Depth Charge - illuminations

Chapter 5

"Uh, Bill, what's that?" Veronica pointed to the edge of the platform as a pair of bulging eyes; the outer part being pitch black and the inner part pearl white, stared at them. Bill just sat with his mouth wide open, unable to respond as the creature climbed onto the platform revealing its hideous form. Looking like a prehistoric fish that had morphed with skeletor, it had a large horn on its head and multiple rows of nasty barb like spiked teeth. Selena shrieked at the fearsome site. Amidst the constant humming column, a cacophony of scurrying and whirring noises signalled around them. Tentacles and more fanged creatures began climbing onto the platform, inside the pulsing light column.  

Twenty four jelly like beings flopped onto the deck. As they moved closely towards them, Bill could see the pulsating reflections of neon transparent lights along their elongated spheres. The colors were like a rainbow's, and it rippled in pulsing harmony along the jelly globe spheres. Getting closer, they positioned themselves evenly around Bill, Selena and Veronica; forming a perfect circle. Remaining stationary, their pulsing lights continued. All the other strange creatures behind them ceased moving too. Selena, though scared out of her wits, was captivated by the pulsing rainbow lights.

Bill slowly started to rise to his feet, carefully holding the extinguisher within his jacket. A Sharp hissing noise emitted from the fanged beasts, along with shrieking noises from the surrounding waters. As two large tentacles came towards Bill, he thought it prudent to sit down again, waiting for a better moment to strike. He hoped to hold them off till a rescue arrived. A thought crossed his mind as to whether or not these creatures actually had intelligence within them. Surely not?

Veronica's composure began to crumble as water began to bubble at the sides of the platform, causing the water to react as it would if a drain; or bucket was overflowing. Three large objects began to emerge out of the water with a low vibrating sound. With the pulsing rainbow lights directly in front of them on the jelly beings, it was hard to make out the appearance of the new creatures emerging from the waters. Stepping out from the water onto the platform, they seemed to be around a metre tall. Along with the continuous low vibrating noise they unfurled themselves to about 2.5 metres tall. Selena buried her face into Bill's chest as he wrapped his arms around her firmly.

A head became visible on the three large creatures. With a shape resembling a turtle head, it had two large eyes like pearls. It's long, almost skeletal form was highlighted by bright blue lights connected with streams of pulsating whites, occasionally intersected with cross sections of green. The three creatures opened their mouths in unison with a deafening shrieking sound. The sets of pointed teeth made their mouths look like vipers as thick jelly like saliva dripped between the teeth. The pairs of pearl eyes changed to electric neon blue.

As the creatures stood still, a white mist came out from their mouths as they breathed. Bill was about to say something when he heard a low guttural noise from one of the standing creatures. It was speaking!

"Yourrrr time has come...."

Bill and Veronica sat still like stunned mullets as Selena slowly turned her face to see the encounter.

The creature repeated itself with a hissing noise, "Yourrr time has come. Earth has served its purpossssse."

Bill decided to ask the obvious question, stuttering "Wh- wha - what are you?"

The creature gasped in what seemed to be laughter before responding, "Whyyy do you humansss always asssk that? Long before humans inhabited earthhhhh, we came here."

Bill spoke up again, "How do you speak our language? Are you-are you aliens?"

The large creature moved its toothed mouth together to form a sort of smile before speaking again. "You have seen ussss many timessss, thinking we were docile creatures of the deep." The saliva continued to drip from the creatures fangs as it spoke. "Yessss, we are what you call alienssss, though you seem more alien to usssss. You creaturesss have no idea about this world."