware of your feelings for him

You did Not expect too wake up this morning from your crappy little corner in your bunker too discover Not Only was Joel Dawson was HERE but he was alive!!. You heard from Aimee that he was talking too her thru the radio but you Never expected Joel too show up. Dashing Too where he was. He was passed out on a bed. He got taller. How is it that he got taller? And he was more filled out. You couldn’t help but notice how more attractive your best friend was Now. he's all grown up. Watching him sleep you couldn’t believe it’s been years even those he looked different he still looked like Joel. your best friend Joel. There was a time where you Did everything together. unless he was hanging with Aimee. then you busied yourself with studying. the goal was Harvard before monsters Appeared. You still couldn’t pin point what was more annoying the Fact you Wasted All of high school studying for a future you could Never have Or the fact you missed all these years with Joel. Aimee was helping out someone as she walked passed you.

“we found him in the woods.. I can’t believe he came all this way.”

“Me either. Or that he’s alive.. Imagine the things he’s seen.”

Before he woke up you were called away too help with packing up your entire bunker. sadly your bunker was full of old people so it wasn’t uncommon too be running around like your heads was chopped off. Today wasn’t different. Minus the fact strangers with a boat were here helping you pack up.

Sitting down for dinner Joel was amazed too see you. He thought you were dead also. Amiee didn’t mention that you were alive. You secretly thought it was because back in high school neither of you liked each other it was a fluke that you were both saved and arrived at the same bunker. So her Not telling Joel was probably just the One last Dig she liked too pull on you. It got better during your time together but Joel will always be the guy who gets both of you too be bitter towards each other.

Ameii was fascinated by the new comer but you felt uneasy with them. Land monsters you knew how too handle if a sea monster got you. And you somehow survived you would Still be in the middle of the ocean. ameii Knew you weren’t joining on the Boat. Safety or Not you did Not trust a Boat that looked Ike it was a Ghost ship. Of course for.a spilt second you debuting on changing your mind when Joel arrived he was the last bit of home you had and Saying goodbye too him again would hurt.

The fire was crackling as you noticed the look on his face he wasn’t convinced of this plan either.

“You joining us Now?’ Amiee asked , everyone In your bunker was worried about your plan too stay behind. Especially since you were about too leave her short handed with a lot of old people. Joel said he wasn’t sure as she shook her head, ‘no I meant Y/N.”

Joel looked at you stunned.

Any thought you had of tempting the idea of joining them changed when Joel looked up at Ameii like a lost puppy. It struck you hard how amazing it was that Even after All these years apart you still had a heaviness in your stomach whenever he looked at her. Even for the slightest second. Looking down at your food. It felt like you were back in high school pinning for Joel while all his attention was on Ameii and he just risked his Life for her coming all this way. The Slim chance of changing your mind disappeared. As much as you missed. Joel and he was your Home. You couldn’t watch that reconnecting romance that was going too be Joel and Amiee so you shook your head, “No.. I’m- I’m going too head North.”

“wait you aren’t going on the ship.”

Joel was stunned as you rolled your shoulder, “my Submechanophobia is Pretty strong. Even More with the Ghost ship of a Boat.”

“Y/n. It’s dangerous at there’s alone.” Smiling weakly at Joel you shook your head, “I’m not worried.”

He looked uneasy as Amiee was called off as Joel moved over sitting beside you while people went too start the party of the last night here.

“I’m sure the boat is fine.”

Shaking your head, “I rather risk it on land.but you should go. I mean you came all this way- maybe I’ll go to your old camp. Do a bunker exchange. We get you. They get me.”

Joel shook his head, “Y/N… come on.”

“Joel.. you didn’t come for me.. you came for Amiee and I have No idea if you have a Shot but .. you shouldn’t let my decision worry you. I’m a big girl.”

You patted his leg before getting up and leaving the area. Getting into the bunker you found and unpacked the ham radio too call Joel’s bunker.

The Radio only worked half the time. When you first heard Amiee got into contact with Joel you tried right afterward too talk too him. But the radio didn’t work so you tried again and again. And never getting him. Only once when he left for Amiee and he’s friends thought you were her. You knew Joel haven’t had any luck getting ahold of them yet so you thought you try.

“hello?”

“hey its Y/N.”

“Oh Hey, Joel isn’t back yet.”

“Oh I know he got here this morning- it’s been crazy here were leaving in the morning. I know that he wasn’t able too talk too you yet. I just thought I would try before I pack up too… Can I come over?”

“for like what a sleepover?” They chuckled as you laughed, “Yea- I mean.. for a short while- I’m heading North.. would that be okay?”

“Is Joel coming with?”

“No- No-ugh. I think he’s going too stay with Amiee.”

“I’m sorry..”

Biting your bottom lip. Shaking your head, “ its’ fine I’ve had years too getting over Joel. He’s happy that’s all that matters..”

The lien went quite as you said hello as they spoke up again.

“of course come! I’m sorry he doesn’t love you back. You sound perfect for him.. love sick moron. Just like him.” Laughing loudly at that. You couldn’t help but push a tear back as you said you would see them soon.

Getting too your bed. You sat down writing. A few months ago you found a bookstore and took all the notebooks you could carry plus armfuls of books. It pissed of Amiee but you didn’t care.

You started writing. Till you heard a Knock looking up seeing Joel leaning against the wall he spoke, “hey..”

“hey.. what’s up?”

He walked over sitting down next too you. He was quite as he spoke, “I heard you on the radio.”

“I tried getting in contract with you.. the moment I heard Amiee got a hold of her long lost love from high school I knew it was you.. I tried so many times.. I kept getting Kala and then she said you left too get Amiee and well- she never told you I was here.- I knew you couldn’t get ahold of them earlier so I thought I would. And ask if I could join them for a bit.”

“you tried contacting me?”

A simple nod. Is all you did as you looked back at your book closing it up before he noticed what you were writing. You faced your best friend rolling your shoulders, “of course I did Joel. You were my best friend. In the entire world. My first love.” He’s eyes grew large hearing that as you spoke, “Doesn’t matter those right you’re here for Amieei Not me.”

“Y/N”

“I’m going too go to bed Joel it’s a big day tomorrow. Night”

#joel dawson #joel dawson imagine #love and monster #love and monster imagine #dylan o'brien au meme #dylan o'brien #dylan o'brien imagine #fandom imagine #imagine

[itsheibai]

—why can’t I swim by the pier?

Donghae & Jeno as father and son | rating: G | horror | wc: 10k

summary:   Summer holidays at his dad's hometown means that Jeno could have whatever it is that he wants. 

Early morning walks at the beach, fried food for lunch, and even ice cream for dessert. Except for one thing. As he stared into the silhouette of the pier against an electric green ocean, Jeno wondered. "Why can't I,-?"

warning(s): implied children death, thalassophobia, submechanophobia author’s note: I wrote this for halloween but only managed to finish it recently “^^ it’s supernatural horror and is heavily inspired by the movie Dark Water! Hope you enjoy~

Jeno has always been a wonder child. 

  He never cries at night, he eats anything his mom gives him, he behaves well, greets others with a little bow and even loves going to school. 

  But,

  There’s always a but,

  Jeno wakes up at 5 am everyday. And his mom hates it.

  Knowing that even the soft sound of his door scraping along its frame would be enough to wake his mom up (he didn’t want to remember how sour she turned for a week after she was woken up by the sound of their tv set blaring the tune of their local station’s morning news), Jeno learned to be content by amusing himself with what he had in his small bedroom. 

  Usually that meant sitting at his art desk. Watching the sun as it rises. 

  He’s read and reread all the books in his school bag twice over. He’s scribbled to the last page of his drawing pad. He’s turned nearly all of his scrap paper to crooked paper cranes. 

  So, watching the sunrise it is.

  Most of the time, it was a boring ordeal. Usually even he’d manage to make himself fall asleep again, his glasses mushed against the cushioning of his arm, only to be woken up for breakfast by his mom tapping him on his shoulders and her tiresome reminder that he’s going to break his glasses if he falls asleep with them one too many times. But that morning was different. 

  He watched the front of his house with scrutiny, holding his breath everytime a car went by. Hoping that one of them would finally turn out to be his dad’s. That one would make the turn to his driveway and park itself there, where then he would exit it, and maybe he would stay a bit as mom promised to make him a sandwich for the road trip, before then he would let Jeno jump to his back and carry him to the car through a rollercoaster ride. 

  It was the first day of summer vacation. 

  He’d packed his bag full of clothes and spare toys for the week long trip.

  He’s going back to the sea.

_

Jeno actually fell asleep on his desk waiting for his dad to arrive. 

  When he woke up, head cradled by the rough surface of the seatbelt, the sky was the colour of watered down mint chocolate chip ice cream and he was already moving along with the thin wisps of cloud in the sky. On his lap were plastic-wrapped triangles of cold peanut butter sandwiches that slowly thawed out as Jeno was too busy trying to follow the power lines that tied up the trees as they rumbled through a country road.

  “Can we swim at the pier right away?” He asked aloud for the first time. Even though with the way his feet had started to swing animatedly against the car seat, it was clear that he’d had that question running in his head ten times over since he woke up not fifteen minutes ago.

  His dad stopped humming along to the song playing on the car’s radio to answer his question with another hum altogether. “Well, it depends.”

  “Why?”

  “It might rain later today.” 

  “Aren’t we going to swim anyway?” Jeno was confused. In his mind, if he’s going to get drenched by the sea water, a little bit of rain water going on top of it will not change anything, no?

  His dad laughed at that, “how about we have a movie night later and go to the beach tomorrow? We can go treasure hunting for as long as we wish.” 

  Not ideal, but not the worst outcome. 

  “But we’re going to swim at the pier this year, right? You promised that when I’m seven I,-”

  “I promise,” his dad cut him short, stealing away from the road for a split second to flash him a thin smile. An absent minded smile.

  “I don’t wanna bring an umbrella. I wanna play with water.” He bargained. Jeno could feel himself relaxing when instead of a scolding, his dad looked at him, noticed his testy pout, and turned his simple smile into a bright grin. 

  “That’s alright. We’ll take our raincoats. And buckets too. We’ll have a great rainy day adventure.” 

  Now that’s much better. 

_

Unlike the nothingness that is his usual room at the end of a dreary lane, his sea-facing room for the summers is all he’s ever wanted.

  Imagine! To have the view of the east sea accompany him as he waits for breakfast time to roll around. He would never fall asleep, if that’s the case.

  Though well, if he really does end up staying here more often, he probably would end up not having the chance to sit idly on his dad’s old study desk all that often. Because unlike mom, he is an early riser through and through.

  “Ready to go?” His dad called out to him by the front door, already waiting with his pair of blue rubber boots in his right hand and their set of plastic buckets in the other. 

  Jeno bounded to him with too much energy for anyone to showcase at 6 in the morning, exchanging the two tiny apples that he took from the fruit bowl for the tools he needed for that morning’s shell hunt. 

  “Take your time, the sea is not going anywhere.” His dad laughed as he hopped around the entrance for the apartment unit, trying his best to slip his tiny foot into the opening of the boots that’d quickly began to outgrow him.

  “But the birds! What if they ate all the shells?”

  With his left foot still stuck halfway through the neck of his boots, Jeno scurried away to the elevator button, limping the whole way through.

  The pattering of his rubber soles echoed loudly through the empty halls, and the tail end of such an odd sound caused Jeno to skid to a halt. One, not only did he remember his mom’s words to never make too much noise so as not to disturb others, but two, Jeno was also reminded that he was all alone in that corridor. 

  The sky was starting to break into a lighter shade of navy but the flickering fluorescent light still cast harsh shadows to all of his surroundings. 

  Jeno turned around with a feeling of rising panic at the back of his throat. 

  It came across as a fearful calling for his dad.

  But his desire to run back to his apartment was quelled when Jeno saw that his dad had just finished locking up the front door. He looked at Jeno with his eyebrows raised and called back with his strong voice, “what is it? Have you called the elevator?”

  Before Jeno could answer, his attention was piqued by the noise of another door creaking open behind his dad. His heart dropped slightly. Did he make too much noise? He didn’t want to be scolded during his summer holiday…

  But instead of the usual dishevelled adult, the small gap revealed the bright face of a kid. A boy, probably of his age, hanging by his hands on the bright orange knob with a curious look on his face. Jeno’s sight might be blurry, even with the help of his blue rimmed glasses, but even then he could see the smile the boy gave as they traded looks across the length of the corridor. 

  “Dad, can we go to the playground later?” He asked when they'd entered the tall elevator chamber. To think that after spending countless summers in his dad’s home, finally he can make a friend! He’d exchanged a quick wave with the boy, a silent gesture that clearly conveyed how much he hoped to see him again soon. Jeno was so excited that he began humming to the high pitched noises his boots made when he skidded his soles across the muddy rubber flooring of the elevator. 

  “Depends,” his dad answered in a mumble low enough that it nearly was eclipsed with the loud rumbling of the elevator. Jeno wanted to fish a promise from him, so he looked up and opened his mouth in an effort to say his please. 

  But the word drowned, when Jeno saw the icy look on his dad’s face. His back was stiff, and the harsh white light of the elevator made it look as if he’d grown eyebags as dark as his mom’s. 

  Jeno thickly swallowed any hopes for any later adventures and slinked to the side of his dad with a resigned nod as he waited for the elevator to arrive on the ground floor. 

_

Aside from the routine trips to the local water park where Jeno can catch up with all of his dad’s super cool coworkers (and the nightly ice cream burglar run that they’ve promised to keep secret from mom), their morning treasure hunts is one of, well, if not the most favourite thing for Jeno to do during his summer holidays.

  They just barely made it out from the apartment complex and Jeno already flew away from his dad’s grasp, a trail of disturbed wet sand in his wake as he used his plastic scoop to dig through the sand to take home some new gifts the sea has been so kind to deliver to him from a land far away.

  Jeno would usually go about the hunt in an efficient manner. Picking a spot he thought looked promising and then scooping out heaps of grey slurry into his bucket before then asking the help of some friendly waves to take the sand away, revealing to him colourful treasures like emerald shells and mossy sand dollars to take home. But that morning, the sea was less than kind.

  It was borderline sulking. 

  Gloomy, washed out sky the colour of cold steel, still so dark even at 6 in a summer morning that the sea seemingly glowed a vibrant green in exchange. Like the swirls of a witch’s brew, he thought. The waves, usually gentle as it licked the ankles of his boots, now rushed towards him in rounds of tantrums, accompanied by sudden loud roars that made him jump a little each time. 

  It made cleaning his finds difficult, as he had to then play a sort of tag with the sea itself. Running deep to the damp, puffy sand when the waves recede, before then squealing away when they caught up with his intention, chasing him further into the beach with his handful of loot. 

  He managed to collect about a dozen silver-grey shells and one sun bleached fragment of a coral before he grew tired of the game. Not as in sick, or mad at the unfair advantage that the sea has on him, but legitimately exhausted. 

  Jeno silently walked to his dad who was sitting on a piece of driftwood just slightly to his right, and asked for the bottle of water sticking out from the pocket of his puffy jacket.

  “Want your apple now?” He asked, wiping the thin sheen of sweat from his temple with the sleeves of his jacket.

  Jeno shook his head, “mm,- later.” Before his dad could force him to take a bite from his own half eaten apple, he ran back to his treasure bucket with the metal bottle in tow, plopping down on the sand with his back to his dad. 

  From where he sat, he could see the whole coastline. Starting at the point where it disappeared behind the concrete embankment by the housing complex, down the gentle curve that hugged the black speckled beach, and up to the sudden angle to his left, where it unexpectedly receded away and disappeared once more behind a set of tall metal cages that were covered in green meshy curtains.

  At the tip of the angle is a humble wooden pier. Jutting out of the beach like a giant millipede that pierced the glowing water of an agitated sea. 

  Jeno always loved it when his dad extended their morning walks and took him to the pier. The feeling when he ran the length of the wooden planks made it easy for him to pretend that he was skipping on water. Like a stone, light enough to skid through the surface until he came to a stop at the very end, hugging the mossy stake (always the one on the left corner) and casting his sight to the vast reaches of the sea. He would be so mesmerised with the way light twinkled against the ridges and dips of the water that his toes end up hanging over the edge of the plank, swaying together with the damp surface underneath him with each swell of the waves. 

  He loved the spot so much that he even believed that it was his. That whole pier. His. Unofficially, of course, because when he boasted it to his dad, he was met only with a loud laughter, instead of the words of affirmation that he hoped for. 

  “But we’re always the only ones here!” Jeno argued. 

  His dad answered when his laughter receded, “I’ll take you to meet the fishing uncles next year.”

  He also promised that Jeno could swim at the pier next year. His dad even promised that he will be able to do a dive from the very tip of it, finally making his dream come true. But that was 2 years ago. And he’s just turned seven. Isn’t he old enough to do it? He even begged his mom to be allowed to join his elementary school’s swim team so he can prove to his dad that he’s ready. But no matter how much he said that he’s already an excellent swimmer, better than even kids in sixth grade, his dad never budged. 

  Not even on that morning.

  “It just rained, the water is too cold,” he said, after Jeno proposed the idea when he went to return the water bottle to him. 

  “I’m used to cold water. The water in my school’s pool is always cold,-” 

  His dad shut him down with a little smile, “how about we just take a quick walk there? Then we go back home and we can have warm milk and biscuits. How about that?”

  It wasn’t the best offer, and Jeno wished that he had the courage to argue against that. But in the end, he swallowed his disappointment and nodded his head in silence.

_

They ran across what appeared to be his dad’s old acquaintances right as they were about to walk onto the pier. 

  The old couple called him by his real name, and his dad bowed his head in a gesture that Jeno's learned to copy from how often he saw him do it everytime they did their rounds at the local wet market. 

  “It’s been a long while! How are you!” The old man laughed in a jolly way that all grandfathers seemed to adopt once they reached a certain age, patting his shoulders in excitement. His dad could only reciprocate with a cheap imitation of it. 

  “I’m good Mr. Lee, how’s the store?” He replied back. As they traded pleasantries, he suddenly put his hand that was holding Jeno’s wrist up and tucked it behind his back. Automatically, Jeno took a step back in order to stop his shoulders from twisting into an odd angle. 

  Slightly annoyed, still curious, and highly desiring to be perceived as well mannered by strangers he just met, Jeno peeked up from the obstruction that was his dad’s washed up jeans. His gaze was met head on by the old lady. 

  She smiled at him, though in a way that made it difficult for Jeno to reciprocate. 

  “Good morning, little one.”

  Hers reminded him of the ones his friends would give to him before they hungrily asked if he would trade his packets of squid chips with their boring, handmade jam sandwiches. He never could refuse those smiles, so Jeno gave her a little bow in return. 

  “How old is he?” The old lady asked, never taking her eyes off of Jeno. His dad’s grip around his wrist tightened. 

  “He’s just turned seven.”

  Her smile softened at that, but somehow, that just made it look worse. Her eyes glazed over, and her lips stretched into a thin curve that quivered by the tips. “Oh, then he’s just around Min-ie’s age if he weren’t,-”

  Her words were cut when suddenly his dad bowed at the couple. So deeply that his profile was then in line with Jeno’s eyes. His face was scrunched up in an odd expression that Jeno’s never seen before.

  When he began apologising with a pitiful voice that Jeno had never heard or even thought of associating with his dad, Jeno yanked his hand away from his grip. 

  When the old man started consoling him in a mixture of panic and embarrassment, Jeno used the commotion and slinked away from the scene. Taking refuge in the eroded section of the beach right at the far side of the pier, he jumped into the steep slope and took a quick peek at the scene that he’d left. He sighed after seeing that nobody noticed his abrupt exit.

  “That’s adult business,” he mumbled to himself, when a part of his brain began to yell at him of how rude it was for him to run away from a conversation. “It’s okay. A kid shouldn’t interfere with adult businesses… right?” 

  Only the quiet sound of small ripples of water answered him. A long descendant that came from the angry mother waves as it was tamed by the numerous gigantic wooden pillars that rose from the ocean to support the thin body of the pier. And so Jeno decided himself that yes, it’s okay. He can wait. He’s good at doing so anyways. 

  Jeno was doubly lucky that he didn’t lose his grip to his blue trowel in the haste of his escape, because then at least Jeno had something to do while he waited for his dad to finish his conversation with the old couple and called him back to his side. 

  He sharply dug the tip into the ground, flicking it up and letting chunks of damp sand rain against the tip of his rubber boots. The motion was mindless, more as a way to calm his nerves than an active dig to search for treasure. But his quickly emptying mind was somewhat brought back to the present when he felt a different thump against his boots. 

  Lying on top of a mound of loose sand was a small, pink shell. A baby’s nail.

  He remembered how horrified his mom looked when he told her the story of how this particular shell gained its name. He also remembered bitterly how all of his baby’s nails collection were gone from the kitchen’s window sill where he usually would dry all of his treasures up after their weekly washes. 

  Jeno picked the shell up and put it on his palm. Even when it was half obscured by specks of sand and smears of dirt, he could tell that the shell was in impeccable condition. A perfect baby pink with notches of pearly white. The edges were unchipped, with a perfect roundness that led to the inner dip that would act as a perfect receptacle of soap drops during bath time. 

  A perfect find, he giddily thought.

  Jeno stood from his little makeshift nest of loose sand and made his way to the water, paying little attention to his surroundings as he was too busy inspecting the cleanliness of his newest treasure to bother.

  Which was why he completely missed the arrival of the kid from the apartment next door. Only noticing his presence when he felt a cold spraying of sea water on his cheeks and looked away from his hands, seeing the boy’s bright face bobbing alongside the gentle waves a mere stone's throw away from where Jeno was standing. 

  The quick, silent nudging of the boy’s head was already far too enticing for Jeno’s already dissatisfied heart. ‘Come play with me,’ it said. He really wanted to. Jeno gave a quick peek back to the ‘adult conference’. They were still going at it. The situation even looked more grim, which he didn’t know was even possible. 

  Another splash brought his attention back to the sea. Back to the boy, who had his mischievous grin half obscured by his hands that were clasped into a makeshift water cannon. 

  He never managed to learn how to do so, no matter how patiently dad had taught him or how often he’d practised on his own. ‘Will he teach me how to do it?’ Jeno thought, growing restless by the second. 

  He wanted to jump in. Jeno wished so badly that he could just kick his boots away and take off his jacket before then waddling deeper to the sea with someone who he hoped would be a new friend. 

  But…

  Jeno was just about to disappoint the kid with his refusal when his attention was once again shifted to a vague point to his left, as per the prompting of the boy in the water. He pointed his hand at his blue trowel that, due to his negligence, was slowly taken in by the sea. Bit by bit, pushed and pulled, moving like a fly fishing lure in a sure trajectory away from the beach. 

  He ran to it, not hesitating to splash into the waterline in an effort to catch the bobbing tool even when the sea was making a fool out of the poor child. The trowel would sometimes be caught at small mounds of sand, prompting Jeno to then lunge forward to catch it, only for it to escape its grasps come the next swell of incoming waves. 

  So much for not wanting to defy his dad’s warnings, because by the time Jeno’s managed to snatch up his trowel, he was already submerged up to his knees under the emerald sea water. 

  Jeno was expecting the water to be ice cold, what with the gloomy sky and the heavy downpour from the night before. But surprisingly, the water was actually… pleasant. Definitely less torturous than the unheated water of his school’s pool that would actually cause him to get pins and needles up his numbed legs.

  He looked to his right, half expecting to see that he was once again alone on the beach, thinking that the kid grew too bored of watching his clumsy antics and waddled off beyond the shadows of the pier.

  His heart skipped a beat when he saw the familiar silhouette bobbing not too far from where he started. He’s still there. And Jeno was there. In the water. Might as well, right? Half of his body was wet, and he couldn’t seem to refuse the wave’s gentle hug around his waist that patiently tugged him further away from the beach. 

  It’s fine. He wouldn’t take long. He wouldn’t even swim, for technicality’s sake. He promised himself that he’ll only walk along the sand bank and if his dad asked why he was wet, he'd lie and say he slipped when he gave his treasures a wash. He’ll just approach the kid, make him promise that they’ll meet up again tomorrow, and he’ll be back on the beach. Just like that. So easy. 

  And it was easy. At least in the beginning of his trek, until his waterlogged boots grew to be too heavy for his small legs and one of them caught on the tangle of algae that carpeted a section of the shallows. 

  Instinctively, Jeno bent down in the foolish hope that he could set it free from where he stood. Foolish, was the point here. Because by doing so, he completely missed the arrival of a big rush of waves that uprooted him from the sand, tumbled him along the smooth surface of the shallows before then pulling him deeper into the sea. 

  So much for trying to retrieve his one boots, because he quickly lost the other when he was forcibly submerged underneath the murky water, too surprised by the sudden motion and the sharp sting of salt water that rushed into his nostrils, that Jeno didn’t even try to claw and anchor himself when the wave tempted him by pushing him far enough into the beach that he would’ve stood up and crawl away if he could. But he couldn’t, could he? 

  Out of the water, his wet clothes were weighing him down, making it feel like he was covered in a thick layer of matted fur. He was just glad that he could make a break to the surface and waddled on in a pitiful attempt at staying afloat.

  The series of rogue waves were coming to an end and water had stopped splashing against his eyes when he realised that the waves had granted his wish. He’d found himself stranded in the place of his dreams.

  Right by the midsection of the pier. 

  He’d found himself a good distance away from the beach, floating by the greening pillars that were so strong, so steadfast, even with the thick growth of algae and decaying barnacles that covered its surface like some sort of disease, that it instilled an odd sense of terror in Jeno’s young heart. 

  No such thing should’ve existed in the sea. Nothing this rigid. This unchanging even when it was constantly hit by throngs of vengeful waves and biting wind. 

  That morning, the sun was not the most enthusiastic in sharing its light. But underneath the pier, it was still night.

  Jeno began to feel panic rising from deep within his belly. This monster had hid underneath his foot, all this time. Waiting for him to slip from his favourite spot, from the edge of its tongue. And now Jeno has foolishly offered himself right to its mouth.

  He tried to swim back to the shore, but no matter how hard he paddled, the waves would always pull him back to where he started. His limbs began to burn from how much he was exerting himself. Worse yet, he couldn’t really see where he was going from the combination of seawater beading up on his glasses’ lenses and his jacket that’d puffed up to his neck like the plumage of a scared bird. Then something began to pull him down. Yanking at his thoroughly soaked pants and pulling him towards the nothingness that waited for him like an inevitability. 

  He heard someone calling his name. It came from the deep darkness of the pier’s underbelly, where he swore he could see the faint outline of a kid’s pale face. The boy from next door. So small and insignificant compared to the giant void that housed him. And as quickly as the dread settled onto the bottom of his belly, Jeno finally realised what he was facing. It was the monster’s stomach. Its black saliva diluted into the murky sea water, its tongue rolling from behind its spire-like teeth that were coated in slimy remains of its digested victims. Fish. Crustaceans, cephalopods. Little boys that fell off its back into the very centre of its stomach bile. 

  The kid suddenly smiled, and the pier croaked to life together with him. Worse yet, his smile looked… kind. As if he was genuinely excited that they could finally be friends. 

  But before Jeno could strain his eyes to make sure that what he was seeing was real, his glasses were knocked from the tip of his nose when another rogue wave took him for another tumble. 

  Something wrapped around his soaked socks. Seaweed? Fingers? The seabed underneath him was a blur of greenish black mass and he swore. The white around them must be teeth. His breath welled to the edge of his throat as he felt his belly contracting in preparation to let out a terrified scream. 

  He was engulfed in seafoam. And the next thing he knew he was pulled out of the water so quickly that the tail end of his screams still rang clear above the rumbles of the waves. 

  Jeno fought as best as he could. He didn’t want to be eaten without a fight.

  But a familiar voice screaming back at him woke him out of his nightmare. 

  The strong hold around his body turned out to not be one of the monster’s hundreds leech-like limbs. It was his dad. Hugging him so tightly that the wave's embrace of him waned from defeat.

  “What do you think you’re doing?!” He shrieked, and the oddness of the tone shook Jeno to his core. It reminded him of sounds an animal would make. Terrified animals. His nails digging into the back of Jeno’s head were sharp like eagle’s talons. But it felt like nothing for him. Nothing, when compared with the teeth of the monster that would’ve been sinking to his skull then if his dad didn’t save him. 

  He’s never seen such intensity in his dad. Not even his anger was ever this dire, and this was not anger. This was not sadness either. So, in his confusion, Jeno made his best guess as to what his dad wanted to hear from him most. 

  “I’m sorry I lost my glasses,” he managed to say, before his guilt, fear, and relief bubbled over him together with his tears. 

  He’s seven. He doesn’t cry anymore, let alone bawl. 

  But he was bawling, then. Embarrassment and shame was a long distant idea as he clung to his dad’s soppy jacket with all his might, eyes screwed shut until he heard the sure sound of sand crunching under his dad’s feet. Because what if he opened his eyes and saw the pier monster managed to chase after them? His dad is strong, he knew that. But against the scale of such terror? 

  He wouldn’t stand a chance.

  “Sir Lee! Sir Lee! Is he alright?!” He heard strange voices crowd around them. One of those voices was the old grandpa’s, he was sure of it. “Should we take you two to the doctor?!”

  But he wasn’t sure who the rest of the voices were. The fishermen uncles that his dad told him about? Old ladies walking their dogs by the running path? 

  “He’s fine,” his dad hushed back. His chuckles were mixed in with the clattering of his teeth. “I’ll take him back home. He just needs a nice warm bath, that’s all.” 

  It sounded more like he was trying to convince himself more than he was explaining to the worried masses that’d gathered around them. 

  As they made their way through the crowd, the morning wind began to whip his wet garment about. Slapping his wet tshirt against his cold back and moving his hair in a way that it tickled his forehead in the most discomforting manner. Jeno began to shiver. His teeth clattered and for a split second he thought of how nice it would be to return to the warm embrace of the sea. But his stupidity was nipped in the bud when Jeno felt someone patting him on his back. Whoever did it, they went at it too harshly. Enough that he let out a spluttering of tiny coughs.

  “You’re fine,” the person spoke and Jeno instantly knew who they were. It was the grandma from earlier. The one with the odd smile. 

  “He’ll be okay,” she then said to his dad.

  With each word, her harsh breath hit him at the back of his nape, colder than the morning wind. He could even smell the powdery scent of her old mossy green cardigan. She must've been so near. As if Jeno would come face to face with her if he only just peeked a little bit from his dad’s soggy jacket. Curious as he was, Jeno was not ready to subject himself to another monster. So he screwed his eyelids even tighter and hid his face deeper into his dad’s shoulders.

Jeno pushed his old glasses up his nose while he waited for his dad to finish heating up the mug of chocolate milk he’d promised him. 

  It was a pair he’d outgrown about a year and a half ago. The stems were too small for his head, and the prescription on the glasses were far too weak compared to the one he’d lost in the sea that morning. But his other option was to walk around half blind for the rest of his summer holiday. So…

  He stopped fiddling with his glasses when his dad walked back to his room. Behind him, he could hear the sound of the news on his old TV and radio set. It meld with the faint buzz from the midday shower that’d started falling not long after they’d finished taking a bath.

  “You can ask for as many refills as you want,” he huffed a chuckle as he gave the warm mug to Jeno’s expecting hands, “as long as you don’t tell your mom what happened.”

  “Don’t worry,” Jeno mumbled his answer into the foamy surface of his milk, “if I lie, I’ll be allowed back to spend my holidays here next year, yeah?”

  His dad let out an amused scoff and fell into a heavy silence. He fiddled with the edges of the duvet, feigning interest in the books scattered at the bedside table. He then stood up, briefly eyeing the row of treasures drying by the windowsill, before then returning back to the bed with a look that Jeno knew full well meant that he finally was going to break his mum regarding his earlier misbehaviour.

  Jeno's been waiting to see that look on his dad’s face ever since he told him to raise his room’s temperature to five degrees higher than usual while he went off to draw them both a hot bath. So he beat him to it with an apology that he’d thought up since he got his hair shampooed, nearly an hour ago. 

  “I’m sorry, I really didn’t mean to swim in the sea,” he meekly began, “I was trying to reach for my shovel, but then it got carried away by the wave,- and then,- and then when I got it the waves were,- the water was up to my knees and then I was carried away by the sea,-”

  “It’s okay,” his dad put Jeno’s increasingly garbled rambles to a stop with one of his smiles. It was the warm kind. The understanding kind. His dad wasn’t mad at him, then, and that was clear. But how? Why? For someone so adamant at keeping Jeno away from it, his reaction to what happened earlier, to having to rescue Jeno out of the place he knew would’ve been dangerous for him to be in, the least he expected was a passive aggressive ‘I told you so.’ 

  But his little hug, and the little kiss he gave the crown of his head, told him otherwise. 

  “You know? When you were born and I heard your cry for the first time, I somehow thought, oh, this kid didn’t cry because he was surprised, or because he was in pain. He only cried because he was taken away from the water that’d kept him alive all that time.” 

 Jeno squinted his eyes in confusion, “huh? Children are not kept in water before they’re born! Are they??”

  His dad laughed, “never mind. Once you’re done with your drink, go and take a nap, alright?”

  “But I’m not,-”

  “Jeno.” His tone grew stern, and Jeno could only shut his mouth into a pout because of that. Although, just as quickly, it was turned into an excited grin when his dad announced what they were going to have for dinner. “Rest. Once you wake up, I’ll cook you some chicken katsu curry.”

  His dad was halfway to the door of his bedroom when Jeno let out a little, curious hum. 

  “Do you need anything else?”

  Jeno stared down at his half finished beverage. He still wanted to ask his dad about the old couple. Maybe tell him that he wasn’t alone in the water earlier that morning, that he was there with the little boy that lived next door. About why he’d never seen any fishing uncles on the pier, unlike how his dad has been describing the pier as a busy community hub when in truth it’s always been… desolate. 

  But he thought against it. He’ll ask it after dinner, when his dad’s mood is usually at the most agreeable state. 

  “Nothing. I’m quite full with this cup! You can finish the rest of the carton, dad.”

  His dad flashed him one last smile before he carefully closed the door behind him. 

  Jeno, not lying when he said that he was quite full, placed the barely warm mug on his bedside table, on top of the small stack of comic books that he’d binged on yesterday night. He laid back on his bed. Soft mattress, warm blanket, fluffy pillows that propped his head so he could idly watch the race of raindrop beads on his bedroom’s window. 

  It was summer, but the afternoon was cold from the rain. It’d stopped being a shower for quite a while now. Torrents of fat rain blobs slapped violently against the glass pane as they were whipped by the wind that’d picked up speed, evident from the faint whistling it caused when a little bit of it managed to seep past the rickety edges of his window. 

  He wondered if the boy had found his way back home? Because the sea must’ve turned even more unkind in this kind of weather. 

  Although, thinking about how friendly he was acting with the pier monster from earlier… Jeno began to question. 

  Who is the boy, really?

_

Something woke him up from his nap.

  At first he thought it was his dad’s alarm clock, ringing loud as ever.

  But the more his consciousness returned to him, the more Jeno noticed an odd detail to the sound. It came from the outside of his window. 

  Less of an alarm and more of a… siren. Blaring on top of the heavy downpour that shrouded the whole area around their apartment in a silvery curtain. 

  The foreign sound was loud, yet faint enough that everytime it receded, like a low tide on the beach, it would completely disappear from Jeno’s hearing only to return like a swell of a giant wave that rolled over him with enough force to expel all the air out of his lungs. What came afterward was dread. Chilling, nearly paralysing sensation of suffocating dread. 

  “... Dad?” He called out, eyes still petrified on the grey screen of heavy rain beyond his bedroom window. His room was dark, only lit up occasionally by the distant claps of thunder that would crackle across the oddly illuminated sky. 

  It wasn’t until he yelled out for the third time and didn’t get even a smidgen of response that Jeno ran out of his room. He nearly choked on his fear when he was met with an empty living room. 

  “Dad?!” 

  The apartment was pitch dark. Usually, the little tea lights that flanked the bathroom corridor would ease his eyes when he had to get some water in the middle of the night, but then, not even the faint green clock on the microwave display was there to give him comfort. 

  Jeno frantically hit his palm onto the main lightswitch but no matter how hard he banged on it, the lights weren’t turning on. 

  He slunk down against the wall, overwhelmed by the fear of being left alone and nearly nauseating anxiety from the way the siren’s wails seemed to cave in on him from all directions. As if that wasn’t enough, a bright lightning flashed so near to the ceiling height windows of the apartment, causing the deep shadows between their usually benevolent furniture to grow and contort into monsters of his wildest imagination. Jeno scrambled to hide his eyes and ears from the waking nightmares, curling himself into a tight ball and praying to anything that would listen to return his dad to him.

  A loud, rumbling crack of thunder followed suit, and Jeno let out an audible whimper. Long gone were his pride of no longer being a little kid. His bravery, desire for independence, big talks that he would no longer ask for his dad during thunderstorms?

  Gone. All gone.

  “Are you crying?”

  But a little voice, coming from somewhere to his right, made him realise how damp his cheeks had become. How difficult it was for him to breathe. How… shameful it all was. The heat of his cheeks were soothed by the chilly air when Jeno instinctively looked up from the cradle of his arms and onto the blurry silhouette of a boy standing by the slightly opened door of the apartment. 

  “N,- no I’m not.” He quickly rubbed his cheeks with the sleeves of his pyjamas, “what are you doing here? How can you open the door?” 

  The neighbour kid latched onto the doorknob and swung himself around, as if the knob was one of the obstacles on the playground’s jungle gym. “They’re already open when I come here.”

  He let go of the knob on a downswing, and staggered to a stop right beside Jeno’s crouched form. “My parents went to the dam an hour ago. I think they went there with your dad too.”

  “Ohh,” Jeno said aloud, “he did say something about dams once… you think it has something to do with the alarm thingy?”

  The boy shrugged, “I think so.” He then used the tip of his sock-clad toes to tug on the hem of Jeno’s pyjama, “wanna play with me?”

  “But,-” Jeno glanced around the pitch black apartment. What time was it? How long has he been asleep? All of the usual digital means of telling the time were dead, and his outdated glasses were too weak for him to guess the arms on the wall clock at the far corner of the room. “But what if our parents return and find us missing? They’ll be mad at us…”

  “Don’t worry about that~,” the kid reassured him with a sing-song sentence. He then hooked his hand around Jeno’s right arm, and easily yanked him up to his feet. “We’ll just play in the lobby! We’ll see them return if we do that, right?”

  Jeno’s remaining apprehension was swept away when the boy looked at him with a glint of provocation in his grin, “or are you afraid that you’re going to lose to me in a race?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Well then, let’s go!”

    _

The power loss of the apartment turned out to be something total. As even the lights in the emergency fire staircase were not working, plunging the giant structure into permanent darkness.

  “Can’t we just go by the elevator?” Jeno asked when the boy pushed at the heavy metal door and they were greeted with a pitch dark maw. 

  “The elevator is dead, stupid,” the boy laughed at him. They both had borrowed the stash of flashlights from Jeno dad’s nightstand, yet still. The two small, circular glows of silvery light were easily swallowed by the winding structure of the concrete shaft. 

  Jeno trained his circle of safety onto the immediate steps in front of him, taking it one at a time while trying his best to ignore the near frantic way the boy in front of him was waving his flashlight around the muggy space.

  “You’re new here, aren’t you?” The kid asked. His voice echoed around the tightness of the staircase, bouncing against the damp wall like a rubber ball. 

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Are you from the city?”

  Sometimes, Jeno even thought that he was whispering his words right beside Jeno’s ears. But he didn’t have the bravery to check if that was true, or it was just the result of the echoes that were messing up with his senses.

  So he trained his eyes onto the steps beneath him. One, by one, by one. 

  “Yeah. I’m here for summer holidays.”

  “Cool!” The boy yelled. His voice rose throughout the tunnel like a tornado, and for once, the lightness of his tone brought a little bit of relief to Jeno’s edge. “I wish I could have something like a holiday.”

  Jeno’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, “your school doesn't give you holidays?”

  “Oh, I don’t go to school anymore.” 

  As Jeno made the round on the landing between floor 3A and 3B, he caught the eyes of the boy peering up at him at the corner of his sight. 

  He was standing about one staircase loop ahead from Jeno, one foot hovering above the next step in a clear preparation of gaining speed to his movement.  

  His eyes sparked from the shine of Jeno’s flashlight. His grin, carved on top of his toothy mouth, certifiably mischievous.

  “See ‘ya.” He giggled, before then leaving Jeno at the trails of his dust. The sound of his flip flops slapping against the steps and his laughter ringing beyond the height of the spire launched Jeno into overdrive. 

  One, he wasn’t going to be defeated by a kid he just met. And two, he wasn’t planning on being left behind in such a dark place on his own. 

So Jeno left behind all his carefulness and restraints to then bound down the winding staircase, one hand gripping on the railing to his right and the other flailing the beam of his flashlight wildly against the mouldy walls of the shaft. 

  “Wait! Wait, wait, wait!” 

  He nearly made it, jumping onto the last landing of the staircase as he saw the boy sprint out of the emergency exit. He left behind a trail of his giggles, and the echoing taunt that he was going to, ‘lock the loser in for the night.’ 

  No matter how hard he willed his legs to move faster, Jeno could only see the last fraction of the boy’s grin before he slammed the metal door in front of Jeno’s face. 

  “Open it! Open the door!” Jeno screamed as he crashed head on against the sturdy metal, banging his palm on the rough surface of the staircase’s exit.

  “Nah. Losers are sacrificed to the loser monster. That’s the rule” His voice, muted, yet no less mischievous, seeped in from whatever cracks the door had from its years of service. 

  “Don’t say that! Stop making up things!” 

  “I’m not making up things. Can’t you hear it? It’s coming to get’cha.” 

  Jeno knew the kid was lying, but his action of frantically kicking and pushing against the door, showed that he was betting on the smallest chance that such a monster really did exist. He’d just faced off against the pier monster earlier that morning. Who’s to say that the staircase monster wasn’t real, then? Besides, although he was trying his best to not acknowledge it, yes. Yes, he did hear it. 

  The echoes of footsteps reverberating around the cramped space of the staircase. 

  He wasn’t betting on it. He didn’t even want to bet on it, so Jeno decided to just drown the advancing sound with the ruckus of his limbs striking against the unmovable door, and his constant pleading for the kid to just let him out of the place. 

  “Let me out! Please!!”

  “Hmm, can I trade it with your sand bucket?”

  “Yes! Yes you can have it! And the rake too!”

  “Alright then!”

  Wind rushed against his heated face when the kid finally opened the door for him. Right on time too, because Jeno swore he could feel the strong huff of the staircase monster’s breath blowing right against his back when he was finally allowed to escape from the imposing structure. 

  He stumbled forward a few steps, and crashed down to his hands and knees when he was met with another surprise element that resisted his frantic movements. 

  Water.

  The lobby was submerged in water. 

  It rose up to around the height of his ankles and wrists, and Jeno groaned when the extent of his misfortunes hit him. 

  “Ugh… my pyjamas are all wet because of you.” 

  “You splashed water all up mine too. Blergh.” The kid walked up to him, shaking his wet hands with a disgusted look on his face. 

  Groaning, Jeno fished the submerged flashlight, the drenched strap dangled dejectedly around his index finger. He tried clicking the on button. Once, twice… It was totally kaput. 

  “My dad’s gonna be so angry at me…” 

  “Aw man, you’re such a mama’s boy,” the boy said as he offered a helping hand to Jeno.

  He ignored the kind (if not a little bit condescending) gesture, though. Huffing and puffing up to his feet by himself. “I am not.”  

  Once he was on his feet, Jeno lunged forward in a surprise attack and plopped his wet palms on the back of the boy’s t-shirt. A sort of revenge, if you may. “Tag! You’re it!” Before he could do anything in retaliation, Jeno splashed away on an awkward sprint, squealing and laughing as he ran to a secluded place near the back of the empty receptionist desk. 

  He squatted behind the soggy wooden plank that made the side walls of the curving desk. Waiting, and carefully watching the slim entrance flap of the receptionist desk that was stuck in a half open position due to the shallow puddle of clear water on the floor. But the boy never appeared.

  Weirded out, Jeno climbed onto the plastic chair and peeked over the countertop. 

  The first thing he noticed was that the siren had stopped blaring throughout the stormy skies. The rain had calmed down considerably too. Or at least, the sound of it pounding against the sides of the building or against the windows was less noticeable in such a vast area when compared to the small confine of his bedroom. The general space of their apartment lobby was shrouded in darkness. But, the double-door entrance provided enough ambient lighting from the shine of the battery operated garden lights that littered the sidewalks. It provided enough light for him to easily locate the boy as he was standing a good distance away. Submerged, up to the middle of his shin, in ripples of stagnant water that pooled at the landing of the lobby. 

  On his left hand was the very much recognisable shade of sun-bleached blue of his plastic trowel. He was using it to disturb the surface of the dark water he was standing on. 

  “My name is Hyuk, by the way,” he said, to the rhythm of his splashes, “what about you?”

  “... Jeno.”

  Them finally getting their proper introductions notwithstanding, Jeno couldn’t get his sight away from the trowel the boy was holding. He’d made peace with it being lost at the bottom of the ocean. So how,-

  “Do you want your glasses too?” The boy, Hyuk, suddenly asked. He dug into the shallow pockets of his trainers and took out the impossible. 

  “But I lost it in the,-”

  “Do you want it or not?” He shifted his body to the side, just enough that he could wave the glasses around in a clear jeer at Jeno’s confusion. 

  “I do, but,-”

  “Then come over here and play with me.” 

  The opaque, blackened water that rose up to his knees. His silhouette against a greyed out background. Him, holding two of his lost items that Jeno never thought he could ever see again… All of that information on the boy reminded Jeno of the fact that Hyuk was friends with the pier monster. 

  “Can… can we just go back upstairs?”

  “Well, I’m staying here. You wanna go upstairs, you go yourself,” the boy scoffed at the blatant fear that bled through Jeno’s words, “the loser monster is still waiting for you at the stairs, by the way.”

  At the reminder, Jeno took a quick glance at the door of the emergency staircase. It was slightly ajar, and the shadow that lurked behind the strong metal door seemed to be thicker than anything that surrounded it. 

  Feeling a mighty chill began to crawl up the back of his neck, Jeno decided that a human-like companion is better than none. Or worse, something monstrous. So he scurried down his perch and waddled his way to the edge of the lobby’s landing. 

  “Come on. Please?” He began pleading, “we can… read comic books in my room?”

  “Nah. Boring.”

  “Or just… or just build pillow forts in the living room?”

  Hyuk sneered at him, “what are you, five?”

  “I’m seven, actually,” Jeno mumbled underneath his breath, fingers anxiously fiddling the drawstrings of his pyjama pants with the panic that was starting to fill the back of his throat. “I just don’t want our dads to be mad,-”

  “Will you stop it with all the dad getting mad at us thing?” 

  At first Jeno thought Hyuk tripped over something. The boy took a few steps away from him, eyes still trained sharply against his, before his body then suddenly jerked from side to side, as if he was trying to gain balance on a slippery slope. And then he was gone. Plunging straight down and disappearing beneath the dark surface of the water.

There was nothing for him to dive into, as the area he was standing wouldn’t have gone any deeper than his knees. But he fell like a heavy stone inside a deep pool. One second there and the next there was nothing. Not even ripples that might’ve suggested something of a struggle.

  Jeno’s eyes widened in surprise and he splashed, thoughtlessly, only driven by the sheer unexpectedness of the scene, to the spot where Hyuk fell. 

  He looked down into the water and saw a pale face looking back at him. 

  Jeno thought the water was completely blackened, but it was actually just the dark blue of the submerged carpet of the lobby. He noticed it, because Hyuk’s black hair swayed around his ankles like tendrils of black seaweed. 

  He should really go and get him out of there, Jeno thought. But he found himself petrified on the spot, hunched down and staring at the eyes that gazed unblinkingly at him. A peculiar emotion settled onto his bones. It wasn’t panic. Or fear. Or a sense of urgency. He was in disbelief. Completely weirded out. It’s impossible, he told himself, it’s impossible to drown in a puddle. He must be doing this to pull another prank. 

  Jeno didn’t know how long it’d been, trapped in the odd staring contest with an unmoving, unblinking Hyuk. The only thing telling him that time hadn’t stopped all together was the periodic splash of water dripping from a leaky ceiling somewhere at the right wing of the lobby. 

  Time restarted only when Hyuk blinked. 

  The world moved once more when he pushed his face against the surface of the water. Jeno watched in morbid awe as he saw how the surface domed around his head. Stretching beyond how it should’ve normally gone over his features. It was as if the water was his parent, unwilling to let go of one of their own. 

  It was the pale tip of his button nose that burst the surface tension. And without wiping the residue of water from his face, Hyuk looked at him and spoke,

  “Why didn’t you help me?”

  “I didn’t think that you were… drowning.”

  “Hm. I thought so.”

  Jeno took a step back when Hyuk rose from the water and walked, so casually that it didn’t even appear that he was hampered by his wet clothes weighing him down, before he then watched in awe as Hyuk plopped down at the highest steps of the lobby’s landing. 

  He splashed his palm on the empty spot to his right. “Come sit!”

  At his hesitation, Hyuk snorted and offered Jeno his glasses.

  “Don’t you want this?”

  Driven to a corner, Jeno found no other choice but to nod and hesitantly take the glasses away from Hyuk. He gave it a quick inspection. The lenses were slightly scratched up from what he guessed would be sand from the bottom of the ocean, and the hinges were slightly crooked. It was also grimed over with a thick, gummy residue of layers upon layers of dried salt water, but Jeno thought, better a little scratch than to be completely blind. 

  So, before he joined Hyuk on his submerged bench, Jeno gave the lenses of his glasses a quick wipe with one of the only dry spots left at the back of his pyjama. He sat down only when he was happy with how the world looked when he put it on.

  “Nerd.” Hyuk snickered, when he saw how careful Jeno treated his spare glasses, hooking the legs nicely onto the centre part of his pyjama’s collar. 

  “It’s my genetics!” Jeno defended himself in a squeak. The water converging around his waist felt much colder than he anticipated. He flinched, but had to hide it to prevent Hyuk from heckling him even worse.

  “Do you even know what that means?” 

  Jeno paused for a quick second, before he then shook his head dejectedly, “not really…”

  Beyond the lightly tinted glass of the lobby’s entrance, Jeno could see that the rain had stopped. And like a miracle, the sky cleared up. Grey clouds cracked clean through the middle, a thin sliver of light blue sky illuminating the edges into gilded pages of an ancient book. It was already dawn.

  Still staring in awe at the sudden turn of the weather, Jeno asked. “How can I never see you before? Did you just move in?”

  “No. I’ve been here for a long time. And I’ve known your dad for even loooonger.”

  “Oh! You’re one of dad’s students? Who don’t you tell me?” 

  Hyuk snorted, and slapped the back of Jeno’s plastic spade against the water’s surface. The loud sound echoed around the empty lobby, and pulled his interest back to the kid. His jet black hair was matted to his forehead, rivulets of salty water running down the sides of his cheeks like transparent vines. Binding him to the cold water below. 

  “Student? I taught him everything he knew.”

  Jeno tilted his head in puzzlement, “you’re being weird right now. I don’t understand you.”

  “No you’re weird,” he said in a mocking tone.

  Jeno huffed on his seat. “This is why you don’t have any friends, you know.”

  Hyuk let out what he thought was an attempt at whistling, “how do you know? We’ve only met today. I actually have loooooots of friends.” He smirked, before splashing a scoop of water to Jeno's face, “you’re the one that looks like you don’t have friends, loser.”

  Getting quite a bit annoyed, Jeno used it as a fuel to snatch his trowel away from Hyuk’s cold fingers. But then, instantly feeling guilty, he sighed and allowed it to float on the empty span of water in between them, “the pier doesn’t count as a friend… no matter how big it is.”

  “It was there for me during my most important moments. I think it’s my friend alright.”

  They heard the sound of water splashing from the eerie silence beyond the apartment’s entrance, and rounding up the corner from the parking tower was Jeno’s dad. He walked alone.

  Sleep seemed to be haunting him by the hunch of his back. His eyes, shining in the odd rush of adrenaline that pulling an all-nighter can give you, gawked at the sight of them even when he was dozens of steps away from making it to the double door of the apartment lobby.

  Two kids, sitting on a shallow pool of dirty flood water. It should be the source of concern to any adults with a sound mind.

  Jeno braced himself for the incoming scolding. Just like how he physically braced himself, hugging his knees all that much tighter, when ripples of small waves hit him squarely on his belly when his dad gave the door a careful push. 

  “Welcome home,” he squeaked, “I’m hungry.” Jeno said the first thing that came to his mind,

  A flash of an apologetic smile flew through his face. And yet, he didn’t do anything more than to just stand there, in the middle of the depression of the lobby entrance, the water that’d ate Jeno up to near the top of his knee barely rising to the middle of his fishing boots. 

  His dad didn’t get mad at him for getting out of his bed so late, or more correctly, so early in the morning. Playing in a puddle of water, his pyjamas soaked wet all over, with a strange kid accompanying him by his side. 

  He wasn’t angry at him. He wasn’t even looking at him.

  His dad was looking at Hyuk with what Jeno could best guess as a deep sadness. 

  Because it’s going to take him a long time to learn what sorrow was. 

  Jeno took a side glanced at his new friend. He still had that crooked smile hanging at the edge of his pale mouth as he stared at his dad with not even an ounce of fear of getting scolded in his bones. He really is gutsy, huh?

  “I made a friend,” Jeno tried to introduce Hyuk to his dad.

  “I can see that.” An attempt his dad let flow with a slow nod of his head. 

  “He lives right next door.”

  “Hmm. I can see.”

  His dad finally averted his gaze away from his new friend. He heard a little giggle coming from his left, and Jeno saw something falling from the edge of his dad’s eyes. 

  “Not him.” He heard a nearly indiscernible whisper. From whom he didn’t know. Hyuk? But the voice was too deep. His dad? But he barely even moved his mouth to do so. 

  “A promise is a promise.” Hyuk answered the whisper. Ah. So it really was his dad’s. How cool. He could really try to be a ventriloquist from how stiff his lips were when he spoke next.

  “I’ll do it.” 

  “Hm? Do what?” Jeno asked, tilting his head in a little gesture of pure innocence. 

  “Nothing, kid,” he gave him another quick smile, before returning to look sternly at Hyuk’s pallid face. “Let’s just get it over with. I’ll do it.”

  His grin grew, wider and wider, more and more mischievous. So much so that Jeno thought surely, he couldn’t get away from disrespecting an elder to such an extent, right? But right as Jeno was about to shush him out and shake him out of his delinquency, Hyuk let out a bright laugh. 

  “Just kidding. I don’t look that lonely, right?” he giggled. Just as light and easy as the way a new day has overtaken the previously gloomy sky. “Besides, I still wanna play a little bit longer with you,” he said, looking at Jeno and flashing him an irresistible smile. “Because they always leave right away once you allow them to join me. Everytime. ”

  Jeno was confused, but the idea of having a new friend was so exciting for him that he still returned Hyuk’s smile with something equally as bright.

  “Enough. We’re going.” His dad forced his way past them, his words huffing out of him like a deflated balloon. 

  With ease he threaded the shallow water, picking Jeno up by his armpits on his way through the apartment’s lobby. 

  “Dad, let me down,” Jeno hissed, embarrassed to be treated like such a child in front of a very cool and mature friend he’d just made. But before he could do anything about it, his dad had pushed against the heavy door of the emergency staircase, clicking on his powerful flashlight to guide his way up the flights of stairs.

  Jeno was, for once, glad that he had his dad’s arms secure around his back. His dad is never a loser, right? So the loser monster will not show itself to him, right? 

  “You’re walking too fast. Hyuk’s not gonna be able to catch up.”

  “I’m not a loser like you, Lee.” His voice came from somewhere near his back. Or was it his dad’s back? Jeno had his face nestled at the nook of his dad’s shoulder, and the shadow made it hard for him to make anything out in the darkness. But he could hear him, his flip flops slapping against the concrete. Somewhere nearby.

  At that point, his dad was leaping through the stairs in twos.

  The motion, the warmth of his dad’s secure hold around his body, all created the perfect sleeping potion for his tired, cold self. Jeno yawned, and he felt those arms squeezing around him all that much tighter.

  “Can we go swim at the pier tomorrow?” Jeno asked for what could’ve been the hundredth time. But he wasn’t alone anymore, was he? He has a friend. Someone braver. Someone cooler. Isn’t that a good enough ground for his dad to let him go? 

  Staring down at the shadowed outline of his friend’s pale smile that peeked in between the railing of the staircase, he felt his dad nod. 

#heibai writes #jeno #nct jeno #lee donghae #donghae #nct #nct dream #super junior #long fic

[bereft-of-frogs]

I hope I have appeased whatever ocean spirit possessed me this summer. Here is the final list of everything I read/watched/listened to/played/etc over the last several months while my entire personality became about the ocean. (Almost - planning on watching Deep Star Six (1989) after I finish writing this post and making dinner!)

The Deep, Nick Cutter | Our Wives Under the Sea, Julia Armfield | “Fear of Depths” + “Fear of Big Things Underwater”, Jacob Geller | Into the Drowning Deep, Mira Grant | Underwater (2020) | r/thalassophobia + r/submechanophobia | The Deep House (2021) | 47 Meters Down (2017) + 47 Meters Down: Uncaged (2019) | The Toilers of the Sea, Victor Hugo (trans. James Hogarth) | Dark Water, Koji Suzuki (trans. Glynne Walley) | “Fear of the Deep”, Nexpo | Sea Fever (2019) | The Abyss (1989) | Open Water (2003) | From Below, Darcy Coates | Love, Death + Robots, “Bad Traveling” | “The Fog Horn”, Ray Bradbury + “A Descent into the Maelstrom”, Edgar Allen Poe (collected in Stories of the Sea ed. Diana Secker Tesdell) | Subnautica (2018) | Breaking Surface (2020) | They Came From the Ocean, Boris Bacic | The Cave (2005) | Sphere, Michael Crichton + its 1997 adaptation | “Thalassophobia”, Solar Sands | Whalefall, Daniel Kraus | Sanctum (2011) | The Rift (1990) | Leviathan (1989) | Sand, Salt, Blood: An Anthology of Sea Horror, ed. Elle Turpitt | 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne (trans. Mendor T. Brunetti) | Moby-Dick, Herman Melville

So that's 12 books (including 2 anthologies), 13 films, 4 video essays, 2 short stories, 2 subreddits, 1 game, and 1 TV episode.

Top 5 (in no particular order)

Our Wives Under the Sea, Julia Armfield -- beautiful, both in the descriptions of the deep sea and in its depictions of grief. Florence Welch blurbed it and Florence + the Machine takes 3 spots on the playlist so this definitely set the vibes of the summer.

Whalefall, Daniel Kraus -- reminded me of NOPE (2022) and that's a high compliment. It's also about grief but the kind of grief where there should have been a reckoning, and you'll never get that closure. Truly excellent, honestly I still have the library book because I'm not ready to give it back.

Sea Fever (2019) -- obviously owes a lot of its plot to the 1989 slate of ocean horror films coming out that were in imitation of Alien (1979) and attempting to preempt James Cameron's The Abyss (1989), in that it's about a creature from the deep that possesses the crew of a fishing trawler off the west coast of Ireland...but a moody atmosphere, gorgeous cinematography, and mythological inspiration just makes this a good watch.

"Fear of Depths", Jacob Geller -- honestly all the youtube videos on this list are worth it but I'm highlighting this one because I just love it when youtubers go on field trips. Like yes Jacob go stand in that cave and read your script for our entertainment and edification, yesss

The Toilers of the Sea, Victor Hugo -- ok the thing about Hugo is that his novels often carry social messaging - about poverty, class, the nature of justice, investment in cultural hegemony - and Toilers' thematic messaging is just: what the fuck are you doing in the ocean why are you going in there, don't you see how fucked up the ocean is, leave it alone- (...perhaps a more relevant text for billionaires than Les Misérables? XD) Ok, I'm mostly kidding but truly his depictions of the sea are some of my favorite bits of Hugo prose, I really think this book is underrated in the anglophone world.

Please feel free to ask me for more reviews of the other works on the list and I can give more thoughts! For now I'll just say that I had a lot of fun with the cheesy 80s/90s movies (the later ones don't quite carry the same charm but were still pretty fun even if they weren't 'good'), the books are pretty solid with the exception of They Came From the Ocean by Boris Bacic, which is my only 'do not recommend' on the list. (It wasn't well written, didn't use the setting very effectively, and got weirdly homophobic towards the end in a way that was impossible to tease out from a character decision and made me feel kind of weird?) There is also a smaller, slightly less cohesive list for the second part of this series but it gives away the thematic shift so I'll stick to ocean horror for now. This was an interesting summer. I guess I should probably...read something other than ocean horror now. XD

letterboxd film list | playlist on spotify

Bonus:

Books on (or…near in one case) the beach

#dark ocean duology #ocean horror #sea dread #sea longing

[atticofthings]

A wonderful custom from sprklfrood on Deviantart A ‘friend’ to go along with Neil the Magic seal. I came up with a Fazbear’s offshoot that features an all seal cast and Leonard is the 'antagonist’ role. Standing at 7'5 he is usually kept in a lowered area that rises up during his show parts. His bits are featured during the 'dark waters’ event (which is daily, around 3). Due to his size and deep voice he was deemed to scary so he was given a cute hat, his broom and some wonderfully Halloween decals. His legs are reinforced to support his sheer size. He may be spooky, but he is more than happy to join in smacky smacks to celebrate. I wouldn’t fancy seeing him at night though, his head poking out of the hole he stays in is enough to trigger submechanophobia (even without water) thanks to his reflective eyes and the fake water cover that blocks him out just enough. Like Neil, his plushsuit is soft, but a bit more malleable and baggy to allow for more movement range Yes I overthought this way to much okay?

#sfw #fnaf oc #fan animatronic #fanimatronic #leopard seal #fnaf #five nights at freddy's #seal

[m-bardbattled]

𝐀  𝐐𝐔𝐈𝐂𝐊  𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍  𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 .

WHAT  THEY  SMELL  LIKE  :  if she’s been near home there will be salt about her ; otherwise, she smells like incense and citrus.

HOW  THEY  SLEEP  (  POSITION  ,  SCHEDULE  ,  ETC.  )  :   she sleeps when she’s tired  ( she either can’t sleep for hours or she falls asleep wherever she is )  and she’s a somewhat light sleeper. if she’s in a bed, she prefers to arrange herself on her side with her arms wrapped around a pillow or a person.

WHAT  MUSIC  THEY  ENJOY  :  she enjoys a lot of music, of various forms. she can find a beauty in pretty much every kind of music she’s ever heard. but there’s something about folk music that makes it special to her.

HOW  MUCH  TIME  THEY  SPEND  GETTING  READY  IN  THE  MORNING  :  if she doesn’t have anything to do, she can be at it for two hours, easily ; lingering and lazing about as she goes. if she’s busy, she can rush through it in ten minutes flat.

FAVORITE  THING  TO  COLLECT  :    stories! memories! shells!

LEFT  OR  RIGHT  HANDED  :  right handed.

FAVORITE  SPORT(S)  :    she doesn’t follow sports, but she does love the highland games.

FAVORITE  TOURIST-Y  THING  TO  DO  WHEN  TRAVELING  :    taking guided tours! she wants to be led around and told obscure facts about everything she sees.

FAVORITE  KIND  OF  WEATHER  :   a light sunshower.

WEIRD/OBSCURE  FEAR  THEY  HAVE  :    she has a bit of submechanophobia  ( fear of submerged, man-made objects )  but it’s mostly regarding metal objects ; wooden shipwrecks don’t seem to bother her much.

THE  CARNIVAL/ARCADE  GAME  THEY  ALWAYS  WIN  WITHOUT  FAIL  :   throwing rings over bottles or pegs. 

tagged by   @fulcrcm ( thank you ily ) . tagging   @timesense  &  @talesspin  &  @dvarapala  &  @mirafirstmate  &  @gracefallen​  &  @hiddensteel​  &  you !

#♫ dash games ›› THAT’S ONE FOR THE CHARACTER SHEET.

[elenamegan14]

Twisted Wonderland: Headcanons for Dorm Haunted Houses Pt.5 - Octavinelle

MASTERLIST

Part 4

Probably the longest headcanon one I had so far. LOL.

TW: Slight dubcon elements and submechanophobia. 

THE ATTRACTION: 

This dorm’s haunted house is quite unique because it’s a mish-mash between a cruise ship and the jazz lounge hall from the Roaring 1920s. For some reason, after thorough research, Azul wanted to include ‘submechanophobia’ (fear of animatronics submerged in water) into the haunted dorm concept himself. 

Azul went crazy with all the merchandise - there were T-Shirts, posters, the most adorable set of acrylic keychains! And the piece of resistance is a two-song single that he and the twins have recorded. It has a physical and digital release, of which the latter had 1,300,000 downloads in just one day. 

The promos are crazy too. The way the staff had shot the commercial for the dorm’s haunted house is so cinematically professional that many were taught it was a real movie itself. Luckily, Azul also recorded the dorm’s theme. PS: They also did Pomefiore’s promo video too for a cut share of 15%.

Azul wanted to increase his clients on Monstro Lounge, but he cannot go easy on the student participants as well. He wanted to hear BOTH screams - so the treatment for the students in the survival game and the guests is going to be very different from another. 

Regular guests will be scared in a standard manner: jumpscares from animatronics, a bit of gas blowing on their necks - NO TOUCHING AT ALL.

As for the students… well, they’re most likely to get attacked ALL THE TIME. Your name it: physical touches, animatronics dragging them to their ‘doom’, etc. That’s why the dorm made a contract clause to the participants warning them that there will be physical touching and a safe word is provided. Most participants did not read this except for a few. Like MC and Jack. Unless they purchased his charms. 

Yes, the octopus capitalist had created their own charms that worked only for this haunted house ONLY. It protects students from the monsters, well MOSTLY. 

Perhaps because he was attached to the band he, Floyd, and Jade once made back in middle school, he wanted to include the entertainment aspect as well, perhaps for nostalgic sake. Plus, he did it because he knew people would pay money to see hot idol guys singing jazz songs. Of course, he did, why do you doubt him so?

“Do instruments of torture count?” Floyd asked during the first band meeting. Azul quickly dismissed it. And no, mayonnaise is definitely NOT a musical instrument. 

When guests and student participants arrived in the dorm’s haunted house, they were lured into an abandoned pier. During the walk in the eerie, fog-infested docks, guests could see some posters of missing people, old posters of a cruise ship trip promotion, a poster featuring the Octavinelle band in old-timey fashion and old news articles about a tragic malfunctioning animatronic accident. 

As they approached closer, they could hear several jazz songs, including electro swings coming from somewhere. Guests also noticed some abandoned, dilapidated animatronics that was missing some parts, giving it a frightening outlook. What really unsettles them most are writings on the wall that are written either in blood or blacks markers: “TURN BACK!” “WATCH OUT!” “STAY AWAY FROM THE CRUISE SHIP!”

They arrived at their destination: a large cruise ship was waiting on them. On the entrance, the dorm staff sold their merchandise and charms to the students themselves. Already traumatized by the two previous haunted houses, most students hurriedly buy the charm itself. Grimm wanted one because there is no way he would want to be “attacked” again, but Deuce managed to stop him from buying an ‘unnecessary’ object (“Unnecessary my foot! We’re talking about the benefit of humanity here!”).

Ace secretly buys one. “There’s not wrong with being prepared!” He whispered to himself.

Entering the den of the beast, they went inside a lavish foyer area that is reminiscent of a scene in titanic. Chandeliers, art deco furniture, and art, as well as posters of the animatronic bands, were shown in meticulous detail. 

They were then seated at a wide, spacious restaurant theater area. The staff hyped the audience by asking them to sing a few lines from Azul’s song, before introducing Azul’s band like in a jazz concert. 

They began the pre-show in a unique way. Azul is a showstopper mysterious owner and headline singer for “Monstro Lounge”, the cruise ship that is rumored to have a multitude of people missing. Floyd and Jade are his lackeys with the same headline as well. 

Azul charms the audience with a siren-like voice, putting the audience into his trance. For some reason, the Octavinelle trio tends to direct their gazes, winks, and fanservice towards MC the most. It then evolved into a Broadway show-stopping number.

The way Azul plays his piano is started off slow, increasing his tempo and so does his seduction and flamboyance. He makes an expression that one could mistake as a man experienced in the bedroom. 

Floyd goes crazy with his drums. Meanwhile, Jade plays his contrabass with grace and elegance, fingers touching it lightly but spicy. 

Many female clientele almost had a nosebleed... or this close to fainting. 

AZUL UNBUTTONED HIS SHIRT TEASINGLY DURING HIS NUMBER. They’re starting to lose it. 

Oh, the fan’s screams actually racked up their scream counter. There’s no cheating here - who says that happy screams can’t count? 

Yes, Azul does sing on top of the piano. 

After they finished their show, Azul then unleashed one of his proudest creations, an animatronic of a lovely mermaid doll that began to sing like an angel. Then, with a snap of fingers, he unleashed a multitude of doll-like merpeople animatronics that looked strangely alive as her accompanying orchestra, playing a haunting, eerie song. 

During the middle of the show, one of Octavinelle’s actors came to the stage, shouting about his “long-lost daughter”, followed by a couple more people. Despite the actor playing as security told him to go back to his seat, the father ignored him and embraced the mermaid doll animatronic - his daughter. 

In his “rant”, he cursed the Octavinelle trio of deliberately hiding his daughter for three years and turned her into this “monstrosity”. He then declared that he will rescue his daughter from this “vile place‘, unaware that the Octavinelle trio had placed knowing smirks and grins on their face. Begging for his “daughter” to recognize him, the mermaid doll slowly gazed upon her “father”...

...and “tore” his neck apart. Fake blood spewing everywhere, his screams reverberated through the dance hall. 

All of the animatronics came alive and started to gruesomely murdered the intruders as well. 

“Well, this escalated quickly.” Ace muttered at the disturbing sight. 

A guest suddenly screamed - the area is suddenly filled with water, causing the guests and student participants to hurriedly run to the prepared exit. 

The students have enchanted some parts of the aquarium walls where merpeople students could appear in and out of the aquarium water on the wall without spilling the water everywhere. So guests and students participants were often surprised by sudden appearances of the tweels, Azul, animatronics, and staff splashing out of the wall from nowhere. There had been many who claimed to have a heart attack from these encounters. 

As they run through the aquarium walls, the guests and students are spooked with various animatronics of mutated sea creatures, merpeople, and even a FREAKING shark animatronic that chases them around persistently. They appear at random times, and their designs would surely put submechanophobia (fear of underwater animatronics) into their very souls. 

As they moved on further, they entered Azul’s office and workshop - where gory remains of the missing people experimented into animatronics were seen. Horrid screams and desperate shrieks rang all the way - some were even trapped halfway into the animatronic itself. 

Azul had two forms for this haunted house dorm: the first is his regular jazz-lounge entertainer animatronic suit with art deco and aquatic elements. The next form is almost the same except his animatronic parts are more revealed, some parts of his clothes tattered and his tentacles are fully shown. Some guests and students secretly yearned to be trapped inside his “tentacles”.

“Fu, fu, fu… come. Let me squeeze you, let me touch your flesh...” “Yes, please.” A guest squeaked, face flushing red.

The tweels have the same elements as Azul did in their costume, except they’re identical and much more muted than Azul did. Their second forms are their merforms, but with faded mechanical parts and some fresh BLOOD on their teeth and torso...

The final stage and centerpiece of their haunted house is what Azul is most proud of. Thrown again into a twisted version of the animatronic warehouse with aquatic background, the now revealed “animatronic” Azul hypnotized the whole audience with his siren-like singing on a small stage, beckoning several guests into the sweet embrace of his tentacles. Fun fact: most students and guests could not resist the temptation and got ‘squished to death’ instead. Yep, no subcontext here at all. 

THE MISSION:

The students and the guests are separated into different groups, with a glass aquarium wall to divide them. 

The guide relayed the charm mission to them: this cruise ship is infamous for having animatronics and automatons to serve and entertain their guests. But many years ago, there was an incident where an animatronic, fed up with being abused by a spoiled heiress on her sweet sixteen birthday, mauled her and nearly drowned her in the aquarium. 

Their mission is quite simple: get the charm inside Azul’s office then get out of cruise ship “ALIVE���. They were told that they have three chances to find it inside the office itself, or else they would be “eliminated” and had to start all over again. 

But first, they must survive his “show” to get to his office. The students were a bit confused at this part until later.

During the show, they soon learn why they were separated from the guests with a glass wall.  

While the guest audience’s part is flooded with a small bit of water, the student's parts were unleashed with a torrential burst of water that they have to run to. Everyone (who is on the student side) by the end of this segment is wet from head to toe. 

“Damn you, Azul! Once I get out of here, I’ll fry your tentacles!” Grimm growled, drying his soppy fur using his fire magic. 

Octavinelle’s challenge is 90% of Patrick Star’s “WEE WOO WEE WOO” moments. 10% of it is just trying to survive.

The animatronics hissed, jumped, and even grabbed them at random times, which puts the NRC students into a looooot of stress since it attacked them more than once!

Oh, yes, and the mechanical shark will burst out of the “wall” when you least expect it. 

“WHAT THE HECK IS WITH THIS HAUNTED HOUSE?! THIS IS VERY UNREASONABLE!” Cried one student before a mechanical shark got him. 

But the ones who purchased Octavinelle’s charm walked in smoothly - the animatronics did not attack them directly, the staff stayed out of their way - all is good and right in the world...

Spoiler alert: Did they say that the charm protects them? Of course, it did… EXCEPT AGAINST AZUL AND THE TWEELS. 

Yup, Ace learned the hard way when Jade came out of nowhere and tried to drag him inside the aquarium water. The screams that Ace had bellowed does not do justice to how fast he runs. 

“YOU SAID THIS CHARM WOULD PROTECT US!”

Epel read the terms and agreement again, “Oh, whoops. It also says here, that the charm doesn’t guarantee to protect you against Azul, Floyd, and Jade. Should have read it thoroughly.”

“I can’t read while I’m getting chased!”

FLOYD DOES MOST OF THE DAMAGES. Physically and emotionally. 

He first started by licking Ace’s face. Who knew that eel’s tongue is long.(“Nooooo! I feel so physically violated!” Ace ran to the corner and sobbed.)

Epel had a heart attack when he felt someone smacked his ass. As does Deuce. Then Jack (his tail got roughly grabbed as well). 

Jack screamed out all the safe words. Deuce and Epel shouted all kinds of colorful swear words they could ever know, even the foreign ones. 

MC’s ass received the same treatment, but they also received an additional playful grope. And then Floyd licked them. MC was screaming and flustered at the same time. 

“Shrimp-chan is cute when startled!” He cooed before he splashed back to the water. 

There were a LOT of complaints after this event this over, particularly threats of suing Azul for inappropriate sexual harassment. But then the staff asked if they all read the terms and agreements. They all went silent and got on with the next haunted house challenge. 

MC’s group tried to murder Floyd by chasing him down underwater, but they realized that getting inside the water would actually disqualify them. They all promised DEATH upon the Octavinelle trio for putting them into this mess and extorting them out of their money. 

Now there was one this brutal and competitive student who wanted to get the charms himself. So he kinda lures MC using the infamous “Wounded Gazelle Gambit” trick. In MC’s defense, the act was kinda convincing for a student.

They were not prepared to be chained up and kicked outside to the water, leaving them to drown after they got frisked by that said student for the charms. “In this world, only the mighty wins!” 

For a while, MC is left trying to hold their breath while desperately trying to free themselves from the heavy chains. Just as their oxygen almost ran out, Jade managed to see MC struggling underwater. He managed to get Houdini MC out of the water, asking if they’re okay and who actually did this to them. While MC struggled to answer, refusing special treatment, MC decided to get back into the game and get the charms back.

Jade also decided to deal with the violent troublemaker as well, and he just knew what to do with the mechanical shark that he controlled. 

To get to the office, the students went to another path, carrying them to a room filled with water and several large pieces of ice. They had to carefully cross through the thin layers of ice amongst the water. There was a mechanical shark circling around, sniffing for its late-night snack. 

Already five students fell victim to it. 

The ice is slippery, MC’s group is struggling to stay afloat and they do not see MC anywhere. 

Epel does spot a student cackling as he carries two familiar charms. 

“What have you done to them?!” Ace growled. 

“Oh, I guess I made them sleep with the fishes.”

Deuce’s inner delinquent is awakened. He roared and attacked that said student, attempting to avenge poor MC. There was pulling, tugging and pinching. 

Just as that competitive student got the upper-hand to Deuce… well, surprise, surprise, guess who’s back, back again. 

“HISASHIBURI-DANNA, BITCH. BET YOU’D THOUGHT YOU’VE SEEN THE LAST OF ME.” MC, wet from head to toe, raised their fist, punching that said student and causing that student to release the charms. Deuce quickly grabbed them both before they lost it again, then gave an additional uppercut to that said student. The competitive student staggered backward...

...and then the mechanical shark jumped out of nowhere from the water and dragged the student into their watery doom (kidding: that jerk student got thrown out of the cruise instead. INTO THE TRASH BIN). 

The remaining students reached the front of the office, but they could not open the door. Turns out, Azul had enchanted the door so that it can only be opened by using one, particular, embarrassing pose. Oh, and they have to cry out the written words as well. 

“The complete flame in our chests shall not be extinguished by anyone! We are… THE PHOENIX!” They all pose like a phoenix. Once it’s done, there isn't any student that collapses out of sheer humiliation. 

The Octavinelle Trio secretly recorded it. Either for blackmail or marketing purposes, take your pick. 

Once they were inside the office, they were given a riddle and three chances to find it: I am violet, I sing in a limited voice and I am trapped. Find the key inside me. 

At first, they thought it was a musical instrument - but there aren’t any musical instruments that colored purple - unless someone dyes it. Also, they cannot find anything remotely similar to a musical instrument. They finally narrowed down to a purple scorebook, a purple-colored radio and… a music box. 

They decided to select a music box... and voila! The charm is found! It’s a good thing they got enough to share on their brain cells, eh? 

The last challenge after getting the charm is to escape from the cruise itself - but they have to go through Azul to do exactly that! Yup, they have to resist Azul’s hypnotic singing, struggling to escape straight to the exit. Because of Jack’s sensitive ears, he had repeatedly tried to walk straight to Azul, only for Epel to knock him out for a good measure and carried Jack around like he was nothing but a potato sack. 

MC nearly succumbed to hypnotism but Grimm managed to snap them out of it by slapping them repeatedly. 

Azul sighed, “And here I was thinking I could get a chance to get close to you than Floyd did.” 

Yep, they definitely did not waste any chances of getting out of here before Azul starts singing again. 

The Octavinelle Dorm staff is considerate enough to give the students wet towels and a warm drink to keep the students from getting cold. Meanwhile, Ace, Epel, and Deuce joined in the protest about the inappropriate misconduct before they unleashed their rage on the nearby prepared dummies after being told that their contract’s terms and conditions had warned them that there will be touching and the staff is not responsible for it. 

Perhaps getting wet is a good thing because the fiery presence of Scarabia’s haunted house might be able to keep the cold away...

Part 6

#twisted wonderland #twst #twst wonderland #disney villains #disney twisted wonderland #headcanon #imagine #drabble #twisted wonderland imagine #twisted wonderland headcanon #halloween headcanon #obon headcanon #halloween imagine #obon imagine #haunted house #haunted house headcanon #haunted house imagine #twisted wonderland drabble #yuu #mc #epel felmier #ace trappola #deuce spade #jack howl #azul ashengrotto #floyd leech #electro swing #submechanophobia #octavinelle #octavinelle headcanon

[bluishtones]

a bit different from my usual content, but here's a large project for school. made completely from color pencils!! inspired by the fear of submechanophobia.

#submechanophobia #submerged #submersion #traditional art #my art #took about 4 hours i think?? #super fun actually #working with strictly blue was a lot of fun

[kerfufflearts]

So, I've been loving submechanophobia lately, and I just want to share one I haven't seen mentioned at all yet! Honestly not sure if they count, but whatever

Here's the Crystal Palace Park dinosaurs!! Well, these are the ones in the water. They were made in the late 1800s, and are pretty inaccurate now. That doesn't make them any less neat, strange, and a bit unsettling

#pictures aren't mine #dinosaurs #plesiosaur #art #submechanophobia