I, Claire Sheffield, am a well-known Cryptid Historian, specializing in American folklore. As a recipient of several research grants from the Sheffield Organization, I take great pride in my research on the supernatural and paranormal. My papers are not any you would see published in a scientific publication - not everyone can appreciate the science behind paranormal encounters - but nonetheless I continue my pursuit of answers to age-old phenomena.
Among online message boards, there is no scientific event as hotly debated as something commonly referred to as the “Three Days Dark”, or in some circles “The Dead Calm”. According to popular belief, an entity exists beneath the Atlantic Ocean, surfacing rarely and seemingly at random. Its presence is marked by several unnatural events - most of which are up for debate. I’ve seen a range of theories from strange music to cannibalism, with almost all agreeing on one specific event - the Sun and moon ceasing to be visible, causing a pitch darkness that lasts three days and is culminated by the being itself appearing.
Upon comparing this story with recorded interviews about folklore from several islands near where it has been said to occur, I found an interesting theme linking several stories together - one single name used throughout several legends. This and other identifying features will be redacted from my personal account of the Three Days Dark, in order to protect the safety of those wishing to recreate my experiment. Rest assured I will be continuing my experimentation in my own time.
All this to say, with a generous research grant from the foundation in response to my yet-unpublished essay on Bigfoot, I was able to secure a spot on an upcoming cruise that makes its passage through the Atlantic Ocean. From the few stories I found online, I knew my recollection of the events would be hazy, so I decided to keep a journal as it was happening. The following account is of those 17 days spent onboard the Alexander, of which I and the rest of the passengers aboard remember 14. Outside of this diary and the unfortunate loss of several lives, no evidence exists to tell us what truly happened on the three missing days.
DAY 3 (morning):
Days one and two were spent mostly unpacking and adjusting to the sea. I found little to comment on, preferring to spend most of the time in my cabin or at the numerous bars aboard the ship - while alcohol may not aid in the investigation, it certainly helped ease my nerves about putting myself potentially in danger.
Today I intend to ask crew members who aboard has worked here the longest, in hopes of some firsthand accounts. I also plan to ask if anyone has heard variations of the [REDACTED] legend. If not, we’ll be going to some of the islands that the stories come from - maybe I’ll have some luck speaking to people who grew up listening to the legends.
There is a lot of speculation surrounding the events of the Three Days Dark, including the events that cause it to happen. Despite the events themselves being well known, I’ve seen almost no mention of the beast that comes with it. A reoccurring theme within the local stories is that most natives seem afraid to name it, giving it a range of nicknames that seem to translate to various death omens. Most stories seem to agree that something causes the beast to appear, but whether it can be predicted or recreated is anyone’s guess. Tomorrow we pull into the dock at [REDACTED]. I hope there will be some answers for me there.
DAY 3 (night):
The questioning of the crew members was fruitless. Everyone had heard stories of people disappearing onboard, but no one had heard of the stories from the islands. Even the people who had worked at sea the longest had nothing to give me but confused looks. All hope of continuing the investigation felt as though it must halt until we arrive at the island. That is, it felt that way until about five minutes ago.
It’s currently just past midnight, and I was awoken during the night by a loud “thump”, except that it continued - like a heavy rain had started all at once with no buildup. Clear skies having turned to immediate downpour within seconds. As I realized this, I noticed another thing - since the beginning of the cruise, I could feel a subtle vibration of movement underneath me as the ship sailed. Not distracting, but noticeable. I realized that it too, like the clear sky, was gone. I leaped from my bed, anxious to make sure I was correct in what this could mean. Looking through the window past my private balcony, I saw the endless expanse of the nighttime - not a single star or moon in sight.
DAY FOUR (day one of The Dead Calm):
I am a bit embarrassed to admit I woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed today, even without my usual alarm. Despite my experience researching the paranormal, this is my first true supernatural experience, and I’m excited to get firsthand accounts. I’ve never seen a written record of the days to come - there’s something uniquely gratifying about being the first, despite the terrifying circumstances.
Upon waking up, the first thing I noticed was that my alarm hadn’t gone off. I tried in vain to turn on my phone, only to realize quickly that it wasn’t functioning. I was grateful that I had been documenting in a journal, so nothing was lost. I checked lights, outlets, and air conditioning and all seemed to be fully off, though the water was still functioning.
The storm hadn’t slowed, it was as ever-present as the night before. There was no thunder to accompany the eerily steady rain, and when I left my cabin I noticed there were also no wind or clouds. The sky was as endless and pitch dark as it had been the night before, and without the lighting on the ship, everything was thrown into shadows. The thick sheet of rain made it hard to even look up at the empty sky when not peering through a window. All this to say I was thankful for the tiny flashlight I’d thought to bring, which allowed me to read the handwritten note that had been taped to my (and seemingly every) door.
“PROMENADE DECK, ASAP”.
The stairs weren’t as crowded as I assumed they’d be, most likely because I’d woken up early. I wonder if some people didn’t leave their rooms, or somehow missed the notes altogether. Seeing the crowd gathered in the center of the small shopping area as I walked down the staircase, I assume many people had simply chosen to keep to themselves until the power turned back on.
The passengers were huddled together, sharing the light of the few flashlights people could gather. I noticed two things quickly - every nearby restaurant and store was closed for business, with metal gates blocking them from entry. This didn’t surprise me, due to the second thing I noticed - among the crowd, there was not a single staff or crew member. Whether they were dealing with other issues elsewhere on the ship or something was keeping them from us, I can’t be sure. I haven’t seen any this morning.
I’ve never felt as useless as I did amongst the crowd of panicking guests. I thought to tell them what I knew - that this was a sign of something bigger happening. But I knew that my knowledge ended there. I had nothing to contribute about where to get food from, or even where the employees were. I had no extra batteries or flashlights - I hadn’t planned on the electricity going out. In fact, I’d prepared for very little, aside from a relaxing vacation and some stories from locals that I could google from the safety of my suite. I’d heard a number of rumors, but put so little stock in the very thing I was researching that I was left empty-handed, save for a flashlight and some contraband scented candles. This has been a long entry, but there will be more to come later.
DAY 4 (evening):
It’s strange, the things we do in adversity. The crowd of people on the promenade deck grew to be over two hundred. I realized why such a small portion of the ship had gathered - very few people had any means of reading the note. The woman who wrote all of them, Carol, is a well-meaning woman but hadn’t thought of the logistics of gathering such a large group of people. I don’t think she ever meant to lead them - I think she was just scared in the dark all alone.
Most of us haven’t eaten today. A small group of people managed to break into the kitchen of one of the restaurants onboard, but they said the food is rotten beyond salvage. Carol and about 10 other people were hungry enough already to take the risk and eat it, but they said it didn’t just taste rotten, it tasted…wrong. Much too far gone to have only been unrefrigerated for a few hours. One of the 10 claims he found maggots in his portion of fruit, but I think he just wanted something to complain about aside from the insane situation we’ve been put in.
Aside from the storm and the power and the food, things were oddly calm amongst the group of strangers gathered by bizarre circumstances. Some parents offered to take turns babysitting all the kids at once to give each other a break. A few small groups have been attempting to collect and distribute food, but they don’t seem to be worried yet. They don’t know what I know - exactly how long this will last. It seems that food brought by passengers is somehow safer than food stored onboard - there’s now a small pile of granola bars, crackers, trail mix, and fruit snacks. People with medical needs and children have been prioritized.
It’s…oddly comforting, to have created a small community. I haven’t found anyone yet who seems to know about the folklore, but I’ve certainly started talking to my neighbors more than usual. I think if this is what’s in store for me, the Three Days Dark will be something I look back on as a pleasant memory.
DAY 5 (day 2 of the Dead Calm):
I woke up in the middle of the night and felt like I was choking. I somehow managed to fall back asleep, but upon waking up this morning there has been a very clear shift in the air pressure. It’s…thicker, somehow. If you’ve ever had a moment of accidentally breathing water, a split second where you realized how terrifying drowning is - it’s that. It’s drowning on dry land. With every breath.
I went back to the promenade deck upon getting up. I ended up sitting in a circle of people who all were discussing what they wanted to do when they got home - the way they spoke about it was hopeful, but not in the way it had been the day before. It was as if we all knew an unspoken secret - that we all were scared shitless- but if we put it to words the spell of hopefulness would be broken and we all would be lost at sea. I wanted to comfort each of them, to tell them we only had another day and a half of this, but I knew it would draw suspicion, especially when I didn’t even know what caused the Dead Calm to start in the first place.
The group of people who had eaten the spoiled food were all in various stages of sickness but were practically quarantining themselves. Each and every one of them, man woman, and child were standing in the rain staring at the sea. What they thought they saw was a mystery to me, considering it was darker than night and the rain seemed even thicker than the day before. It was raining harder, of course, but it seemed…oily. Maybe that’s what was affecting the air. Still, I watched them walk in slow circles around the railing, never taking their eyes off the ocean underneath us.
The big group of children being watched over by some of the parents are starting to get bored, and therefore a little obnoxious. At first, I think pure fear kept the children quiet and still, but after bunkering down and getting some food, they’ve made a game of running laps around the deck. I don’t blame them for seeking a distraction.
I had thought I knew what it was to be hungry, or to be bored. With nothing to do but talk to strangers and no food that wouldn’t make me sick, I too craved more desperately than ever a distraction. I will write more if anything happens: it too, is a distraction.
DAY 5 (evening):
I don’t like where this is going. At midnight exactly, I was woken up by a ringing that seemed to warble oddly, almost like a pulsating vibrato of the same note. No matter where in my room I went, it followed. I was reminded of the rumors of strange music, and it made me think of all the other horrifying things people had said happen. The dead walking. Cannibalism. This absurd, prehistoric beast that lived beneath the sea and caused whatever the fuck was happening onboard. When I read about it, it seemed interesting. Now that the ritual was more than halfway underway with no way to stop it, I felt the pressure of being unable to escape the fate I knew would befall this entire ship.
I usually try to be less pessimistic with my entries, but tonight…tonight was bad. When I heard the…siren? The ringing? I wanted to see if anyone else could hear it, wanted to test if it was just my room or the whole ship. I did something stupid. I walked down to the promenade deck. I guess because of the tiny community we built I felt safer amongst my neighbors than I’d felt in a while - maybe like Carol, I was alone in the dark and scared. When I got down there, I realized how silly I was being. There was no one awake - no one but the people who’d eaten the disgusting food, still circling the deck in oil-slick rain, trying to get a better view of the inky sea.
I don’t…I don’t know what came over me. I saw Carol, out there in the dark, circling with the rest of them. As if she could feel my gaze, she turned to look at me, her eyes wide, expression unreadable. She at last moved away from her group and came out of the rain to stand next to me. Her once bouncy curls were slicked to her face as if with hair gel, her clothes dripping with slick rain. She smiled at me, and there was no fear in her eyes. Her bulging, far-too-open eyes. She took my hand, and her grip was clammy to the point that I nearly checked for a pulse, but I held her hand back. It was reassuring, in its own way.
The rest of this happened in a succession so quickly that I don’t exactly know what went through my head. With the odd music and the rain, I leaned in close to try and ask her why she’d been standing in the rain. She took advantage of my leaning to yank my arm forward, knocking me to my knees, but my arm was still locked in her firm, icy grasp. She started walking back into the rain, and the only thought I could think of while being dragged across the deck was that she was insanely strong for her age.
The otherworldly smile never left her face, never growing nor shrinking. She looked absolutely blissful in the middle of the night as she dragged me toward the edge of the ship. I could hear waves beneath us but not see them. Something about the fact that I could still hear the ocean through the rain and music startled me back to my senses, and I wrenched my arm away from Carol and ran.
I’ve been barricaded in my room ever since, moving the chest of drawers in front of the door. I didn’t notice until after I was out of it that the rain had changed again - rather than slick like oil, it was now practically gelatinous, sticking to every inch of my skin. I showered for over an hour just scrubbing and scrubbing, desperate to be free of it. Thinking of all the people standing in the rain, seemingly unfazed… I can’t help but shudder. Their circling reminded me all at once of vultures. My door is locked and barred from entry, but I don’t think I’ll find sleep tonight.
DAY 6 (final day of the Dead Calm):
The ringing hasn’t stopped. I buried my head under blankets and shoved tissue paper in my ears, but it didn’t even dampen the sound. At this point, it feels like it’s coming from within my very body. I don’t like it. It makes my hair stand on edge. It feels like an omen of some kind.
It’s hard to tell day from night here, but I think it’s somewhere around noon. I decided earlier to look out of my balcony earlier. I could see very little through the rain, but it looked as though the sick were continuing to try and push people over the edge of the ship. Considering how easy it was to escape, I wasn’t worried, but still a frightening thought. I’m writing this entry because something happened.
Since what I assume to be last night when I was nearly thrown overboard, every few minutes there has been a very soft knock at my bedroom door. Over and over it happened, and I began to think: is it Carol? How does she know which room is mine? Am I really safe here just because of a chest of drawers? Long story short, I’m writing this from the inside of my bathtub while holding a kitchen knife. If somehow Carol gets through, she won’t catch me unarmed with my back turned. It’s odd though - ever since I changed rooms, I could swear the knock is coming from both doors. It gets a little louder each time.
DAY 6 (evening):
I came out of my bathtub when I realized that the knock was coming from both doors at once. It wasn’t Carol, come to take me away. It was something to do with the Three Days Dark. It felt silly holed up in my bathroom as a historic event took place. I’ll keep you updated - tonight should be the night this finally ends. I’m hungry and exhausted and bored to goddamned tears - I hope whatever this thing is can be worth all of this.
FINAL ENTRY:
It’s well past midnight. The knocking stopped, and the music stopped playing. The lights haven’t come back on yet, but I’m counting my blessings. Especially now.
As the ringing stopped, I rushed to my balcony to see if it was true - the rain was gone, and the moon and stars were in full view. My sigh of relief was so genuine and all-encompassing that I nearly forgot the other part of the events - whatever the ocean monster is, swimming beneath us. I looked over the balcony, the moonlight reflecting off the ocean. I’d never been so happy to see light before. And there, deep beneath the surface, it was.
The color of the thing was a sickly, bioluminescent yellow. Calling it a monster would be putting it mildly: it dwarfed the cruise ship. The thing was a behemoth. It had millions if not billions of tendrils, ebbing and flowing. It made it almost look blurry, the thousand tiny, lit-from-within movements. I think without the inner glow, it would’ve been hard to spot what happened next. I wish I hadn’t spotted it, research be damned.
I didn’t even know what it was at first. I just saw a shadow, covering the eerie yellow glow, close to the side of the ship. I watched it slowly become less and less of a shadow, watched the tendrils move around it methodically until the shadow was an extension of itself. That was when my eyes adjusted, and I saw the next body hit the water.
They were jumping, all the diseased. Not just jumping - running as fast as they could. Flinging themselves from the side of the ship, desperate to assimilate into this unholy monstrosity. I watched person after person leap, become a shadow moving above the beast, and then be overwhelmed with vibrant lights. It would have been beautiful, in another context. Eleven, in all. Eleven men women and children launching themselves to their deaths. That doesn’t even account for anyone they got their hands on to throw overboard.
The thing took its prey and left, swimming straight down. I couldn’t even tell what shape it was, it being so massive. Tomorrow morning I will remember none of the three days I spent onboard the Alexander, and I will be better off for it. Everyone here will be better off forgetting. Have you ever researched how many people go missing on cruise ships a year? The numbers are all over the place. I alone know why.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
As stated above, I don’t remember the three days described in the text. In fact, upon awakening on the seventh day of my cruise, I thought I’d been blackout drunk before I read my journal. Others onboard whom I talked to about it shared a similar sentiment, or said they had a bad cold with strange fever dreams.
Not long after I finished reading my journal, we docked at the first stop of our journey. I spoke to many people native to the island that day, some of whom had grown up listening to legends of the monster beneath the sea. One man though, I will never forget.
Upon telling him that I was writing a research paper, he seemed confused. I showed him my journal, and after the first page, he looked at me with seriousness and fear I have seldom seen. He asked where I learned the name I had written on the page. He explained to me that the legends had been spoken for thousands of years, but they were not something to be written down. The interviews I had listened to online had all been recorded speech, and for good reason, he said. Because writing the name gives it power enough to emerge.
Now that I not only know the legends but how to summon the beast, I intend to become an expert in this field of study. Obviously next time I will be better prepared, with food and flashlights and maybe a non-electric camera. My research is only beginning, after all - and a sign of a good experiment is repetition.