The Tortured Hulls of Goodwin Sands

There's a place, just off the coast of Kent, England, where ships go to die.

Clever people have wondered: why do so many shipwrecks happen here? They ponder about the tricky weather smack in a prime trade route. Surely thinking of all those ships... ancient, and less ancient... creaking and groaning, and rattling their tortured chains on the sea bed...

The first several tragedies were probably mundane, inasmuch as any catastrophe can be. There comes a time when death acts like gravity. Just as mass attracts mass, so too death attracts death... when you have enough of it.

Think of it like a vortex, sucking down the souls of ships. The loss of the lives of men and women is purely coincidental.

One of them paces, leaving no footprints, holding aloft his broken lantern. He is the Darkhouse Keeper. He oversees the vortex, although it would do what it does whether he did or not.

The surface is churning again, whipped to dangerous peaks by a stiff wind. He lifts his lantern higher and trudges on. Forever.

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Thank you for reading!

The phenomena of Goodwin Sands is real. I couldn't get it out of my head, so... Here you go.