Day 423

The cliffs by the beach are so tall that they could make swimmers look like ants.
We call them "The World's End" even though you can see the ocean most days.
My mum never let me go near them when I was a kid, said they were crumbling.
I reckon everyone's mum had said that at some point - it didn't stop us all.

I remember they'd whisper on the playground about who had and hadn't peered over.
You were meant to stand as close to the edge as possible and either look down or straight.
Apparently you'd see things, everyone said you saw something different.
Ghosts, demons, the future, a gaping black hole or the weirdest - yourself peering back up.

This was before cheap disposable cameras mind you, we only had people's word to believe
though nobody really did, well almost nobody.
My friend Kallum was desperate to go to World's End and see it for himself.
Kept daring me to go with him and eventually I gave in.

We were sitting on the curb by his nan's house when I agreed.
The weather was overcast, sharp gusts of wind and the faintest hint of rain.
Probably not the best time to go to the top of a sea cliff but we were too young to realise.
Looking back I wish someone - anyone - would have spotted us and stopped us.

The wind died down as we approached the cliff edge, made it easier for us to go right out.
We were maybe a foot or two from the absolute end and the view was amazing at first.
Kallum told me when they said that it made people look like ants they weren't lying.
Somehow he could see the beach below and thousands of people on it.

More people that there were in out seaside town, more people than he'd ever seen before.
I couldn't see them, I just saw some kind of long black pipe winding and writhing like a snake.
I thought I was dreaming at first, it seemed so hazy until Kallum tried to yell at the people below.
The pipe suddenly seemed to snap into crisp clear view, a pulsing tube heading towards us.

Kallum didn't see it - couldn't see it and wouldn't let me run away.
He had such a hard grip on my arm that to this day I still have faint brown finger shaped marks.
The tube got closer ans closer to us and I began to see that it had some sort of head.
It stopped by the cliff's edge, glaring at Kallum as he continued to wave at the non-existent people.

I've never seen such an enormous creature before, its head was the size of a bus at least!
Slowly it began to open its mouth and eventually unhinge its whole jaw, letting it hang loosely
around its neck, teeth like giant pillars all grey like its gums and lolling tongue.
At this point I was screaming at Kallum to shut up and run - instead he ran forward.

Right into the creature's open mouth, clambering up its tongue and down its throat.
In a split second it had closed its mouth and swallowed sharply.
Turning its gaze to me a long, jagged arm rose up from its side as it made a shushing motion.
Then as quietly as it had arrived it sank back down.

Kallum was never seen again and I was never even questioned.
I think they knew where he went and were just running through the motions, so to speak.
An empty coffin was buried with his name on it and nobody spoke of him again.
The kids in the playground weren't shy about wanting answers.

I only told them what Kallum had seen, all those impossible people.
Thankfully they were bored but accepting of that answer though one quiet girl asked me afterwards.
Asked me if I'd seen the snake lady, with skin like coal and big, big eyes.
She said that the snake lady was the reason the cliff had to be left alone, she was always so hungry.