I fought my way up the sandy slope, trying desperately to keep my companion in view. Above the dune’s crest, I perceived a dull glow of light the colour of which was a strange and unsettling shade of violet. Some force, unknown and ancient, called to me; I felt a rising of dull panic in my stomach. My companion, without so much as a momentary hesitation, crested the dune and disappeared from view; I knew at that moment that I would not see him again. Drawn further up the slope by impulses not quite my own, I scrambled breathlessly up the shifting sands before reaching a point where I could see, inch by painful inch, over the dune’s peak and onto the plateau below.
What I saw there, dear reader, submits itself not to description – not in any language known to man. From the centre of the thing, gelatinous tentacles splayed out in an untraceable knot of translucent flesh; they were coated in sand, as if the creature had been thrashing the very ground beneath it with furious wrath. In the centre of the writhing mass – God preserve me! – was a loathsome and glistening mound, composed of a material I knew not. It seemed at once living and not living – I fancied it was pulsing gently, but my own palpitations may have overwhelmed my perception. Step by horrified step, I retreated back down the dune, my mind fighting the sensation of numbing horror that now beset me. What manner of thing was that – from whence had it sprung and with what intention? As these and more questions clamoured in my mind, I became aware that I would carry the horror of what I had seen with me from that day forth.
It was the best trip to the beach ever and that’s what I did on my holidays.
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