 The VHF radio came alive, its urgent words reaching me even in sleep. My vessel has sprung a leak. My eyes opened as I listened more closely. Mayday. The voice said for a last time, and then the radio fell silent. I stopped for a moment, grabbed a pair of binoculars, and headed up on deck. It wasn't long before a strong glint flooded through the glass, hurting my eyes. My head jerked backwards, and as my sight returned I saw the ship for the first time. A beautiful wooden schooner, I guess to be built at least a hundred or so years ago. I had a special fascination with schooners, and had even done an essay on them while in college. They were a certain type of beautiful, and I would be untruthful if I told you that even in that urgent situation, I wasn't taken aback by its majesty. As it sat a few hundred yards ahead, it almost seemed to be a callback to forgotten times. Times of adventure, and times of risk, and times of I throttled towards her. The sky seemed to get darker upon my approach, but that must certainly have been just a trick of the mind. Upon reaching her, I found she was even bigger than I had expected, looking to sit around eighty or so feet. Hello? Are you alright? I yelled down as I threw the bumpers over the side and tied my boat silver to the old vessel. There was silence. And then an almost inaudible noise found its way up and into my ears. Help me, the voice said, so soft that I wondered if I had imagined it. Another trick of the mind? Not worrying about my own safety, I headed down the wooden steps and into the blackness. As I stepped below, I realized quickly that it was far darker than I had anticipated. Part of me wanted to go back for a flashlight, but another part was worried that the sailor below didn't have much time. There was a thin layer of water on the floorboards and walls of the inside, and I lost my footing more than once as I moved farther down into the boat. Help me, the voice continued, stronger now, and almost. No, my mind was playing tricks on me again. The voice couldn't have seemed hungry. I pushed those thoughts aside. Where are you? I asked nervously. I can't see a thing. Here, the voice replied. It wasn't until I saw the yellow eyes staring back at me that I realized two things in the matter of an instant. The first was that the windows had been covered from the inside, blocking almost all light from shining down into the darkness. The second was that the liquid covering the floor and walls was not water at all. It was much too thick for that. I lost my footing completely then, falling down into the wetness. The figure stood, towering over me. It laughed, and then the voice turned more serious as it shambled towards me. My vessel sprung a week, you see. Frozen then, as if in a nightmare, I could only watch as those eyes came closer and its ancient hand reached out for me. I don't want to think about what would have happened next if the force of a sudden wave hadn't jerked the vessel sideways and snapped me out of whatever trance I was in. Reaching up quickly, I tore whatever I could from the window nearest to me. Sunlight poured down, seeming to almost create a protective circle around my body. The creature's hand jerked backwards, and it stepped out of the light and back into the darkness. It was farther away now, but its far too yellow eyes never left mine. They were fixated. I ran back up on deck, jumped back across to my own boat, and quickly untied the knots from earlier. I kept my eyes glued on the schooner as my vessel began to drift away, each moment expecting those yellow eyes to emerge before I could escape. Less hours later now, and I'm safely a few miles away. I know that there's no way the thing could know my location, and that I've covered far too much area for it to catch up anyway, but as I watch the sun's protection begin to dwindle and fail, I can't help but wonder if the thing is going to come for me anyway. Perhaps even tonight, the last ray of light fell onto the ocean around me. There was no sign of the old vessel captained by the creature with the yellow eyes, but my heart began to pound nonetheless. As I scanned the horizon, I thought of silver. The vessel had been in my family for years, obtained in the 1930s by my grandfather, and then passed down to my father. As a young child, some of the first memories were of being on the Pacific, and watching the two of them captain the vessel expertly through different conditions and several storms. Maybe it was the young age I had been at, or the fickleness of time and the way it works on your memory, but I recall one certain storm being something surreal. My grandfather and father had both checked the weather reports before we had started our voyage, and neither the forecast nor the cloud showed any sign of the impending situation. Still the two of them had shown little sign of worry. Go talk to him, my grandfather had said, winking at my father as the two of them bounced up and down and side to side as the storm shook silver. My father nodded and headed down the oak steps. As he looked down at me with concern, I tried to summon my courage and pretend I wasn't afraid, but he could see through the facade. You alright? My father had asked, sitting down next to me and putting his arm around my shoulders. I nodded, still trying to pretend. It's okay to be afraid. We sat there together as the boat tossed and turned in the storm. But you're not afraid, I said honestly. He chuckled at that. I certainly was at your age. When did you stop being afraid? His eyes met mine, and then he glanced over at his silver cross hanging from a hook on the main beam of the vessel. I had never noticed it before. That cross came with a bow when your grandfather Isaac bought it in 33 I think. He was never a religious man, and one night he told me that he had thought about taking it down. He had reached up towards it, put his hand on its cool surface, and then some type of feeling washed over him. My father had chuckled again. I'm rambling now, he said then, pausing for a short time before continuing. His blue eyes looked down into mine. Mine is there's something special about this boat. Your grandfather Isaac knows it. I know it. And someday when it's yours, well I think you'll know it too. The wind picked up then, and as I held closer to my father, I was sure that any second the boat would capsize, and the three of us would drift down together into the darkness of the ocean. He held me close and spoke quietly to me then. The wind and the rain, the swells. They're all out there, yes, but they can't get through these walls. Not in all my time have I seen anything come close to bringing silver down. His face drew closer then as he whispered. All we need to do is outlast the storm. He had hugged me close then, kissed my forehead and headed back up on deck to join my grandfather. The memory was old. I was now in my 30s, of the two of them having passed away consecutive months, only a few years after that day, but I remember it clearly. My focus came back to the present. As I thought I saw the faint outline of a ship far off in the darkness, maybe it was my imagination again, but I turned the engine just in case and throttled due east. There would be no sleep tonight. Letting the boat take over, I sat down at the table below, flicked on the lamp, and went over my situation. Not much fuel left, and still a day or more from land. Though I couldn't explain it, the radio had stopped working after I had come across the schooner. It was still in functional condition as far as I could tell, yet I wasn't able to reach the Coast Guard or any other ship for assistance. I was alone out here. A sudden rush of static could be heard from the VHF, and hope rose up in my heart. The feeling turned to dread as I listened to the words. My body froze again, as the voice continued. I somehow knew then that the schooner was close now, and those yellow eyes were getting closer. But I couldn't move or run. I was frozen again. An unexpected gust of wind came suddenly then, and silver jerked heavily to its port side. Coming to my senses again, I ripped the radio out of the wall and stomped on it as strongly as I could. I rushed up on deck just in time. The schooner was no more than fifty yards away. Silver fell over me as I watched it gain slowly, the yellow eyes of the tall creature standing out in the darkness. The only thing I could see clearly was a single lamp being lit and held up by the creature. For the first time, I could make out its form completely. I think I almost died right then and there as the tall thing grinned over at me. I saw the thinness of the thing, and the blood oozing out slowly from a wound on its chest. My vessel has sprung a leak, I said aloud to myself. Not worrying about anything but escaping then, I set the engine as high as it could go and stared back at the creature. The roar of silver was as loud as I'd ever heard it then, and it seemed to silence the words of the thing holding the lantern as it followed closely behind. It's been two hours now, with my vessel at full power. The schooner behind us and the creature aren't getting any closer, but we aren't outrunning them either, and those yellow eyes have stayed fixated on me every single moment. I can't call for help on the radio, and God knows I don't want to check the gas meter for the engine. Silver hasn't failed me yet, and I only pray she's fast enough to outrun the horror behind us. Maybe. Just maybe. We can make it till the morning.