The Eye

Looking out at the sea, here from the safety of his cave. He ponders, as he has pondered so many years. Since he was little and had fallen down this hole, straight into this cave beneath the ground. With no way back up, he had resigned with his fate to be bound to this cave forever.
He had turned it into a comfortable home. A warm and cosy place to sleep on dry and warmth retaining seaweeds and mosses. Over the years a few crates and other odd bits and pieces had drifted inside. Obviously no longer needed by their previous owners, since he could see their ships sticking out from the sea. The shallows, full of rocks having claimed their boats as well as their lives.
He had been here many years, he has witnessed many things. It was a bit lonely at times, but it was a quiet and peaceful life as well. He had all the time he wanted to ponder life in front of his cave, passing by day by day.
He even found some bottles with different liquids in them. Some papers and even utensils to write.
Sometimes he felt a bit melancholic and started writing. What he had observed. What he had done that day. What his thoughts on life were. In general, as well as specifically from the viewpoint of one living in a cave with nothing but the sea as his companion.
But then the hubris of it all would hit him and he would throw all that writing out, tucked away in the empty bottles he had no use for anyway. He was glad to be rid of them, the bottles and his sad thoughts, that he had put on paper.
Unbeknown to him however, the current of the water flowing into his cave would regularly turn around and carry his bottles out into sea. Some were lost to the waves, but most of that current would reach the other shore and throw the bottles, with their notes still intact, onto a small sandy beach near a fishing village.
With their small and maneuvrable boats, those cliffs near the cave were no trouble to them, not that would venture that near to them ayways. But the sight of several glass bottles, filled with notes inside them, was a very curious sight to behold. There were several different notes jotted down on each paper in a writing that was fluent and squiggly at the same time. The strangeness continued after reading the notes themselves and the beach was avoided the rest of the day.
None knew who could have written them, nor where it was they came from. But general consesus was, not to trust them anyway.
One such note was read by a young fisherman: 'Sundown was hot and bright was the sky. The stars shone brightly but they turned everything almost freezingly cold. Sunrise was filled with clouds. During the day a storm passed for several days.'
He had a small boat and had yet to earn beyond what he needed to feed his family. After reading the note, even though the village elder deemed them dangerous and to be ignored, was scared. The evening had become quite hot. He noted the change in temperature during the night, as well as the clouds on the horizon in the morning.
He took another look at the paper in his hand. Then back at the sky again.
The fishermen were busy getting ready to fish again. He tried to hold them back, advise them to wait a day before going out again. Yet, what else is a fisherman's life, but to go out there, on the sea, every day to catch some fish.
His wife declared him insane and begged him to go out there as well, before all the big fish were caught. But he refused and showed her the note; he did not want to get stranded in a storm while on the open sea. He had his family, not only to provide, but also to protect. He could do neither if he would drown out there on the sea.
As the note said, the clouds grew thicker and darker over the course of the morning. Around noon, they had swollen to a full storm, dark, grey and with heavily poring rain. Several fishermen had started to return to the village and were scrambling to get their boats and the little cargo they had already caught, to be secured. Several older men had refused and had claimed it to be weather that chased the really big fish up. They stayed in the open waters to catch a fabulous haul.
That fabulous haul however, tore their nets, smashed their boats. Some got carried away on currents otherwise very docile and hardly present. Currents, that smashed boats on rocks well known to the villagers. For they saw them and their victims on the far horizon, every morning they went out fishing. Now, those rocks and shipwrecks, became very close and tore up their boats as well.
Several fishermen lost their lives that day, as well as the head of the village. Wives morned, unheard because of the noise of the storm and rain. Only to have calm and clear skies returned to them three days later.
The youngling was questioned for his actions and how it was possible he knew a storm was brewing.
After explaining his wisdom came from the note in one of the bottles, several other bottles were gathered as well. The notes, read, one by one. Several recognised things that had happened before, that were perfectly detailed within the scribbles on those notes.
They had been foretold. They had been ignored. The price for their ignorance was paid.
They would from now on give offerings to the god who wrote these wisdoms for them. They would follow his word and never question, so they may get spared another tragedy. So the worship of the god that wrote down his wisdom and put it into bottles began.
However, it was not very frequent, the god wrote them their messages. Daily life returned to the village. But they were wary of any bottles on the beach. They would know better than to ignore their contents, this time.
Only a handful of villagers had turned 'true believers', such as the young man who had read the first note, as well as the rest of his family.
Two decades later, his daughter went out hunting for crabs and other crustations. However, near the village, they seemed to have hidden away to well to be found. So she ventured further and further out. She regularly went farther out than she was allowed. She saw those shipwrecks on the far horizon, but was forbidden to aproach because of the many rocks, hidden beneath the surface of the water.
But crabs and other shellfish, were best found in very undeep waters. Undeep waters, undisturbed by many boats passing overhead. Undeep waters, near shipwrecks and jutting rocks. It also so happened to be a seldom low tide. As was very obvious by how the villagers struggled to get their boats to float, to go out and fish.
She skimmed the shores andsandbanks in a boat, built more like a raft. She followed the shoreline, all the way to the other side. All the way across from the village.
Making sure to avoid those pointy rocks out there, she went further out. But not to far from the shallows. She wanted to step off, climb over the rocks, full of seaweed and moss. Jump from shipwreck to shipwreck and explore what was still left on them. But she stopped.
There, she noticed somthing shiny. Glimmering on the water's surface. Slowly something was drifting by on the water, that caught the light of the sun just so. Curious, she slowly closed in on it.
Bottles! They were bottles, filled with paper. Paper, filled with notes. She had heard her parents often talk about how the god of the sea had tried to save their village. He had warned them of the dangers to come, by sending his words on paper in bottles to them.
She had found their god's messages! She started gathering them all up, so none may get lost to the waves of the water. That way, unnoticed, she ended up following them 'upstream', back up to a cave in high and steep cliffs nearby.
She slowly and carefully rowed inside. She watched how the last bottle made a splash into the water and floated by silently.
Full of awe, she raised her head. Strained her eyes to see in the darkness of the tunnel. Her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, and soon she witnessed the likeness of her god:
At the end of the tunnel was a large cave, illuminated by some torches. In the far corner, her god made himself ready for bed, ready to rest after a day of writing warnings to his believers in the village in the far distance.
There was no body, not like her own. It was an Eye, huge. Massive, with a few little eyes on eyestalks poking out on top.
It was clear to her now, how come he knew so much. His wisdom made him so enormous, and his eyes could not be but this big, for he had much to perceive, so he could warn his trusted followers in time.
In awe for such grateness, for his protection, she bowed down in silence, while he slept on his bed of seaweed and moss. She left him many more behind the corner where she had watched. Silently and as fast as she dared, without waking him, she returned to her village.
She told her parents everything she had witnessed. She handed them all the notes she had gathered. Even told them the true looks of their god.
Word spread. The village was truly blessed. More predictions were read and interpreted. Now, they even had a symbol, to properly represent their god.
The Eye.