A small cove, lit only by moonlight. Often a good place for line fishing, but tonight the seas shudder with awful sound, and the fisherfolk huddle amongst the rocks, hoping that the danger will pass before morning.

At first, the raucous trumpeting, echoing between the rocks. A shuddering, making the sea itself tremble, the waves choppy and erratic. A dire rasping, as though rusty metal objects were drawn across each other’s surfaces, setting every nerve ending into spasms of discomfort.

A violent honking, angrier than geese. Screaming geese would be a welcome distraction just now for they at least are a familiar kind of threat.

The sea throws cold wetness over the huddling folk amongst the rocks. Their wiping fingers find it is not water, but something sticky and insidious that clings to their skin.

All night long the sea itself seems to hack and hiss, until the anxious light of a new day creeps in to bring strange insights.

In the centre of the cove lies a large form, grey in the faint light. It thrashes from time to time, and hideous sounds emerge from between its gaping lips. Not just sounds, but flurries of spittle and revolting, slimy nuggets that are taken by the tide. It is a sea monster, and it is dying.

This is a rare sight; leviathans such as this one spend their lives beneath the waves, and only come into the shallows in the final days. Here, they cough up their offspring from the depths of their massive bodies. Each greasy lump is in truth an egg, that will float away to begin a new life. Only in death do they reproduce, and the awful night sounds are life and death entwined as the old sea monster passes and new ones are born through the same unpleasant process.

There is nothing to do but leave the monster to the crows. In time, the bones may be worth salvaging.

(With thanks to Steven C Davis for the prompt. What he actually suggested was that I should record the noises I’ve been making whilst ill, but I thought it would be less disturbing all round if I just tried to describe what the last ten days have been like. I appear not to have drowned, but have unleashed a massive swarm of unholy snot-offspring into the world.)