Thunderous rain lashes across Andrew’s face. He wakes with his mouth gasping towards the heavens. Delicious coldness washes over him, into him. But it doesn’t take long before it starts to choke him. Andrew curls onto his side to get away from the relief he so desperately wants just a moment ago. Rain hammers his ears until they start to bleed. Tempest winds whip his clothing away, stealing the breath from his skin. Andrew gasps as a wall of cold smashes into his back. He's pulled towards the edge of the raft, towards the cold of the ocean.

Andrew digs his fingers into the wood. Finding a grasp in the ropes, he clings on with all his strength, the ocean swelling under him like a heaving beast.

He clamps his eyes shut.

By morning, the storm is over. Andrew reemerges from unconsciousness to glistening reflections on turquoise waves. The ocean is perfect and still, the sun once again hot on his face. A rainbow streaks across the cloudless sky. It’s as if last night has been all a dream. Except Andrew has the injuries to prove it. Shaking off last night's battering, he takes off his soaked leather coat and wrings it over his mouth until every drop is collected.

He contemplates going back to sleep after that. He barely rested throughout the entire night for fear he'll fall off the raft. But even as he settles down again his stomach will not. It twists and rumbles and commands Andrew to look around for food.

Of course, there is nothing. Andrew notes this with little satisfaction. He's grateful, however, that his humble craft has survived nature’s onslaught in more or less one piece. Other than one of the logs on the outside missing a piece from it, there really is nothing else wrong with the raft.

Except, something isn't quite right with the missing piece. Andrew edges over to get a better look, moving slowly to not upset the precarious balance of the raft. True enough, when he gets there he sees that a chunk of the wood is splintered off in a crescent shape. It doesn't look at all natural, something that can be done by waves or rain.

Andrew tries to convince himself that the storm may have cracked the raft against something. But he knows that out here in the vast emptiness, there’s nothing for him to hit upon.

Unless that something is to approach him.

Andrew feels his stomach twisting. There’s only one other explanation for the missing piece.

He chooses not to dwell on it. There's isn't much point scaring himself half to death on the possibility of a foreign enemy, some predator of the seas.

After all, he’s got more important problems to deal with. Food.

Andrew gets up from the raft's edge, but just before he leaves something catches his attention. A tiny white triangle is poking out from among the splinters in the wood. Andrew gets back down and crawls over, prying it out with his fingernails.

Examining it under the light, he sees that it's a tooth, with jagged edges and a spear-like tip.

It's the monster's tooth.

Swallowing the fear that has leaped into his throat, Andrew inches back from the water’s edge. It’s crystal clear and alluringly blue, but to him, it may as well be the doorway to hell. He stands there staring into the water, trying to catch his runaway breath.

He needs to occupy his mind with something. Anything. Anything but the possibilities of what may lurk beneath that blue.

Andrew strips down to his underwear. His clothes are wet. He’d been drenched through, and after finally having the sun on his skin, he almost forgets about the fear. He lays his shirt, pants, and socks down the middle of the raft where it’s the driest. Then he finds a comfortable spot and sits down to study the tooth some more.

He gets an idea.

Pinching it between his fingers, Andrew drags the tooth's sharp point along the seam of one sleeve. It is difficult at first, but soon Andrew manages to pick the threading loose. He works meticulously, picking apart both sleeves and all along the bottom of the coat until eventually, he has a fistful of cotton string. Then, wounding a bunch of the strings together, he makes a stronger section of string. Winding these together, he ends up with a short rope.

Lastly, Andrew removes one of the button hooks of his coat and fastens it to one end of the rope. He has a fishing line.

Andrew leans back and lets out a whoop of accomplishment. He pulls the line between his hands to test its strength. It's not sturdy or big enough to catch anything substantial, but surely it’ll be enough to catch him a bite.

Unless he has more. Andrew goes back to his coat with excited glee. There are three more button hooks on the coat which he yanks off one after the other. With a ragged snap, they tear right off the fabric. Holding the brass hooks in his hands, Andrew feels a momentary sense of loss at having destroyed his most expensive piece of clothing. But in the face of oncoming starvation, such sacrifices are necessary. As Andrew thinks this, the words of Doctor Davis echo across the water, as if on cue.

Progress requires sacrifice.

Andrew shakes his head. With his back to the now setting sun, he repeats the earlier processes for the remaining button hooks on his coat. And by the time the sun lowers behind the hazy horizon, he finishes with four fishing lines, each more well-made than the last. He looks around quickly for something to use as bait, before the light is gone for the day, but sees nothing he can readily use.

Andrew has no choice but to try his luck. He inches back to the stern of his raft and casts all four lines straight into the water as they are. Then as the brass hooks sink beneath the wavy waters, Andrew offers up a silent prayer to gods he does not believe in to save him.

The waves churn. Whenever Andrew’s mind begins to drift, a shift under him will cause his body to suddenly jerk awake. It’s made all the worse by the gnawing hunger that has begun to grip his every thought. During the day, he’d considered the possibility of eating his leather boots. But he does not want to destroy his resources for temporary gain. There is also the possibility he'll find land. And if - when - that happens, Andrew wants to have his shoes ready.

He turns onto his stomach and vows to make better use of daylight tomorrow. And when he finally does drift off, Andrew’s dreams are filled with grotesque creatures and sweltering heat. Faces of the past emerge. Andrew tries not to listen.

“I didn’t know!” he tries to explain to these people, judging him from their seats aloft. “I wasn’t aware of the evils of alchemy until it was too late! For all of us!”

But no one is listening. They point, and cast him into the firey depths of the dark ocean.