Down, down, down into the depths.

Ischia is known for its clear and pristine waters, calm tides and gentle seas - but few venture beyond the vividly colored corals, beyond the tropical fish and their multi-colored homes, past the mild sea turtles and delicate shelled crabs that click tidily across the white, sandy bottom. Beyond the lagoon lurks something dangerous, something darker, something foreboding. The coral drops off and gives way into emptiness, the depths appearing never-ending when glancing over the edge. But there is an end, and he is there, drawn to the bottom of the sea, where blackness takes hold and tightens around him, where silence is truly silent, and where his collection awaits him. They are bones now, mostly - the fish with haunting and empty eyes have picked clean their corpses, leaving only piles of dusted bones in the muck. They are bottom-dwellers such as he, and the anglers periodically light up in the darkness, accustomed to his presence within their hauntingly still home.

Perhaps Ischia had been his home for a few fleeting moments - but now he no longer keeps residence there beyond the pretty little lagoon, where darkness of the depths rises to meet him. He doesn’t have a home, not in the typical sense of the word. No, his home is where the water takes him, whether it’s through it’s coursing rivers or its tempestuous seas, or even stagnant lakes with unmoving currents. That is where he belongs.

There is no wind to rustle the branches of the trees that protrude out over the river, a somber silence filling the early morning. A mist, hauntingly white and thick, slowly moves in, shrouding the many rocks that line the river with its vaporous cloak. The sunlight begins to spill through the dense canopy of trees, mostly a mixture of thick spruces or thin, spindly branches of birch. The leaves had hardly begun to change their colors, but the bite that the air brings seems to make the trees shiver in anticipation. The morning mist continues to grow and swirl, the steam and spray from the rushing river mingling with the evaporation. The sunlight is not strong enough to begin to burn away at the fog, as it would in the warmer seasons. It continues to hover over the bank and its whispering waters, as if drawn to the rumble and boil of the gentle rapids.

A hunger gleams in his eyes, a hunger that has still gone unquenched, unsatisfied. It lingers within the abyss of his darkened eyes, forever flickering beneath the blackness. Forever a predator, constantly ravenous for power and control, to succumb his prey beneath a watery grave. Within him, it simmers and churns, meticulously lying in wait in the dark depths of his soul. Hours before, in the dim light of the sun’s first light, where even the crickets have stopped chirping, an evergreen and pearl stallion stands upstream, staring down at the frothing and hissing water. His large, dark eyes bore down into the clear and crisp water as if he is under a spell, ears listening to the murmurs and hushed voices that call to him from the water’s depths. The river croons to him, the gentle pull of its current tugging encouragingly at his fetlocks, beckoning him to join in its treacherous path as it winds downstream.

Something catches his attention within the darkening woods behind him, lifting his head quickly with a sharp snort and flicker of his ears onto his neck. He says nothing, but scours the darkness with a snarl on his pale lips.

m a u g r i m.