Mermaid Reef

John clutched at the bread, chewing slowly, and looked down at the vegetable soup, looking very hungry.

When he put down the bowl, there was only anger and fear on John's face.

"It's a damn storm, all of a sudden! I've never seen such a violent storm... The boat was as brittle as a Christmas cookie in the store, and it was easily overturned in the sea and broken in several pieces. I really shouldn't If you want to be cheap and fast, take a modified fishing boat like the West Wind."

"The West Wind?"

"Yes, the name of that ship." John's fingers moved slightly, and he looked at Dr. Jansen in surprise, "Did you not notify the patrol? I mean, the police or port guards in this town?"

It is not a trivial matter for a ship to sink in a storm.

The normal process should be as John mentioned. The police will rush here to inquire about the specific situation after receiving the news, and then report to the newspaper. The Fisheries and Port Management Committee will confirm and inform the owner of the ship, expressing condolences to the families of the sailors and passengers who died .

Dr. Jansen took off his monocle and put it in the tortoiseshell case he carried with him. Under the dim yellow light, his blue eyes showed a strange coldness.

Then he smiled, the uncomfortable feeling disappeared in an instant, so fast that it was suspected to be an illusion, and there was clearly only a doctor who was worried about the patient's physical condition in front of him.

"It's the storm you mentioned. Now the roads and bridges outside the town have been washed away. Maybe the police officer in the town sent a telegram. I don't know the specifics. I was in the clinic all day... people rescued from the sea The situation is very bad, they have a high fever, they are raving, they are unconscious, and they are talking about the new moon over and over again."

Dr. Jensen watched John as he spoke.

John just had a surprised look on his face: "New moon? What does that mean?"

"I don't know." The smile on Dr. Jensen's face disappeared, and he sighed, "Actually, you were talking nonsense when you were rescued, but what you said was different from theirs."

"is it?"

John raised one eyebrow high in shock.

Dr. Jason looked at him and nodded slowly: "You mentioned snakes."

The door of the tavern was suddenly blown open by a gust of wind, and slammed on the wall with a bang.

The light bulb faltered, and the fire dwindled as if life had been sucked by the cold wind.

The chill climbed up his calves, and John felt his head ache again.

In fact, since he woke up, his head has been uncomfortable, and he has double vision, which is a common symptom of concussion.

But now the double image... turned into a phantom?

The warm and comfortable old tavern was invaded by invisible darkness, forming dark whirlpools in front of them. The originally vigorously burning fireplace was drawn into by the whirlpools, and the fire became darker and darker.

John was holding the bread in his hand tightly, his shoulders tensed.

He desperately resisted the urge to jump up and avoid these weird vortices—how could the cold wind cause such an effect?This should all be an illusion!

How could he be hallucinating?

The bright crescent moon appeared before John's eyes again, as well as the ghost ship that slowly approached in the thick fog and then suddenly disintegrated...

The headache suddenly intensified, as if it was about to burst.

Just when John was about to lose consciousness, the shadow vortex suddenly receded like a tide.

The bearded boss strode out of the kitchen, lifted the door panel with one hand, and closed the door in its original position with a "bang".

The house became bright again.

The tavernkeeper added some logs to the fire.

John relaxed his tensed arms, and he covered his forehead and said, "Sorry, my head hurts."

There are still some double images in front of my eyes. Just look at the bread crumbs on the plate dancing cha-cha. Will normal bread crumbs bounce around?

"After eating, let's go to rest." The tavern owner walked over and took away the plates and soup bowls.

"Sorry, doctor..."

John raised his head subconsciously, ready to say goodbye to Dr. Jensen who was sitting on his right, and then froze.

There was no one around.

The tavern was also empty.

Although Dr. Johnson was young, he did not look like a man of physical fitness.The tavern had an old floor that creaked when stepped on, and there was no way it would disappear without a trace unless the windows were thrown out.

This is illogical!

John's eyes flicked across the floor and the windows.

He stood up abruptly and walked over to the table where Dr. Jensen had been drinking.

There was indeed an empty tin cup on the table with some residual liquid in it.

He lowered his head and sniffed it carefully. It was rye beer, which had the same smell as the barrels piled outside the storage room.

"No, you can't drink."

The tavern owner misunderstood the meaning of John coming with an empty wine glass, and he shook his palm forcefully, signaling John not to even think about it.

——Sailors like to drink heavily after landing, and they have to drink a cup to celebrate their escape from death.

John didn't explain that he was a passenger and not a sailor. He put the wine glass on the wooden bar and called tentatively, "Old Jack?"

"How do you know my name?" The tavern owner was very strange.

This was the name John had heard from Dr. Jason before. Before he could breathe a sigh of relief, the bearded tavern owner frowned and said, "Dr. Run around."

John turned his head abruptly:

"Abel? How many doctors are there in your town?"

"There's only one, what's wrong?"

The tavern owner asked unhappily.

John sat back heavily on the stool in front of the wooden counter, buried his face in his palms.

Only then did he hear the sound of rain pattering outside the tavern.

John stood up silently and walked into the storage room.

"Strange Englishman," grunted the tavernkeeper, looking down to clean his glass.

***

John lay on his back on the bed.

Now, he is a shipwrecked foreigner.

Penniless, without documents, all carry-on luggage was lost, including the wooden warehouse.

Of course John remembered seeing the crescent moon and the ghost ship in the fog at sea, but he wouldn't say it.At least it wouldn't be as simple as telling a stranger what he saw.

The reason is very simple. If the doctor determines that he has mental problems and insists that he sees something that does not exist, he will be sent to a nursing home forcibly.

This kind of sanatorium is very common in Europe, also known as madhouse.

Those sent in, especially the poor, were at high risk of becoming victims of "medical research."

For a long time, the European medical community has been studying mental illness, wanting to make a major breakthrough. They believe that something bad is going on in the patient's head, and simply removing certain parts of the brain can calm the mad patient. .

Despite the praise of these operations in the newspapers, John had seen such patients.

They were drooling, their eyes were dull, and they even lost their ability to distinguish, so they could only lie on the bed.

They were indeed "quiet", but they also lost their qualifications as human beings.

Therefore, it is just a prudent habit for John to conceal what he saw at sea. After all, no one would believe such absurd remarks as looking at the moon in a storm and strange snakes emerging from a ghost ship.

But now, something even stranger happened.

The mysterious and weird Doctor Jensen disappeared in the cold wind and shadows.

"...not a hallucination."

John talked to himself.

Hallucinations are less realistic.

***

At noon the next day, the rain stopped.

The tavernkeeper knocked on the storeroom door and woke John up.

"Officer Arson is waiting for you."

After speaking, he took two cabbages out of the storage room.

As if he was just getting food and came over to wake John up by the way.

John rubbed his forehead, and after one night, his problem of double vision in seeing things got better.

If it weren't for this storage room full of vegetables and radishes, and this simple and crude bed, people would even feel that the shipwreck and storm were just a nightmare.

John stepped on the creaking floor and walked outside the storage room, and the location of all the items in the tavern quickly appeared in his mind like a sketch.

This daytime tavern sketch is clearer.

The sketch from the previous night hadn't been replaced, because there was a man on it - black hair, blue eyes, wearing a monocle, surrounded by swirling shadows around his body, Dr. Jansen, who looked like a demon and a ghost.

John closed his eyes, waved the memory sketch aside, and then put on a humble and faintly panicked look, looking at the man sitting by the wooden counter in the tavern.

The man wore a leather holster around his waist, and he carried two wooden bins. He had two funny gray beards on his face, and his body was slightly fat. The police uniform was tightly stretched on his belly.

"Hi, Officer, I'm..."

Officer Arson interrupted John impatiently: "Listen, I know you sailors are a little bit bad when you go ashore. Drinking, gambling, stealing, or looking for women, I hope you will be honest until you leave this place." town!"

"Officer, I'm not a sailor. I'm just on the Zephyr, visiting a relative in Iceland, and there's a storm on the way."

Officer Arson stares at John, as if to check whether he is lying.

John pretended not to notice, and continued: "I hope to contact my family as soon as possible. I lost my luggage, and I have to contact the bank to re-issue a money order before I can continue my trip."

The police officer said in a hard tone: "The bridges and roads leading to the outside were washed away by the flood. If you want to send a telegram, you can only go to the post office, but the block over there is soaked in water as high as a person. No one goes to work. You We have to wait two more days."

"Is there no phone here?" John asked hastily.

"No, we're just a small town." At this moment, the tavern owner put a bowl of boiled beans on the counter, looked at John and said, "The heavy rain caused us a lot of trouble, and Officer Arson didn't sleep for two days. "

Officer Arson took the spoon to scoop up the beans, and said impatiently, "Outsider, I hope you won't cause me any more trouble..."

Before he finished speaking, the wooden door of the tavern fell down with a bang.

John's pupils contracted.

This similar scene reminded him of what happened last night.

But it was a strange fisherman who ran in from the door.

The fisherman's face was full of panic, his facial features were slightly distorted, his voice was high-pitched and sharp, and his yelling could be heard two streets away——

"No, that reef! The strange reef has risen from the bottom of the sea!"

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The author has something to say:

Frontal lobotomies were invented in the 30s, but similar procedures had been performed before that. (It is not recommended to search for this knowledge, you will not be able to sleep well after reading it)