The Martian and The Eel

(The Vitoria Probe uncovered the following journal excerpts in the Martian volcano Arsia Mons. The translation department worked tirelessly on keeping the original document pure, yet a few liberties were taken to assist with form and public comprehension.

The Martian's journal details events aboard a ship named Radiant that once sailed a massive alien ocean—we theorize Radiant was a merchant vessel or a trader ship. The document's writer is equivalent to a twelve-year-old Earth child, and if anything is to be learned from the writings, intelligent life separate from our own is possible and is more closely related to ourselves than ever imagined.)

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Journal Entry - 4010.19.10

Below us, the black water is still. It's unfathomably deep and encircled by a crescent moon isle. Uncle calls it “a deep-water lagoon." All I know is it's as reflective as crystal glass. A fat yellow moon seems to hang in the water, and the reflection sometimes doubles in the blackness. It reminds me of hollowed eyes.

Our ship is in tatters.

A squall surprised us, took two men with it, and rolled us. They shouted in chaos, but their words drowned in the whip-crack of the wind. Wood creaked. The waves crested us from all sides, and, when the foremast broke, everything seemed lost. Then the main snapped in two and came crashing to the deck. Its heavy beam crushed the captain's leg. He just kept screaming…

The Radiant floated for days until they found the crescent-moon isle and its deep underwater cavern.

"We're all to perish here, cursed, cursed," the captain cried as we drifted into the lagoon.

The men whispered of blood poisoning; Uncle said, "Infection."

Either way, the captain died. And over the ship's rail, the men tossed his body, and the black lagoon swallowed it whole.

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Journal Entry - 4010.23.10

Uncle found me journaling again.

 "Keep your head down," Uncle says. " We've been here for who knows how long—don't let the boys give you a second thought." He bent down to me and lowered his voice to a whisper. "Be wary; it's a bad time for secrets."

Now, I've to sneak about to keep up my writing.

There is a secret place to keep my supplies at the quarterdeck, tucked in a lifeboat under one of the spare oars, but my skin chills back here as that large yellow moon eye watches me reflected in the water far below.

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Journal entry - 4010.26.10

A fight broke out in the galley. Royer, who always smells desperate for a bath, started the row over rations. He's a big one and stronger than most. His presence frightens me; I've caught him looking at me when I clean the deck or when helping Uncle. He knows I'm the cabin boy, but his look has a strange thirst.

Uncle's been keeping me close and out of the way, but at night, I sneak out to practice writing, remember Mother, and watch the moon.

Hunger pangs growl at endless hours, and the rations are cut low. Others complain. Uncle says, "Do the job that needs doing. Food comes when it comes." But when he says that to Royer, the sailor shakes, and his shade turns red. Royer puts his rations on the galley table and launches himself into violence at Uncle.

The galley turned into an uproar, and they were all bigger than me. As the men clicked and whistled at one another, they circled around my uncle and Royer.

Brawls have been expected lately; the men are shaken to their wits end, but I've gotten rather good at avoiding them. I snaked between the ruckus and slid out—I am spry when the occasion calls for it.

Royer flew out the galley, thrown so hard he thunked against the wall, but he saw me—a bit of blood trailing down onto his yellowed teeth.

"Cabin boy," Royer said, "you know you smell like a woman."

His words were ice, and I froze. He clicked his mouth together and slowly reached out a long-fingered hand.

My uncle yanked Royer up and taught him the meaning of the row.

But those words rattle my ribs—"You know you smell like a woman."

I wish Mother could help me now.

Can men smell a woman?

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Journal- 4010.01.11

Today, Uncle and Royer were sent on a team to explore the island — the land is a rocky crag, but there may be something there. They fished the lagoon. Nothing. The deepwater below us is dead—-no spinefish. (The journal describes "fish" as more prawn-like than Earth's species)

I am nearly afraid to write down the next part because it must be madness, but I remember Mother showing me how to scribble and write. Even as the disease took her, she still pressed me on writing. She'd swear a journal helps anyone weather all storms. Thus, I write my storms here: last night, as if the moon's milky-eyed reflections moved under the lagoon's still black water. I swear it did.

I slept poorly after. In the hours before the witch, I woke in my standing hammock to feel more eyes on me.

Across the cabin, only a silhouette, I saw him. Was he watching me sleep?

I'm glad they sent Royer to the island. I hope it kills him.

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Journal - 4010.04.11

After Mother died, it was Uncle's idea to disguise me.

He could not afford me to stay on the land and had to take me with him to the sea: it is the life he leads. My choice was a cabin boy or a gutter rat. Uncle says, "Sailors are a brutish lot, but as long as you keep your head down, they'll never know the difference." He says I'm a late bloomer.

I hope Uncle is safe on the island. They’ve been gone for so long.

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Journal - 4010.05.11

The crescent-moon isle is barren. It's only death.

They say he fell. They say he broke his neck. It is all an accident.

They fed Uncle's body to the lagoon; I can't feel anything—first Mother, then Uncle.

I know Royer killed him.

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Journal - 4010.06.11

I have to write it down——writing helps. It weathers the storms. My mother said, she said it on her deathbed. Oh...

That thing, we were never alone—the massive thing below, and Royer!

Tonight, I came to the quarterdeck's hiding spot to write about Uncle. I sat above those massive milk-eye moons in the water. I miss my family. Death is so final, so unforgiving, so brutal. I feared my writing would be light because of my heavy heart. But the journal helps: writing heals.

My eyes were wet and words refused to flow when the wooden deck creaked with another’s footfall.

Royer stepped from the shadows but never fully into the light.

He said, "I always thought you were a girl. Can't keep confessions laying about…" Then he moaned a strange noise, and his body convulsed, a sickly joy passed in his round eyes. He spoke more, but I could not bear to write down what he said next.

(Above, the Martian wrote of Royer’s eyes. “Round eyes” does not cover how she described the other’s compound eye structure. Our team theorizes the Martians, or at least the males, had thousands of visual receptors or Ommatidia, not unlike a common housefly of Earth or a praying mantis.)

Royer clicked and shook once more, then came for me.

I froze.

He closed the gap in long, uneven strides. I waited, still as the black water below, and right when his long fingers reached to clasp me, I sprang to the side and tripped him forward with all my weight — I am spry when the occasion calls for it.

Royer's knees bashed the banister, and he cried out. I saw his feet (she refers to them as pads or pad-like) leave the deck as his momentum overtook his balance.

He plummeted until there was a great splash.

And there, oh there… That reflection of the moon, the yellow eyes below us. I saw it move the other night, and oh, it moved once more.

The milky orbs rolled in the black waves. Not a reflection, never such, oh mercy, those hallowed moon-eyes.

Royer surfaced, his face scowling. He saw my white fear. His color drained.

Underneath him, where he trod water, pink jowls expanded in the blackness. From the depth, a reptilian face grew, and a water snake larger than the Radiant herself came out of the lagoon's depths.

Its maw encircled Royer from underneath—terror worked across his face—then the jaws snapped shut. Waves from the force rocked the ship, but somehow, I knew Royer was alive in there—swallowed whole.

The creature’s yellow eyes rolled up, her mouth forever frowning like an eel from a deep cave. She stared at me, contemplating, then sank below and disappeared.

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Journal Entry - (Damaged Date)

Radiant repaired… We set out on the morrow.

I can write; maybe scribe work awaits me on the next shore. Never shall I sail again.

("The eel" described in the journal was an astronomically large creature, but it reminds us of a moray eel on Earth—a cave-dwelling creature waiting for prey to drift by. It had become used to eating the bodies of the dead sailors and probably assumed Royer some sort of offering like the bodies before. We theorized the Martian sea creature measured somewhere between seventeen and twenty-two meters and had quite an expansive jaw. If the writer were correct about Royer's fate, swallowed whole, the male sailor would have suffocated inside before the stomach acids did him in, though he may have felt it.

Sadly, the oceans of Mars dried long before our time, and whoever the journal's writer was and the strange beast she encountered are now but dust on a red planet.)