I’m from a small town near the shores of Ireland where the water is so cold, you’d think the fish would freeze to death mid-swim. I was born and raised there, knowing the wind and the current. Every part of these lands feels like a wily force of nature, never gentle, only sometimes peaceful but always full of life and passion.
Ever since I was little, I have been able to turn into a seal by putting on a dotted light gray coat I had found washed up on the shore. The second I’d laid eyes on it, I had known what it was and what I could do with it. I grabbed it, went down to the beach and pulled it over my shoulders before jumping into the icy water. That was when I was ten years old and it was the first time I explored those chilly depths.
At first, I was literally testing the waters. I didn’t venture far from the shallows, scared of both the cold and the darkness. After all, I would only sneak away from home to use the coat late at night so my parents wouldn’t notice. The other seals didn’t mind me. Soon enough, I started to swim with them, alongside them. Some would greet me like I was an old friend of theirs. In time, I learned how to talk to them. They have their own way of communicating, and once I’d experienced that a couple times, I could kind of “translate” it into words. It was sort of like learning a new language, albeit a little different. It got easier soon. I stopped caring about the cold, and I stopped fearing the dark. Once you’d dive deep enough, everything around you would be pitch-black anyways.
Now, ten years later, I still do that very same thing. The sea has become my refuge, sort of a sanctuary away from everything else. When I swim, I don’t need to worry about a thing. There’s nothing there but seals and fish and rocks, and of course the current pulling me this way and that. However when I went for my midnight swim last month, something was different.
For one, there was no one else there but me. All the seals were gone. When I dove into the water, it felt empty. Like there was no living being around anywhere nearby. I swam for a while, aiming to get further out. I stayed at the surface for most of that time, simply following the full moon hanging in the clear sky up ahead. Its silvery light was shining down on me and playing upon the tiny ripples and small waves. The sea was so still and quiet. It was beautiful but also sort of unnerving. Normally, I love the solitude that only the sea can provide. Sinking deeper and deeper into a hole with nothing there to stop you or hold you back can be the most soothing thing in the world. Lying back and floating is just as relaxing. But usually, there’s fish and my seal friends, and, well, life. The absence of that was scaring me.
I turned around to look back at the shore, my head poking out from the water. I was already really far away. I could hardly see it anymore; it had been reduced to a thin sliver of white sand in the distance. I took one last deep breath before taking my dive.
I can see very well in the dark when I’m a seal. I’m practically colorblind, but I can make out my surroundings perfectly. My vision isn’t that important though. I’ve met a blind seal before who can hunt and eat just fine simply by sensing its environment with its whiskers.
Despite all that, I heard the creature before I felt or saw it. When the noise rang out through the water around me, it sounded merely like the echo of an even louder sound further away from me. It’s hard to describe how things sound underwater, but I could tell that whatever had emitted that foreign noise was not very close to me. And yet, it was enormous. I had never heard anything like it before, it was kind of like a sweeping growl mixed with a low whistle. I couldn’t quite determine the location of its source so I didn’t know where to look or what to expect, but I remember being shaken to my core. Instinctively searching for the comfort of the surface, I swam upwards until my head popped out from the water.
I took another deep breath. Everything up here was quiet; still and calm just like it had been when I’d gone under. My sense of dread did not subside though. Debating what to do next, I stared up at the night sky. There was a chance that what I’d heard was something much less sinister than what I had assumed. Rocks moving, ground shifting, all that could cause the strangest of sounds, weird enough to instill fear in untrained ears. However that didn’t explain the unusual emptiness I had observed. Where was everyone? If there was indeed some sort of threat lurking in these depths, those smart enough would have certainly fled. That would explain the lack of seal buddies.
I figured it would be best to return to land, but then I’d miss out on seeing what was going on down there. I knew it wouldn’t do me any good, but curiosity pulled me back underwater. I just had to find out for myself. I would simply take a tiny little peek into the direction I suspected the sound had come from and as soon as I’d see it, I’d turn and make a break for it. So that’s what I did.
The water was dark but I could see enough to make out something even darker further out. Or rather further down. I dove deeper, heading towards the odd, indefinable mass in the distance. I could see it shift and move, almost like it was shivering. I had never seen anything like it before. Was this the thing that had made the noise? It looked like a trembling wall underwater and it was so wide. I glanced from side to side, letting my gaze wander, but all I could see was this thing. I’m sorry if my description is a bit vague but it was about as strange as it sounds right now.
I stopped swimming straight towards it and instead focused on making my way alongside it, at a distance, of course. I wanted to see just how long it was. But just as I was starting out, the wall was lifted up. Then there was that sound again, that loud, weird noise that seemed to linger around me. I immediately backed off but turned around again to watch once I was far away enough. The thing that had been blocking my entire field of vision only moments prior moved upwards, sliding aside and then coming down again. For the first time, I could see that it had some kind of shape, although it took me a while to place it.
It looked like a flipper.
Realization was beginning to set in. Against my better judgement, I called out into the void, a semblance of a greeting, or a question. I can’t really put the seal language into words, but it was something akin to a meek little “hello?”—a statement that was in itself afraid of being answered. But the void responded. And what it said was a vague but horrible threat, one that I’m not able to properly repeat here.
I immediately turned around and began to swim towards the shore as fast as I could. I stayed close to the water’s surface. The creature had been a lot further down, so I hoped it would bring some additional distance between us. Despite my panic, it took me a while to reach the shore. When I finally pulled myself up the rocks that led way to the dry land, all I could think of was how much I wanted to be back home.
I know this all sounds really strange. You can believe me or not, but I just wanted to put this out here. I haven’t gone swimming ever since. I don’t know if the seal, this gigantic seal-looking thing that I encountered, has been back since. There have been no reports of strangeness in the area that could be linked back to it. I have no way of proving it, but I know what I saw, I know that something spoke to me. Maybe something ancient. The shores of Ireland aren’t safe anymore.