Story by Nimue in response to a photo by Sarah Snell-Pym

I found this, growing on the shore just a few days ago. It looked harmless enough, as small things often do. We’ve had more sun in recent days than is normal for the island, and I feel certain that the sun is to blame for what has happened. It isn’t natural to have so much direct light, there were bound to be consequences.

The thing on the beach is bigger now than my image suggests, it grows folding darkness into strange inner contours. The more it grows, the bigger the darkness within it becomes. Each day it is larger than before and the darkness lies deeper within it. I feel compelled to stare into those black recesses, although what I am looking for, I do not know.

They say that if you gaze into the void for long enough, it may stare back. We’ve all tried it at some time or another, courting terror and madness because we have to know, just this once, if the void will see us. I cannot explain this need to be seen by the unspeakable, to have that which is most awful gaze back, but I feel the lure of it. I’m sure you do too.

Compelled to witness the growth of this horror, I will go back. I will bear the uncanny feeling of sun upon my wrinkled skin, and no matter how my tentacles ache with horror, I will make myself gaze once more into those dark places. All my eyes are turned towards the void.