Prologue

  NO REFUND

  ALL SALES ARE FINAL

  I glanced up from my phone, letting out an anxious sigh. I wasn't quite sure what I expected when I pulled up the fine print on the digital tickets again. And that would be if fine print was defined as very large bold letters in all caps directly below the main ticket information.

  Although I was not sure how long my face had been contorted that way, I realized that one of the corners of my mouth had tensed downward in an awkward frown. Surely there had to be some sort of "unless your fiancée cheats on you with your best friend and leaves you the day before the cruise" clause. If this were dialogue anywhere except my head, I'd kick myself for the blatant exposition. Sadly, not only was this situation very real, but I only had two choices:

  1) Eat the three months of salary I spent on this stupid couple's cruise.

  or

  2) Go by myself, and ignore any effects this might have on my crippling social anxiety.

  I mean, really, how could surrounding yourself on a ship full of happy couples and couple-specific activities while dealing with the combination of betrayal and abandonment possibly trigger one's social anxieties.

  At the very least, if I decided things were just too much, it would take the crew and passengers quite some time to realize I'd thrown myself to the sharks.

  Did the New England area have sharks? Are sharks more of a tropical thing? Wait, there's that movie Jaws where the shark is in a New England setting. Or was I just remembering things wrong? And even if I was right, who's to say the writers even did their research. That's silly, obviously a writer would thoroughly research any topic they'd devote an entire project to.

  Was this even New England? I'd heard the term plenty of times before but what really qualified as New England. Would it be better if I called this area North East Atlantic Coastal United States? No, that just sounded awful. I decided to stick with New England even if it was incorrect.

  So there I stood, awkwardly shifting my weight from one foot to the other as I stared at the cruise ship. It was big, like really big, but not too big. I'd describe it as smaller than average cruise ship size. And if anything I would say it looked very much like a cruise ship.

  Ok, confession time... This was my first cruise, and not only did I have no clue what to expect, but I'd always been criticized for my horrible ability to describe things on the spot. In fact, it was the sole reason (and don't you dare suggest there would possibly be other reasons) why the only table top campaign I tried to run with my friends resulted in it getting shut down two weeks in. Nobody cared that I'd created a binder with a few hundred pages of lore, or that I went out of my way to design custom maps and paint figures for every party member. No, let's just all throw away my well thought out campaign and have my former best friend be GM again. Let's just give him everything. Why not throw in my fiancée while we're at it. Then they can run off right before the couple's cruise that her and I had been planning to go on for nearly a year. A cruise that has a ship that can only be described as cruise shipish.

  Sorry about that, I had a habit of rambling a bit but I eventually got back to the point.

  And that point was... I was doing my best to stall from getting on this ship.

  Three months' salary.

  Three months' salary.

  Three mo... Technically four months if you factor in taxes.

  Four mon... No, because health insurance should be factored in...

  Four months and roughly eight days worth of salary... Give or take.

  Damnit! Focus. One foot in front of the other.

  Thwack! ... or maybe Thud! ... No, Thwack was probably better.

  I was suddenly brought back to reality via a suitcase smacking me in the back of my head. This particular suitcase belonged to some giant alpha male looking guy with a man-bun. He turned around to glare at me as if I was somehow the one at fault.

  "Get out of the way short stuff, other people are trying to get on this ship. And where's your boyfriend? Are you really going on a couple's cruise alone? What a loser."

  Ignoring the gay joke that already told me almost everything I needed to know about the guy, I masterfully hit him with my best comeback. "I'm not short, I'm five eleven and a half!" Nailed it!

  The giant was completely humiliated and made his way onto the ship with his tail between his legs. If anyone says anything otherwise, I'll promptly ignore it. There was definitely not a back and forth scenario that ended way too similarly to some of my least favorite middle school memories.

  So, I adjusted my underwear that had somehow managed to get wedged in very painful places, climbed out of a pile of nearby trash bags that I had chosen of my own free will to lay in, and finally decided to board the ship.

  Once on board, I quickly located my room and laid on the bed.

  That was how I spent the first two days of my fantastic couple's cruise on The Love Craft.

  Oh yeah, I haven't really talked about how this whole couple's cruise is based around Lovecraftian lore. Luckily it's just the scary monsters and not all the wildly problematic stuff that some fans like to sweep under the rug.

  But my fiancée had been a huge fan of Lovecraft's works, so I thought this was a perfect anniversary present... She thought cheating on me with my best friend was a perfect present for me. I think I spent more time on my gift idea than her. Although hers was significantly more impactful in letting me know how she though of our relationship.

  Don't get me wrong, I know enough about all the cosmic horror stuff. Like I'm aware of Cthulhu and all the other fun cast of characters. Am I into that stuff enough to warrant going on a themed couple's cruise by myself over it? Probably not.

  I did see one event out of the entire cruise that caught my eye. It was simply titled "TTRPG Night". A chance to play a table top role play game with couples of random strangers... And without a certain disloyal best friend as the GM? Count me in!

  Before reentering the world of the extroverts, I got cleaned up and put on my nerdiest of all shirts... Some graphic tee that equated my life to being a critical failure. I slid my room-service plates outside of the door and made my way onto the deck where the event was supposed to take place. I wasn't sure if they had a contingency plan if it rained, but I'll admit it was a pretty cool atmosphere for role playing.

  On the deck there were at least twenty tables spread out. There were more, but honestly what's the point of counting all of them? Anyway, off to the side was a table to get nametags kind of like at a high school reunion if people still did those things. You know, those little white and red stickers that say "Hi, my name is..." and then you or someone writes your name there. I noticed my favorite homophobic giant standing near one of the tables with his nametag clearly reading "Dick C Rect" which I'll at least give some points for creativity unless his parents had the sense of humor of a twelve-year-old.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Figuring it'd be awkward to sit at a table and have to constantly reintroduce myself, I decided to head over to the name-tag table. Oddly enough there was a staff member filling out the name tags for us, so that made me question if this staff member just didn't care, or if he really thought Man-Bun's name was Dick C Rect. I watched the staff member for a few minutes after I'd received the tag with my name just to see which of my options was correct.

  With my feet firmly planted on the ground, and my eyes fixed on the staff member, I became more and more aware of countless eyes watching me. The white noise created by the overlapping conversation of other passengers suddenly became an entire opera focused entirely on my own shortcomings. Nobody wanted me here. Why did I even leave my room? They were all just going to make fun of the weird freak on the couple's cruise who didn't even have the only qualifier for the titular couple part of the couple's cruise.

  And the staff member. Was he quietly judging me? He's no different from the rest of them. Just standing there all smug, he was probably taking notes so he could tell his other staff member friends about the creepy wallflower in the middle of a couple's cruise who could only make himself go out in public to play TTRPGs like a complete nerd. He probably wished he never even took this job because it meant he'd have to deal with someone like me. What's stopping me from just jumping overboard right here and saving everyone the trouble? Would that make his job less miserable?

  "He really hates his job."

  Almost as if reading my mind, a woman's voice behind me answered my question. I turned to face the source of the voice the blonde-haired goddess who the voice belonged to. Her bangs covered one of her hazel eyes, making me wonder how much that effected her depth perception. There were other features about her, but to be honest, I was distracted by the whole "depth-perception" thing to really pay attention to anything else. I'm not sure how long the silence actually was before I she broke it.

  She was leaning forward, looking at my nametag. "So, if your name is some sort of pun, I don't really get the joke. I'm assuming you gave your real name?"

  "Yeah. I'm nowhere near as clever as Mr. Rect over there. I really hope I'm at his table when we get started." She was obviously much smarter than Man-Bun because she took that opportunity to laugh at Man-Bun instead of with him. For a moment, it appeared as if she was the only other person on the entire ship. Her entrancing smile paired with the fluttering of her sunflower print sun dress in the evening breeze caused my mind to climb off the ledge it had been teetering on. Suddenly realizing I had become lost in thought, I looked at her name tag. "Jone Roy?"

  She responded with a sigh, "The spelling's off, but he got the gist of it. And it's really not worth correcting him. These nametags are expensive after all."

  "It's where all our money went. Everything else was cheap, but they sprung for the good AA Meeting nametags." We both laughed. Joan (obviously the correct spelling of her name) laughed either out of politeness, awkwardness, or genuine interest. I laughed because my social anxiety randomly selected that as the least awkward option.

  "Unless I'm mistaken, we're the only two people on this entire ship who aren't adhering to the 'couples' part of this cruise. So do you have a fun story, or do you just really love being the ultimate third wheel?"

  I was surprised by her observation. Not just because she automatically assumed (correctly) that I was alone, but also because she volunteered the same information about herself.

  "If you could read my thoughts, you'd be sick and tired of hearing about it. Let's just leave it at that. Maybe I'll work it into my character when they eventually start the role playing we came here to do." I did my best job of politely answering her without actually providing any actual information. "How about you? Any fun anecdotes?"

  She responded with a sigh followed by a pause that fell somewhere between awkward and pregnant before she finally said anything. "Let's just say the guys I date always turn out to be crazy."

  "Calling the cops at 2am crazy, or medicated adult bouncy-house crazy?"

  She didn't respond.

  "For what it's worth, Joan, you are a literal life saver. This is my first time out of the room, and if this didn't go well I was highly considering trying to find out if there are any sharks native to this area of the Atlantic." I added a nervous laugh, although I wasn't sure if it did enough to mask the awkward seriousness of my statement.

  "I was going to say you were a little liberal on your use of literal, but you stuck the landing by really killing the mood. Well done." This time she genuinely laughs. I guess she likes dark humor. "So Mr. Sharkbait... Spoilers, but there are sharks in this area. Haven't you seen Jaws?.. Also, because you need a small-talk life line, I'll ask what you do for a living."

  "I'm in the fast paced world of insurance adjusting. You can imagine how I'm the life of the party when I start talking shop." I grimaced, always hating that question because it was never the fun answer anyone wanted when they asked about your career. Personally, I liked my work. It required me to do a lot of investigative work regarding customer's claims, and I was able to do it from home. I just make sure to never tell anyone that I like it. "I'm really hoping your career is as exciting as mine."

  She shifted her gaze away from me, as she realized she set herself up for the obvious follow-up. "You could say I'm a struggling playwright."

  "As in a person who writes plays? Like for the theater? They still have those?"

  "Like I said, I'm struggling."

  "Have you written anything I'd have seen or heard of?"

  Joan seemed to take a moment to figure out how to respond. "I can confidently say based on our conversation you haven't even heard of my work. I doubt you've even stepped into a theater."

  I put up my hands in surrender. "You got me. Although I probably gave it away when I didn't even know if theaters were still a thing."

  Something was wrong.

  "I mean you're not the hardest person to read." Joan teased.

  Something was wrong.

  "Hey... Joan?"

  Something was wrong. Something was wrong. Something was wrong.

  Joan looked at me with a mix of concern and confusion. It struck me as odd, not just because she has had such a carefree demeanor so far in our conversation, but because she clearly didn't feel what I was feeling.

  I looked around at the rest of the people on the deck. At some time during our conversation, the entire deck had filled with passengers. I had gotten used to the white noise of countless background conversations filling the air, but at some point they all devolved into silence. It felt like if you're in the middle of telling the best dark joke while you're waiting for a funeral service to start and while you're distracted the priest tells everyone to be silent so they can start... And your super dark punchline echoes through the funeral home the moment after everyone stops talking.

  The point I'm making is, it was really eerily quiet out there, and I'm not really sure how long Joan and I had been talking after everyone else had stopped.

  It was really cold too. Like cold enough to see your breath. Maybe it's normal to get cold out at sea, but since it was still August, it was a safe bet to assume that this was abnormal.

  I admitted earlier that I'm no expert on cruises, but the entire ship was rocking back and forth like you'd imagine a rubber raft would. I'd been locked away in my room for the entire trip so far, but this felt different.

  I blinked and everything was back to normal. Man-Bun was telling some sort of joke that would get him reported to HR if this was an office, the temperature felt more like what you'd expect in August, and the ship wasn't rocking at all in the waves.

  Joan looked at me as if she was afraid to say something. She'd already told me all her boyfriends turned out to be crazy. Did she think I was crazy? I'm sure I looked crazy from the beginning. But now I felt like I looked like a different kind of crazy.

  Run!

  "Joan, we need to..."

  I didn't get the chance to finish my sentence before a creature the size of a mountain rose from the ocean next to the ship. And I don't mean like casually rising like those Pillsbury Dough Boy biscuits, I mean instantly rising like... Something that rises really really fast. You know I don't have time to come up with clever metaphors, there's a goddamned giant creature about to destroy the ship.

  "Cthulhu!" Was the general consensus of the screaming passengers. Looking at the creature, I would be inclined to agree, however we are on a Lovecraft themed cruise, so I would also argue that they have a bias.

  All I could do is look at Joan and say, "What the Hell is that thing! It's indescribable! I mean to start off, just the shape of it looks like a..."

  "Look out!"

  I was cut off by more than a couple passengers responding to a very large tentacle thing looking like it's about to perform that one scene from Karate Kid Part 2. You know the one. Where Daniel-san punches all that ice. Except now that I think about it, did he chop downward or across for that scene. Because this tentacle is coming downward, so...

  At some point, the entire ship broke in two directly in the middle of the deck. The tentacle's impact with the deck reacted more like an explosion than that ice breaking scene from Karate Kid Part 2... You know, that definitely was a horizontal chop in the movie, not vertical. How could I possibly forget that?

  Also, my feet were no longer on the deck and I wasn't sure in all the chaos if I was flying upward or falling downward into the debris-infected water between the two halves of the newly chopped ship. While midair, I searched for Joan, but she was nowhere to be found. Hopefully she'd been smart enough not to be distracted by movie references from the 1980's. Wait, was Karate Kid Part 2 from the 80's or was it early 90's? The first one came out in 84 or 85, so it would make sense that...

  SPLASH!

  I felt the pull from all around me, an undertow making it impossible for me to climb to the surface of the water. I could hear people screaming nearby, but the entire sea was black. It was even blacker than it should have been, as if there was no sky above to produce light.

  As I fought against the undertow, I remembered a bit of trivia I'd heard. When the last massive piece of the Titanic went under, the people who were nearby were sucked underwater with it. Supposedly almost all of them drowned from the undertow, I think it's undertow I don't really have a dictionary available at the moment.

  Am I going to die because of undertow? How long have I already been under?

  The events leading up to the cruise flickered through my head. My attempt at showing my love for a fiancée that I didn't realized harbored feelings for another by purchasing super expensive tickets to a Lovecraft-themed couples cruise. My trust in a best friend who might have only ever associated with me in order to steal away the woman I loved. Through it all, I had bottled up so much hate.

  And when it came down to it all... Kyle... Stacy... That's who I hated the most. I would never forgive them until the day I died. Which seemingly happened to be much closer than I had hoped. I wouldn't have to think anymore about killing the focus of my hate, those dark thoughts would get a chance to rest permanently.

  My lungs were screaming for oxygen, and soon I would lose consciousness. I knew exactly how I was going to die, fighting against the current without anything solid keeping me from my salvation.

  That was when a giant tentacle reached up from the depths, gripped my ankle, and dragged me into the abyss.

  ___

  Everything was dark. I no longer felt the tug of the tentacle, or the current pulling me under, or even the feeling of the water on my skin.

  My mind was blank except for one single thought.

  Joan.