Ryujin – from the point of view of Charles

I, Charles Wickham, state that everything that follows in this account is true and

witnessed by my own eyes.

I became acquainted with Hideo, a Japanese whaler whilst I was working for a small

newspaper, and I was already looking for a bigger story. It was this need that drove

me to take to sea with a man, who I must admit I considered to be somewhat insane

at the time – both in appearance and mind.

However, he convinced me to join him on an adventure to track down a monster that

was plaguing his dreams and was responsible for the deaths of his shipmates. We

were joined in our expedition by the cranky old sea dog, Old Riley, and his beautiful

daughter, Bess – who is now my loving wife.

After many false starts and a run in with a Russian captain who I took a dislike to, for

reasons of my own, we finally came across the beast which we now know was the

Ryujin.

I have read about this creature in the books of Dr Orokov, but no one had actually

seen one, I believe my account to be of much more use to explorers and scholars.

Below is an accurate description of the creature Ryujin, use this information as you

will.

Our first sighting of the Ryujin challenged everything I thought I knew about the real

world. Even up to the point where the beast tried to sink our vessel, I was still not

convinced it was anything other than a large sea creature – a whale or a shark that

had grown unusually large and aggressive. However, this was no sea creature that

anyone would have believe existed! It was terrifying and it was aggressive, and we

barely survived with our lives, or our sanity intact!

On first sight, we did not see the full extent of the creature. From my position on the

Beaumont, we saw flashes of the beast as parts of its body appeared above the

waves, black scales and devilish spikes on its back. It was only when it reared it’s

body from the water to confront us on the Beaumont that I was able to fully take in

the extent of this creature.

You would, if you have seen it, understood why my first thought was that a dragon

had come from the abyss as it had the look of the dragons that were described in

children’s books. A large head, with a mouth full of fangs like daggers, big enough to

swallow a man whole. A fact which was proven when we finally confronted it, but I

get ahead of myself.

The Ryujin’s scales were hard like armour which we found out when Hideo and Bess

were launching harpoons at the creature. The harpoons, which can take down a full-

grown whale, bounced harmlessly off the creature’s scales. We may as well have

thrown toothpicks at the beast. It showed no fear, obviously confident that it was

superior to us in size, which was true.

We assumed, incorrectly, that the creature was only a sea beast and we just needed

to persevere in our attack, using Hideo’s machine gun which he has brought on the

voyage, to wear the creature down. Imagine our surprise, when as we chased the

creature, it dragged itself from the water and took refuge on a small island.

This was not mentioned in the books provided by Dr Orokov that the Ryujin was also

able to leave the water and traverse across extremely rough and uneven ground.

The island was rocky, and we found the going difficult, but the Ryujin did not have a

problem with the surroundings, hiding itself in a cave.

Throughout our experience with the Ryujin, it was the aggressor all the situations.

The attacks on our ship, and our persons, was unprovoked and all the action we took

was in defence of our lives. I do not believe that killing the creature was the wrong

thing to do.

The way the creature met it’s end was a result of drastic action on the part of my

friend, Hideo. As mentioned earlier in this document, the Ryujin had a maw which

was large enough to swallow a man home, and Hideo allowed this to happen. His

reasoning we found out later, was that the outside of the Ryujin was clad with iron-

like scales which no weapons could breach, and he assumed that the inside to the

Ryujin would be soft and vulnerable to his harpoon. This did indeed prove to be the

case, and Hideo was able to kill the creature from the inside out. I would not

recommend this way of dealing with creature you may come across as Hideo is a

special case, a tough man able to withstand punishments and attacks that would kill

an average man such as me. However, it would seem that drastic times, need drastic

measures!

Charles Wickham