Chapter 55: Ram the Ship Through!

It was the dead of night – 4:00 AM to be precise – when the President of the United States was rudely awoken. He was still groggy shortly after rising, but he sat at alert once an official conveyed the latest happenings in the Pacific to him.

The president scowled in frustration as he waited for the arrival of his cabinet members. The Oval Office was silent save for the furious tapping of his fingers against his ebony desk, and the guards standing by him could not help gulp in the tense atmosphere as they stood in trepidation.

His fingers crept towards his smartphone as he composed the tweet he would soon send in his mind. There was nothing wrong with providing the public a bit of information, right? How else would he make America great again? And besides, his elderly heart could not bear the weight of the secrets he currently knew. He needed some kind of release.

[Have you ever seen Washington at 4 AM?]

With this single tweet, he felt refreshed. He had recently learned that Time magazine had chosen him to be the person of the year, and he felt quite happy about this.

Soon the Secretary of Defense walked into the office with several people behind him.

The president jerked upright at the sight of the unexpected visitors. Other than a few soldiers, there were also several aged men in Secretary Johnson’s entourage.

Johnson began without being prompted, “These people, sir, are biologists, historians, religious scholars, occultists, and other distinguished academics from the major universities in our country.”

Despite the clear excitement in their eyes, there was a trace of sleepiness within all of their expressions. Nonetheless, none of them would give up on this opportunity for the world. To think they could unlock the mysteries behind mythical creatures.

None of them seemed nervous in front of the president. Following a brief greeting, they sat down and the Secretary of Defense began his report.

Secretary Johnson tersely ordered his subordinate to place a laptop on the table. The system was powered on and quickly connected to the destroyer in the Pacific ocean.

Looking at the screen, they could see the strange mosaic-like background as well as the sea monster within it. All of them began to frown.

The President looked at the expert, prompting them for their input on the creature.

As the Aura of Fear’s effects could not cover such vast distances, the experts could observe the monster without losing their composure.

“Kraken of the Northern Sea?”

“Sin of Jealousy, Leviathan?”

“Monster squid from folklore?”

“……”

Several hypotheses were put forth as to its nature. As a cascade of mythical and legendary deep-sea monsters poured from each of their mouths, only to be quickly shut down, the president began to grow irritated at their indecision. It seemed, in his perspective, that these people could not be relied upon.

But the experts could not help it. After all, putting aside the quality of the image, which was distorted by the mosaic, none of them had seen a mythical creature in the flesh before. Thus their deductions were hardly conclusive. And they could only rattle away.

There was a knock on the door. A person walked in, identified Secretary Johnson walked to meet him. He whispered something into his ear.

After the person left, the Secretary coughed lightly and prepared to convey more information to the group in the room.

“A soldier on the ship seems to have had a mental breakdown. Before he passed out, he kept shouting ‘Hail Cthulhu’.”

“Hail Cthulhu?”

The experts and the president looked at one another, puzzled. It was not that they didn’t know what Cthulhu was, but that such an identity was extremely odd.

A religious scholar spoke out, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Cthulhu a fictional creature created by a novelist? Howard Phillips Lovecraft, I believe? It has no basis in mythology or folklore.”

To be properly classified as mythological history, a story or myth needed to be at least a few centuries old. Often these stories had passed away from the public consciousness before they were recorded and preserved for posterity. The only reason people did so was for cultural or anthropological reasons, and in many cases, even these could not prevent the extinction of certain stories.

H.P. Lovecraft, on the other hand, was merely a novelist that lived less than a century ago. His ‘Cthulhu mythos’ did not properly align with any known mythological accounts, and so it was hardly taken as an actual myth.

“The officer and men on the USS Barry said that they somehow felt fear in their hearts. They suspect that they are mentally contaminated by the monster.”

The Secretary of Defense’s follow-up caused the place to go silent once again.

This description was too similar to the things written in the novel…

At the same time, the Secretary of Defense had his subordinate display images captured by the destroyer from the moment it noticed something strange happening at sea.

“Perhaps Lovecraft was in fact inspired by this very creature. It might have visited him in his dreams before imparting knowledge of its form into him,” an occultist added

The president thought that this hypothesis was on point.

A nervous folklorist spoke up, “It might really be the case. There is indeed such an explanation in Cthulhu mythos. There is a saying that art is a by-product of madness that comes from demons. Perhaps Lovecraft had picked up on Cthulhu’s madness and created a series of fictional stories about it. Meaning, these stories are a by-product of his spirit being contaminated by Cthulhu!”

This statement sparked a flurry of discussions and brainstorming as the experts began to converse.

“Cthulhu is known as the Great Dreamer and a Great Old One. There were probably no legends about Cthulhu before Lovecraft wrote the novel. That might be because it was in a deep slumber. That is, until a hundred years ago when the monster woke up for some reason and leaked its madness, which was then picked up by Lovecraft.”

“It says here that the destroyer sent a drone in, but they lost signal of it the moment it entered. Could this space be that lost city, R’lyeh?”

“It is especially recorded that it is located at the bottom of the Pacific, but due to the seal breaking sometimes, it would appear on the surface. This seems to be similar to the current situation.”

“Look carefully at the image. In Lovecraft’s description, Cthulhu is a monster that resembles an octopus. Although the image isn’t clear enough, doesn’t this look like a tentacle? The overall appearance does also look cephalopodic.”

The experts were enthusiastic over the arguments that they were having. It was as if they were disguised Cthulhu mythology experts, but there was something common between all of them- they all believed that this monster was really Cthulhu!

The Secretary of Defense interrupted the experts and spoke to the president, “Mr. President, the captain of USS Barry says that their missiles are ready, shall they fire?”

The eyes of the experts all landed on the president, putting him under pressure and causing him to wipe his forehead.

He laughed dryly and said in a small voice, “I haven’t read any of Lovecraft’s novels before. I want to know, did Cthulhu ever appear on land? And how did the people deal with it?”

“It ended up getting hit by a ship.” an expert said casually.

“Then, can we ask the USS Barry to ram against it?” the president asked cautiously.

The Secretary of Defense and the experts were speechless.

The president actually believed in this nonsense. How could this lofty evil God be afraid of being hit by a ship? If he actually ordered the USS Barry to ram the monster, then USS Barry would also dare send missiles to the White House.

The president knew he had asked a stupid question and smiled sarcastically with a face full of knots.

To launch the missile or not?