Some say that the oceans always lie still before the storm is unleashed; others believe that the waters take a hint from a red tinted sky at sunrise before awakening the monster beneath.

Yet somehow it was Mikhael, a peasant farmer’s son, who was certain that the power of the oceans lay within the command of the wind.

Two most powerful elements, tossed and bound together. If one human had the command of these powers of the Earth, we can only imagine what horrors could be unleashed.

But it was Mikhael - happy, unsuspecting, poor Mikhael – who the Wind and the Water chose.

It was more than one thousand years past that the huge wave had leapt and flown over the little island of seafaring and sea-fearing folk, had destroyed every living creature from the smallest child to the eldest grandmother, from the ants beneath your feet to the wild antelope. Obliterated their livelihoods, homes, farms.
All signs of life extinct.

And it was two hundred and thirteen years after that Day of
Doom that the new settlers arrived, Mikhael’s ancestors being part of that tribe; the story of the wave woven into legend and tale that was told to children as they shivered and yelped beneath their sheets. For generations upon generations the people had lived their simple yet joy filled lives; fishing and herding animals, sailing and singing.

The peace was held.

Until the cries were heard in the mind of the soothsayer.

This soothsayer was the grandmother of Mikhael and wore the honour of being the eldest person living on the island. She was bound by the elements to serve her people, to hear cries and pleas for help, and the islanders were similarly bound to risk their lives for any whose cries entered their soothsayer’s mind. When she passed, the duty would pass with her and seek out a different young local.

Cries had been heard that night by the soothsayer: awful, animalistic cries that wailed for relief and aid.

The time of the full moon is clearly the best to sail from shores, when one would not be at full mercy of any danger lurking beneath the surface.

It was the new moon.

Out across midnight’s ocean not a speck of light or flicker of a candle could be seen. But the village had their bond– a bond made deep and strong by the passage of time; the villagers could not abandon one of their own stranded at sea.

The seas often appear calm in the night. The azure waters are watching, waiting, watching.

So it was that a group of ten sailors, plus Mikhael – who was an escort - and his grandmother, journeyed out into the deepest, blackest pit of the ocean. Mikhael felt odd – he had done for weeks – a sense in his stomach that made him feel small, tiny, yet not inconsequential.


This feeling seemed to blossom within him, entangling itself with his imagination and character as ivy entwines itself around a tree; as it flowered the boy became angry, sullen and hostile. When the lights from the island were mere fragments upon the horizon did Mikhael forget himself, his family, the mission, his home. He became a vessel, devoid of emotion except the lust for power and need for movement. His eyes lost all their caramel warmth as he rose, forcing the boat to sway and wobble. The Monster in Mikhael did not pay attention; his ears deaf to the shouts and his eyes blind to the havoc.

It was then that the first wave struck the vessel.

From the darkness it smashed into the fishing boat, tossing innocent fishermen aside and drenching those that remained seated. It happened again, and once more, and one further time, until the boat was a wreck and the companions lost, screaming, to the depths of the ocean.

Mikhael remained standing on the water’s surface, maniacal laughter escaping him and his now grey eyes alive with the blood they had been treated to.

But the wave fell down like an axe through the boy, the wind screeched, and the laughter was no more.