 From the month of January to March of the year 1998, I was adrift in the Pacific Ocean by myself. Upon graduating from high school, my parents thought it best to celebrate my accomplishment with a well-deserved vacation. Hawaii seemed like a good enough destination for this venture. I was just grateful for the fact my parents thought I earned a break in the first place, so I wholeheartedly readied myself for the trip at hand. I had always had a love for the ocean and fishing. Growing close to the shores of Oregon, I had gone fishing quite often with my old man. Many nights were spent as a teenager, lying out on the beach with a girl whose name I didn't even know, under the moonlight. Therefore, when we got to Hawaii upon entering the hotel, I saw a rack of brochures. Deep-sea fishing caught my eye straight away. I gave up after an hour of trying to convince my dad to come with me to this expedition. I don't want to show you up, son, he said tauntingly with a wink. Of course, we both knew that meant I'm tired and as much as I love you, I need my sleep. I didn't mind, however. We had already spent the entire day together at this point, what's one measly hour to myself in the grand scheme of things? It turns out, it's everything. The fishing was going well. I hadn't caught anything, but just the experience of being out there amidst the rolling waves in the cool twilight dream was like heaven. My excursion was however caught short when our captain informed me and the two other fishers, a young married couple, that we were going to have to head back to shore. Apparently they had just got a transmission that a storm was headed for mainland opposite the side of the island we were on. If we didn't make it back to the mainland in time, we would have to circle all the way around the island to avoid the storm. The captain informed us that we didn't have enough fuel to make the trip around the island, so we were going to leave early. I was a little upset, sure, but the captain informed us he would refund us in full. As with all tales comes unexpected outcomes, and thus the storm advanced faster than anticipated by this captain. Our boat rocked back and forth side to side and up and down, making the husband next to me lose his lunch. I must admit, I too was feeling deathly ill at this point. About three miles out from the shore was when I myself noticed a massive wave heading from starboard about a quarter of a mile out. The captain sprung into action after he too noticed the wave. Passing out life preservers to all of us, he radioed the shore to inform them of a rogue wave heading for us, and that we were more than likely going to lose the vessel. Between the sacred cries of the wife, I could hear the captain instructing us to keep our heads down and brace for impact. I didn't listen. Staring at the wave in awe, I was too mesmerized to look away. It towered a good fifty feet in the air, like the hand of God. It struck the side of our ship with such tremendous force that I was knocked clean out of my seat and was on the floor. The events that followed are somewhat of a blur to me, but I will make an honest attempt to transcribe them. After being hit with the wave, our boat capsized, drifting upside down in the waters for some time before the ocean swallowed the metal beast whole. I searched for any signs of the captain and the couple, but could not find anyone. After five minutes had elapsed, I saw something sprout up from the water like a gift sent from God. It was a raft. One of the emergency rafts had deployed less than one hundred feet away from me. After struggling for fifteen minutes to hoist myself up into the raft, I rolled over the edge and made it inside. Exhausted and with a concussion, I passed out. I came to the next day, to the worst headache I had ever gotten. I'd have taken waking up at five a.m. for school any day over waking up to the sun blurring directly into my face. Upon further examination, I recognized that there was not a speck of land to be found. On top of that, I was not alone. I was alone, but I suppose I hadn't always been. Sitting adjacent from me was the husband. His cold, lifeless body was hunched over. I checked for a pulse, but found none. I could tell from how cold to the touch he was that it was more than likely hypothermia that had done the poor bastard in. My best guess is that somewhere in between the time I passed out, he climbed on board. But by the time he had done so, his body temperature was far too low. Assuming that rescue was coming, I left his body with me. Everyone deserves a burial. The first week of my excursion into the vast wasteland of water was a blur to me. Boredom had certainly taken its toll within the first two days, and after which point, time began to become irrelevant to me. My raft did come equipped with a thin layer of deployable shade, a month worth of canned and dried food, and a 24 pack of clean distilled water. There wasn't a pen and paper with a raft, so if you were expecting a written testimony while I was lost at sea, I'm sorry, but none exist. The average human can only sleep so much. After a while, the mind simply refuses to shut itself off. Attempts to do so are met with harsh rejection toppled with splitting headaches. Top this with my current concussion, and I was thinking about suicide at an early point in the ordeal. I rationed out my meals so that I would only have one per day. This way, I could stretch it out to three months instead of one. Water was a different issue though. The human body is meant to carry more than one water bottle a day. I tried my best to ration out water, but I couldn't take any less than a bottle a day. I spent most of my days thinking of ways I could contact the outside world for help before passing out for a few hours. My schedule had become reversed to not be so active in the hot sun. I slept the days off as best I could and stayed active during the night. The ocean at night is breathtaking. The way the stars reflect off the surface of the ocean, like a rolling mirror, and cascaded in beautiful streaks makes me shed a tear even to this day. Wake up! I awoke in the middle of the night startled at having just heard a voice. At this point, it had been two weeks without hearing anyone's own voice but mine. Up here! I looked up to see someone squatting down staring at me. His face cloaked in darkness, but even he couldn't hide his malevolence from me. Tendrils clung to his face like facial hair, and his skin seemed to reflect the moonlight like scales. You're alone! The voice had mocking me. I looked behind him and saw two more figures in the raft killing the husband's dead, decaying corpse by the shoulders. As thanks for bringing us such a substantial meal. The other two things repeated what he said. For who are you? I have said in a daze. All three of them began to cackle. The two creatures then hopped the raft and took the corpse of the once-loving husband down to the trenches of the deep. The shadowy figure said before standing up, lifting his arms and falling backward off my raft into the ocean. Convinced that it had all been a dream, the next morning was spent trying to convince me that the corpse had just fallen off the raft somehow. The next three days I spent feeling as if I was being watched. I would periodically hear splashes nearby my raft. I tried to convince myself that they were just fish, but in my mind I knew that to be false. Over the years I've convinced myself that the next part of this story was a hallucination brought on by dehydration. In my heart though, I know this to be true. I awoke to the realization that I was marooned on an island. A rather small island, but a substantial one nonetheless. There were no coconut trees to be seen, but there were plenty of bugs. Say what you want, but protein is protein. After scavenging for two hours and after my stomach was filled with the remains of grasshoppers, beetles, and a caterpillar that I probably shouldn't have eaten, I came across a cave. The cave had carvings etched along the entrance with figures that appeared to be human carved in. All along the inside of the cave wall were etchings that appeared to depict an underwater city, a paradise that was twice the size of any city's built on the land. Among the underwater paradise were etched similar yet different looking stick-like figurines. The tentacles on their faces were clear as day. I made my way deeper into the cavern, only to begin to hear chanting. It sounded aramaic, and yet I had never heard such a language before. It was sharp and cut like a knife in my eardrums just to hear it, as if it were not meant for my ears. I rounded the corner only to quickly rush back to the safety of the adjacent wall out of eyesight. In the room were the things I had seen on my boat. There was no mistaking them. Their scaled skin and tentacle faces were a dead giveaway. As I tried to slow down my heart rate, I simultaneously inched my head closer to the edge of the wall to get a better look. There were six of them, forming a circle around what appeared to be the husband from the boat. His body was split in half at the waist and his eyes were missing. As the chanting continued, so too did the aroma of death and the atmosphere of dread within the cavern increase. I watched hypnotized for ten minutes until the husband's upper body began to rise. Just the top half slowly floated itself off the ground. The etchings which were carved into the wall began to pulsate red and the entire cavern fell silent. That's when one of the creatures turned around to look at me. I stood there frozen. The creature smiled at me. I couldn't see it under the thick mass of tentacles, but somehow I knew he was smiling. He pulled a thin scaled figure up to where a mouth should be and uttered a loud yet deafening. I ran. After tripping over myself and scraping my knee badly, I made it back to my raft and pushed myself off from the shore. I was rescued three days later when I had washed up on an island in the Philippines. They flew me back to the states where I was greeted by my family in the hospital. They showered me with love, affection and presence. Apparently they hadn't held a funeral for me because my old man refused to believe I was dead. After a month in the hospital recovering, I was back at my home with my family. I neglected to tell them the fate that had befallen my shipmate due to the fact that I'm not sure if it really happened. The whole thing feels like a dream now that I'm back on shore and have a clear mind. Then why tell you any of this you might ask? Two days ago, before I went to bed, I swore I could hear the chanting. Only this time I can understand what they're saying. Our time is now, time over and over again. Last night I heard it louder and more clearly than the last. We know more about space than we do of our own ocean and that scares me. If what they say is true, if they are real, then I fear for us all.