fear of the abyss

Perhaps, if a bold swimmer, you may once venture out a long way—once! Not twice!—even in company. As the water deepens beneath you and you feel those ascending currents of coldness arising which bespeak profundity, you will also begin to feel innumerable touches, as of groping fingers—touches of the bodies of fish, innumerable fish, fleeing toward the shore. The farther you advance, the more thickly you will feel them come, and above above you and around you, to right and left, others will leap and fall so swiftly as to daze the sight, like intercrossing fountain jets fluid silver. The gulls fly lower around you, circling with sinister squeaking cries; perhaps for an instant your feet touch in the deep something heavy, swift, lithe that rushes past with a swirling shock. Then the fear of the sea, the vast and voiceless nightmare of the sea, will come upon you; the silent panic of all those opaline millions that flee glimmering by will enter into you also.

Lafcadio Hearn, Chita.