From the Belly

Overview

The whaling vessel Merciful has just made its strangest catch yet: a massive whale containing a still-living man secreted within its stomach lining. Sailor Isaiah Chase is tasked with keeping the enigmatic man alive. As their relationship grows, a series of accidents, injuries and deaths quickly befall the ship and its crew. Isaiah is plagued by strangely prophetic dreams, even as the crew continues their endless quest for whale oil under the command of an increasingly unhinged captain. As events spiral further out of control, the mysterious man confesses what Isaiah has begun to suspect: the crew of The Merciful has fallen into a cycle of punishment for their greed and destruction. Isaiah must confront the sea's vengeance made flesh, and choose between this new, strange love and the fate of the ship itself.

Author Biography

Hailing from a haunted seaside town in northern Massachusetts, Emmett Nahil is the author of LET ME OUT (Oni Press, October 2023), and a writer of horror and speculative fiction centering marginalized perspectives. Favoring the historic, the strange, and the gory, in his other life Emmett makes video games as the Narrative Director and co-founder of Perfect Garbage Studios.