As man hath caused a blemish...

Prologue

I'm a writer. By nature. One of those bespectacled, sickly looking types. Too pale, too fat and too awkward. Lank blonde hair and - my only redeeming feature - blue eyes. People say my eyes are beautiful, I'm not sure I believe them. The conversation usually starts with -

"I'm too fat" And ends with -

"But you've got beautiful eyes" But anyway. I'm getting off the point. Way off point actually.

Recently me, my family in fact, moved to Scotland. Aberdeenshire in fact. We get along as a family comparatively well but every now and then there's a rather explosive argument (sharing the house with two astrological dragons and another tiger...things get a little tense sometimes) and I need my own space. Fortunately we, the family, was well off enough to buy a house with a river on the land. I was allowed to moor a little row boat on it and on occasions - usually after such fights - I'd drag a blanket, a thermos of tea and whatever story I was currently writing down to my little boat and spend the night there...if it was dry enough of course. This being Scotland that was somewhat rare. Can you see where this is going yet?
On one such occasion, after a rather nasty argument with my grandmother I dragged myself down to the boat and slumped inside, trying hard to ignore that I was crying over the same argument we'd been having since I'd turned eighteen -

"Why haven't you got a boyfriend yet?"

"I don't want one, Grandma I'm busy, it wouldn’t be fair on him"

"At your age I'd already got three children. Don’t you want children?"

"Nan-"

"If you don't get a husband soon you'll never get one at all" -

And so the argument went on...right up until the point I lost my temper and screamed at her that I was a lesbian...I'm not of course (not that I have anything against lesbians, go girls) but there was a rather delicious shocked silence until both my mother *and* father screamed at me for my lack of respect and I - with all the self preservation instincts of a weasel - fled the house, seeking refuge in the boat. So there I sat, huddled up in my dads ex-air force sleeping bag and trying to ignore the fact I was sobbing at the unfairness of it all like some angsty teenager.

It was a warm night, deliciously so and I wriggled underneath the slat in the middle of the boat - usually there to sit on - and fell asleep promptly, tired after the screaming match as well as the sobbing.

I woke. Upside down in the sleeping bag. The *wet* sleeping bag actually. I made a noise of disgust and tried to sit up, earning a thump on the back from the wooden slat I was under for my efforts. There was nothing for it. I had to wriggle round to face the sky - which was pissing it down with rain by the way - in an inch or so of water that had pooled in the bottom of the boat. As I *finally* located the zipper on the sleeping bag, a wave the size of a small house - or so it felt - came crashing into my little boat, drenching me from head to toe and causing me to gasp with the force of the cold. Finally able to wiggle free of all constraints I knelt in the bottom of the boat and stared around in horror, gripping onto the sides for dear life. I didn't know whether to cry, scream or throw up first. How the *hell* had I ended up in the middle of a choppy sea?

My fingers were already going a funny colour from the cold - as is their want, it’s a circulation thing -and the death grip I had on the sides of the boat. It was pouring with rain - and yep, right on cue the ominous rumble of thunder in the background - and I didn't have any oars. I always threw them out of the boat before I got in, they got in my way otherwise. Almost as soon as I'd diagnosed everything I could - rain, waves, water in the bottom of the boat, going to be sick - I started bemoaning my fate - oh why hadn't I kept the oars in? Why hadn't I made sure the mooring was secure? Why hadn't anyone seen me? Why did I loose my temper in the first place?

Whilst all this was going on in my head I saw a gigantic wave heading towards me. I watched it approach with a brand new emotion that I’d never felt before. Imagine terror- absolute terror – and the eerie calm certainty that you’re going to die mixed together. That was the exact feeling when I saw the wave looming over my little boat. From then on I can remember sighing just before it crashed into my boat, splintering it to a thousand pieces, then the fear as I was shoved down into ice cold water. This was the North sea after all.

Somehow – don’t ask me how because my self preservation instincts aren’t that hot – I ended up clinging to a piece of wreckage, choking and trying my hardest to breathe. Things were fuzzy, everything seemed so loud and vivid but I just couldn’t find it in myself to focus properly. I closed my eyes, still gasping for breath, alternating between inhaling and simply swallowing salt water. I decided that if I lived I’d probably be nuts from drinking so much sea water. I was so tired, so desperate for sleep all of a sudden…I laid my head against the wooden slats and – a hand grabbed my hair. I yelled, too tired to really fight as I was pulled out of the water by my hair, my heels clacking off wood. Damn it, that’s how I lost one of my trainers. I was thrown down. On deck. Nothing that smelled this bad could be anything but a ship. I coughed, spluttered and looked up, expecting to see a bunch of Aberdeenshire fishermen but what I saw would stay in my memory for the rest of my life. I looked up, slap bang into eyes that could have been stolen from the heart of an ice burg, to afraid to speak as the tentacled apparition smirked down at me coldly,

"Do you fear death, girl?"

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A/N: - Ok so this originally started as a reply to Sundragons challange but it kind of grew up around it :s