Germany - 2023

The cave is silent except for the sounds of our boots thudding along the rock and mud. All of us are astounded at what we are seeing, almost perfect cave paintings that no one has seen in what must have been thousands of years. They seem to show the story of some sort of monster that terrorised the waters around them. Some sort of kraken-like creature like the ones told of in Norse mythology. As we follow the paintings along, they change to show something different, they now seem to be worshipping the sea creature.

“Doesn’t this seem quite… unusual? I haven’t seen anything like these cave paintings before.”

My companion for this trip, long-time friend and expert archaeologist Rakhi Brown Binford or R.B Binford for short, turns around and steps closer to me. “I have seen similar paintings before… or at least paintings of a similar kraken-like creature. They can be seen around the world.. however, most of them have been destroyed or locked away... the world leaders are hiding something.” He spoke in a hushed voice. Once he had finished talking he continued walking again, examining the painting.

As we explore, I continuously take pictures and notes of every detail I can, if what Rakhi has told me is true it’s unlikely, we will be able to get back here again. At least get back here easily.

----- Month later -----

I have looked through every image and record I can find of similar paintings and accounts. There are older and newer records of similar things, a sea creature that terrorises some and helps others, other times both to the same people. To the ones it helped they seem to have worshipped it. The records go back thousands of years but are also as recent as the sixteenth century. Just who or what is this sea creature?

----30,000 years ago----

“We are lost! You got us lost in the most dangerous ocean there is!” The man steering the boat stands up angrily and approaches me.

“You doubt my skills and knowledge! I have spent more time at sea than all of you combined!” I stand up and stare unblinking directly at him.

“Where are we then? I don’t see any land nearby. We were supposed to be there by now. We are four days late.” The man falters slightly before turning around and going back to the stern. “If we turn around now we should be able to get back safely although we will be back to where we started… its better than something eating us.” As I sit down again there is a loud scream from the front of the boat.

Running towards the scream I see a woman pointing towards the water. As I approach she tries to speak eventually managing to form a stuttered sentence. “Th- there’s so-something in the w- water”.

“What do you mean? It could have been anything, just a large fish.” I try to calm her down but it seems not to work. She crawls backwards still looking terrified.

“N-no it was bigger than any fish, it looked human… but also not.”

What does that mean? Human but not human? Wait she must mean a mermaid… but why is a mermaid this far out in notoriously dangerous waters where the biggest known sea monsters live? I rush back to the helmsman. “We need to get out of here! There's something dangerous in the water!” he looks towards me for a few seconds and then looks away. Is he ignoring me? I rush up to him and try to take over control but I’m too late.

The boat suddenly rocks side to side violently with large tentacles emerging over the sides. “Everyone arm yourselves and keep calm!” I shout as I run to grab my spear. Once everyone had got there we went to the middle of the boat and all stood back to back spears pointed in all directions. We all wait in silence as the rocking stops, for what feels like an eternity we wait.

Eventually, the head of a young girl looms over the side of the boat, her long blue hair flowing over the boat as she raises herself above us. She must be taller than our highest buildings. She looks young, probably about eight in human years but for all I know she could be decades or centuries old. She looks down at us curiously like she has never seen humans before. With a playful smile, her voice booms out around us “Hello! Do you want to play?”