Ethereal Chronicles

The great boat lurched through the furious waves, dragging the desperate men with it. The deck was soaked with seawater, slick and treacherous beneath their feet, and the ocean howled around them. The sky above offered no reprieve from the torrent of rain that battered down from an endless mass of thick, black clouds, pressing the boat against the water. The depths below churned an inky black that rose and fell harshly. We had been fools to venture out on this night, to offer ourselves up as payment.

I looked across at their faces then, terror frosted over their eyes, raw and unspoken yet still palpable. They were no longer my men but sons, fathers, brothers, each silently questioning whether this night would be their last, confronting the bitter truth that their final comfort might not come beside a warm hearth but in the cold embrace of the ocean. In truth, I shared their doubts, that same chill gripping my own heart like the coldness that surrounded me. But I knew we had to try. We owed that much to those waiting for us at home.

“FALL BACK!” I cried out, my voice almost swallowed by the howling wind as I clung, white knuckled, to the frame of the ship.

The men were all too eager to do as I asked, relief flashing across their faces as they moved to their stations. We prepared to move the ship back to shore, now barely visible to the eye, peering at us from a distant smudge on the horizon. But as we moved into position, something in the dark water snagged my attention, and I froze, a chill creeping along my veins.

There, amid the churning waves, something vast and white surfaced, its massive form rolling through the water. Gasping, I rushed to the side, heart pounding as I leaned over the edge, straining to see what it was. In an instant, the creature surged upwards, an enormous white whale that broke the surface of the water with such strength and speed that the boat almost toppled right over. I stumbled back just in time as the force of its tail crashed against the side of us, sending a sickening tremor through the vessel.

A shout of terror rang out from one of the men, as another abandoned his post to stagger to the side, retching violently over the edge of the boat as it rocked from the impact.

I shook my head in disbelief. I was sure that my eyes had betrayed me, for I could have sworn that the creature we had seen was not a whale at all but a corpse, an apparition, nothing left of its form but clean, white bone.

Yet when it hurled itself into the air once more, water exploding around it like broken glass, the vision remained unchanged, and I was still met with the hollow gaze, still saw the beads of water that glistened on its bones. As it crashed back down, a terrible, grating howl blasted across the surface of the water.

Swiftly, I grabbed a harpoon, throwing it with as much force as I could muster towards the creature. The weapon flew true, but to my horror, it passed straight through the whale, plunging into the foaming torrent of waves. The whale shrieked again then, rattling the ship, but I could sense it beginning to withdraw. And as suddenly as it had appeared, it moved away, gliding with that same unnatural swiftness. As it vanished, the storm that raged around us began to fade, as if the creature had taken the fury of the sea with it.

In mere moments, the sea had stilled, its rage subsiding into the initial calm we had sailed with, and the sky was once more blue. It felt too peaceful, too silent, as though the storm had never appeared at all, though the fear in our hearts told us that it had.

I never saw the creature after that, for I never again ventured out to sea, nor did the rest of my crew. But the horror of that night never left me, and I returned from the journey stained by what I had witnessed, trapped in endless torment. Though I remained on land, the haunting never ceased. At times, the walls of my home would weep with invisible water, and I endured sleepless nights, for in the darkness I could only see the blackness of its eye sockets no matter what I did to fight its presence.

Appearance and Attributes

The Bake Kujira prowls storm lashed seas, manifesting as a colossal skeleton to attack whalers. It is said that those who meet its gaze bring upon themselves eternal misfortune that henceforth shadows their every step, even when they return to the safety of land.

The ghost whale is almost always present with a calamity of some sort. Its sightings often coincide with fierce storms, sudden shipwrecks and the appearance of unfamiliar, dangerous aquatic creatures. It is also said to cause famine and plague to the communities of those who cross its path.

The “Curse of bake kujira” tells the story of a manga artist who had been working on a book on the Bake Kujira as well as eating too much whale meat, and was struck with an inexplicable affliction that caused his health to rapidly deteriorate. (Mizuki Shigeru)

Those who told the story of Bake Kujira often viewed whaling as a monstrosity, and used Bake Kujira to scare people out of doing it.