The small sailing craft strained against the sea beneath my punishing demands, pressed onward by the typhoon winds and my callused hands. Several hundred yards back and several dozen yards beneath the surface, moving with enough mass and momentum to alter the ocean's currents, slithered the infinite force behind my mortal fear.

Whilst climbing up a towering wall of black water I chanced a look astern, but saw only the rolling blackness of belligerent waves and turbulent skies.

Upon reaching the swell's peak, I became momentarily airborne before the ship's bow fell. My stomach lurched with vertigo and time slowed as the bow continued to descend, downward, further and further down into that cavernous mouth between the swells. I pressed myself tight against the steering column, squeezing so tight I'm sure the wood cut grooves into my arms. The instant I felt I could be no more secure the ship proved me wrong by plunging into that dark maw. A surge of deathly frigid ocean tore my feet from the deck and loosed my grip.

I rolled and tumbled, smashing my shoulder against the cabin door, and it was then I realized this pleasure craft could easily become the bludgeon to end my life.

I held on only by my fingernails, contemplating my demise, when the ship resurfaced long enough for me to secure my grasp of the wheel and that blessed column upon which it was fastened.

With a burst of thunder the rain and lightning fell, smearing the surreal landscape into one of a hellishly fantastic dream. However, my fear of the lightning and churning ocean depths were salvation compared to my fear of what undoubtedly swam beneath my feeble ship.

I climbed atop another swell and managed to remain there momentarily before what would be another maddeningly precarious descent, followed by the waves tearing at another portion of my life. I continued this routine for what felt like unreal eternities, growing weaker upon each descent, hunger abated by numbness.

I continuously looked astern for anything that would confirm my pursuer still existed. I thought several times that this was just it tormenting me, that I was no more than a fish caught on an unbreakable line. I saw nothing but the swirling darkness, and it wasn't until I had begun to doubt my sanity when fortune bestowed itself upon me.

A surge of overwhelming ecstasy filled my body. Could death truly have come to relieve me of this unholy pursuit? I grasped the steering column tight and opened my sore eyes and I saw light! A growing orb of purest light upon the horizon, illuminating the inky waves and charcoal sky. Sunrise? Had I truly survived the night?

Gaining enough strength from the sun's warmth I stood up, despite the wind's ravenous attempts to strike me down. From the new morning's light I could see the swells were smaller than they had been during sunset, perhaps it was due to my fatigue that they felt large as those of the storm.

Behind me the roiling black horizon emanated a malevolence I would not soon forget, however my joy became short lived, as there loomed something large halfway between my ship and the horizon. At first I thought it to be a wave, but in all my years at sea I have never seen a wave move skyward so.

The rising sun failed to penetrate more than the faintest of features as the black column continued its lunge into the air. My chest cavity shook from a roaring of which I could not hear. My knees gave out and I fell to the deck.

The sinuous creature slithered across the sky, slowly opening its massive mouth, savouring it's time. It moved so close to me that its twisted parody of a grin burned into my mind. I could feel the heavy hopelessness surrounding it, and I could smell the eons of rotting decay upon its noxious black breath.

I fought to regain my footing, no longer combating the waves but my own fears instead. My knees violently trembled, suddenly overburdened by my weight. Nonetheless, I stood, meeting its fierce gaze with my own.

It was then in that instant, with a shot of courage and eight pints of fear, that I faced that demon of oblivion.