A/N: Another random chapter amid the greater randomness that is this collection of shorts. This was harder to write than the others as for a long time I couldn't hear the voice of the creature I was meant to be writing in my head (which for other people would be a good thing…). Finally I managed to drag it out however (writing at three in the morning helped) and now present it to you…be kind.

Disclaimer: I don't remember any depressed squid in the Tolkien books, so you can probably be sure I didn't write the original LOTR.

Warning: As I said, I wrote this at three in the morning, so my sanity was at a lower ebb than usual. I was also hearing the voice of a squid…


Chapter 4

Cold water. Rest, sleep. Lazy kiss of ripples.

…?

Disturbance?

Rings spreading on water. Vibrations impact tentacles. Must awaken.

Defence?

No, small creatures…food. Must eat, body sluggish from age of sleep. Force blood to flow.

They wait above me, but I can also wait. They are mere children in the art of patience compared to one such as I. I feel my body awaken, my thoughts rising from the torpid blackness of hibernation. I waited almost too long to feed, but the twisted little ones swarming before were not worth my effort. Brackish, poison flesh and sharp metal to hurt. These above now seem softer…sweeter. Naïve enough to disturb the water and wake my hunger. They will provide welcome respite to this dark prison where there are no others of my kind. Since the movement of the earth so long ago blocked me from the salty vastness of home, I know unending solitude. To feed well is a lone pleasure in a life now mainly slept away.

But I have been with my thoughts too long. They have opened a passage into the dark rock and may yet escape me. No…one is still in the length of my embrace. I will make its death swift, unlike my own slow attrition. The reedy clamour of these small ones is meaningless…but the larger creatures are more of a threat.

Agony…dead numbness…the searing loss of my limbs spearing fire deep within. But, in their arrogance, they have come too far into my massed embrace and so will not leave. I will crush their resistance as surely as I crush their life. One screams out as it runs, but if the remaining creature dares to come offering aid it will meet the same fate.

The pain is unquenchable flame. I am threefold blind; the sharp shaft, the welling blood and the enveloping blackness deadening all thought. I was wrong to misjudge the creature that stood off from my embrace, as he alone pierced my defence and wrought such damage at my core. My prey flees me, and well they might. With the last strength I possess I seal them in darkness such as they have condemned me to. Let that dread place be there tomb, even as this water is mine.


Take a large body of water, add one depressed squid, sprinkle liberally with reviews…

Come on, take the hint!