The Whispered Sail, a small ship once belonging to a group of friends who often went fishing together. One day, the ship came back, but the friends didn’t. No one was brave enough to touch the ship left on the beach, until Flora came along. She has reason to believe that the ship holds more secrets than one may expect, and it may shine some light on the group’s disappearance.
As Flora explores the ship, her stomach growls. She was so eager to get on, she had forgotten to eat. As her stomach growls, however, the walls around her also moan and groan. Eventually, when her stomach gives one final grumble, the walls split and burst, food pouring out. Flora examines it, expecting to see all sorts of fish. It is a fishing boat, after all. But instead of fish, it is some type of raw, ground meat.
It may be best not to touch this.
Not a moment after the food was released, all of the walls fall away, debris flying about her. Suddenly, though she was on a beach moments before, she is now on a raft in the middle of the ocean. She walks to the edge, checking to see if the sea water is truly real. As she looks, she gasps at her reflection.
The ground meat that was exposed before now seems to be impersonating her in the water. It’s eyes and mouth move when she moves them. When she steps away, it moves back as well.
As Flora is trying to think of how this can be possible, the raft opens up and she falls through, her stomach lurching as she seems to collapse into the abyss. As she looks down, she does see an end quickly approaching: a bed of bones and rotten meat. She collapses, shouting in pain and disgust as bones poke into her and the foul smell intrudes her nostrils.
She stands up, dusting the meat off her dress as she examines her surroundings. While doing so, a groan sounds from the floor and Flora half wonders if it’s going to fall in again. But instead, it molds itself, turning a part of itself into a small object—a carving knife. It is released from the rest of the floor and clatters, making a hollow sound. Flora picks up the knife, expecting it to be wooden, but no. Instead, it is like a true carving knife, made of steel, sharp enough to cut through the toughest meat.
Flora looks to the floor, remembering its hollow sound. Should she carve through that?
She beats the knife through the floor, breaking the wood about. A pungent smell, worse than what’s already here, breaks through. More meat, surely.
Flora has a feeling she knows what happened to those friends. But now she has to find out why.
She jumps through the hole.
She lands into what seems to be a small kitchen. A wood burning stove glows red, then white, until it finally completely melts away. Flora has to shield herself from the heat that washes over her. But she creeps closer, as the inside is now revealed, the grate exposed. On it sits a half-burned object, something someone had wanted to be rid of. As the heat finally fades away and Flora can get a better look, she recognizes what it is—
A head.
Particularly one belonging to one of the missing friends.
Or perhaps she should say murdered friends.
Skittering. Flora looks up and sees bugs, beetles, spiders, flooding from the corners. They surround her, but they don’t seem to be paying attention to her. No, instead, they seem to be setting…a stage of sorts. Yes, they even have little stage props made from wood chips and debris. Four bugs come on stage: an ant, a spider, a beetle, and a dust mite. They play out a scene where they’re fishing and having a good time. But as time goes on, it seems that the beetle falls further and further away from the group. The other bugs chitter and the beetle seems uncomfortable, but Flora can’t decipher what they could be talking about.
Finally, the beetle has an argument with the other bugs. The other bugs try to calm it, but the beetle fights and stabs them. It stabs and stabs them before cooking and eating them.
Then it takes it’s knife.
Carves its own flesh.
And eats it.
Until there aren’t any bugs left.
The bug audience applause and skitter away.
Flora examines her knife. If it wasn’t evidence, she’d toss it aside. No one would want to hold it now.
The windows on the walls frown and squint, focusing the sunlight into one area, where the stage was. It burns it up into a crisp, finally leaving no evidence. Flora watches it with curiosity, almost tutting at the bugs who left. Always wait for the after credits scene.
The ceiling opens and water collapses in, covering Flora. She gasps as she starts to swim, watching as a table floats in. She swims toward it and rests on it, not being the best of swimmers. A creature swims by: finally, a fish. But this fish seems to be the most human thing she’s seen so far on the boat. It looks at her, sadness and understanding in its eyes. It puts something on the table: a jar, with several fish corpses. They don’t at all seem to be eaten or rotted. In fact, they seem to be experimented on, some fish even looking like they were burned with acid. As Flora looks closer, she realizes that many of the fish are actually still alive.
The fish nods and swims away.
The water drains away and Flora surfs the table to another room where a figure sits in a chair. It’s made of ground meat, similar to what Flora had seen in her reflection earlier. But she knows now that it wasn’t her reflection—it was the victim.
“I don’t remember what happened,” they say, their voice garbled with meat and blood. “Why did it happen? Why was this been done to me? Was it my fault?”
Flora looks over her notes and shakes her head.
“It seems like you and your friends were fishing; you enjoyed it. But one of them used the fish for odd experiments, many that you and the others thought was immoral. You alienated them, not outright saying you wanted to stop being friends; perhaps you weren’t certain yourself that you wanted to stop the relationship. But it was clear that there was discomfort. That friend became broken-hearted and started a fight with all of you. You tried to calm them down, but they were already sensitive, their senses out of balance, and they fought back instead, killing all of you. Afterwards, I think that friend may have lost their mind, on a boat in the ocean with nothing but corpses. They ate you, and when that was all gone, they ate themself. The oven was left on when they finally died, starting a fire on the boat that got rid of all evidence. Eventually, a storm came, put the fire out, and sent the boat ashore, with everyone thinking you had just gone missing.”
The grounded meat is silent, thinking, before stating, “I did that, huh?”
Flora raises an eyebrow. “Ah, so you’re the killer. Though, I suppose you are also a victim of your own crime.”
The meat nods. “I suppose I deserved it.”
“I think you all could have benefited from a little more communication,” Flora says. “But now that we know the story and can put it out there, you can all have a little peace.”
The meat nods once more before it collapses with a splat out of the chair.
The walls creak and a door appears. Flora steps out of it and she’s back on the beach, The Whispered Sail creaking in the gentle breeze.
Her stomach growls. Perhaps she’ll have a salad.
Happy Halloween! This one I wrote quite a bit ago. It was actually created by playing a solo roleplaying game I found on itch.io, made specifically as a investigative horror game. You can check it out here!