It was the first name that popped into my head, sue me.

*****

It was April 23rd, 1941, I will remember this day until I die for the simple reason that it was the most miraculous day of my life. It was near enough to the middle of the second world war, times were tough at that point in the war. You must understand both sides were fighting for their lives, people were desperate, I was desperate.

I felt like I was going mad, when I came across those papers I felt like I had truly lost my mind. A crazy scientist believing in tall tales written my men going mad at sea writing about some miracle plant in their logs. But as I said, I was desperate, you can call me crazy if you want but I was willing to do just about anything to keep those men alive.

After I heard about it I went straight to Winston Churchill himself, I can't imagine what he thought when an American scientist burst into his office. Of course I knew the man well, I worked for him, made weapons to use against the Nazis for him, and thus knew how desperate he was too. So when I told him I'd found something that could help us in the war he listened to every word.

I didn't wait for him to change his mind, I told him what I found and how it could help, I was sure he would call me mad to. Imagine my surprise when he didn't, it was worth a shot if it meant we could save lives and end the war. He granted my request for a boat and small crew, what I didn't expect was to be given an HMS Dianthus and fifty able soldiers from the navy.

As I said, we were desperate, certainly desperate enough to believe in a plant anyone else would say couldn't exist. The soldiers had all been briefed on what we were doing, we were traveling to what would later be known as the Bermuda Triangle. I'm sure you think we were even crazier now but we did it anyway, we were sailing into the heart of the Bermuda Triangle and what might be our doom.

Now you may be wondering why we didn't simply contact the armies in America, after all they're closer and may know the seas better. It would be months before my fellow countrymen would join the war, we knew we would receive no help from them. So we set sail, traveling at 16 knots it would take us 9 and a half days to reach our destination if we weren't delayed.

We relied on ally ships to radio the positions of enemy ships to us so we wouldn't be blown out of the water. We were on constant alert, tensions were high and the thought of failure was almost unbearable. On the 23rd of April we had been traveling for 9 days, the Lieutenant and commanding officer of the crew, Miles Tompkins, approached me.

"Dr. Richards, we've almost reached the location you marked, we'll be there in less then an hour."

I nodded, "Thank you Tompkins."

Tompkins was quiet for a split second before speaking again, "Doctor, are you sure this will work, this thing might not even exist."

I couldn't help but laugh to myself, "That is true but at this point we just have to try. Tell me Tompkins why do you think we're in this war?"

He seemed confused by the out of nowhere question, "Because of the Nazis."

"Yes but that's not the real reason, we're in this war because of Hitler and do you know how such a man could do all of this?" Tompkins shook his head, "It's because Hitler has power, but he wouldn't have power if not for his followers. To win this war we would have to take his followers away but given what's already happened I doubt we could do that."

"But followers give Hitler power, power gives Hitler control, and control makes people fear him. If we want to win we must give his followers something else to fear, something scarier then Hitler. You see fear ensights panic, panic ensights chaos, and chaos gives us an advantage, if we pull this off it won't just help our soldiers, it will make them fear us."

Tompkins cut in, "And then we can win, but that's assuming we actually succeed."

"That is true, so we just have to hope we do."

Tompkins nodded and then left to continue giving his men orders and my heart was hammering, I'm sure I was shaking a little. Churchill had sent us out there in the hopes of getting results, if we failed I would likely be fired and our efforts would be for nothing. Perhaps I should say exactly what we were looking for before continuing on, after all it is important for you to understand.

We were looking for a type of seaweed that, according to the logs I'd found, could heal what would usually be fatal wounds to normal men. I know how crazy it sounds, it sounds like it's from a story you would tell your children at night. We'd never found a plant like this anywhere else and there was no other evidence to suggest that it existed.

But if it was we could save the lives of hundreds, thousands of soldiers that would otherwise die from wounds sustained while fighting we had to take that chance. That's why my heart was beating so heavily, but my focus was soon drawn away from the beating of my heart when I felt a raindrop on my head. The sky was dark and grey due to heavy rain clouds that had formed in the sky that were now releasing their precipitation to let it fall on the land and water below it's no doubt vast area.

This confused me greatly as I could have sworn it had been clear just moments before. The sun had been shining and warming all of us on the ship with not a single cloud in the sky. I brushed off the abnormal weather as simply losing track of time during my musings and decided to do a last minute walk through.

I checked the dive suits some of the men would wear while retrieving the plant and searched for any flaws in the suits. At this time in history divers would be seen wearing diving suits made of heavy canvas and a helmet of copper. You may understand what they looked like better if I said a monster from a show that was produced later by the name of Scooby-Doo wore such a suit.

But I digress, these diving suits may not be enough to reach the depth the plant was located at. But we had very few ways of even possibly going that far down in the deep blue sea without a submarine at our disposal. That is why I wanted to check the suits, I didn't want some small mistake to cost the brave men that had volunteered to go down their lives.

As I performed this task I noticed that the ship was swaying a bit and went outside to see what on Earth could be causing it. I only needed to exit the ship to find out what was going on, the light rainfall had turned into a raging storm. It was causing large waves and they in turn thrashed the ship from side to side as the men held on for dear life.

Due to the fact that I hadn't known what was going on I had been thrown to the side as the ship was tossed again. I fell onto the deck and was soon doused in water, I was sure I hit my head because a horrible pain had blossomed from my forehead. I had to take a moment to clear my head and when I did I found that something else had happened.

When I fell to the deck my glasses had flown off my face and landed somewhere on the deck away from me. All I could see were blurry figures and blobs of shifting color now that they were gone, I needed to find them. I frantically searched the area around me desperately grasping for my glasses so that I might be able to see again.

However I was soon thrown again and it took longer to recover this time, I wasn't sure if it was the head injury or the violent thrashing of the ship but I started to feel sick. The nauseating feeling of my stomach heaving in protest at any sort of action was only made worse by my fear. I couldn't see and was caught in the middle of a storm, there was no one to help and it felt as if there was nothing I could do.

I continued searching for my glasses in the vain hope of finding them and having a better chance of surviving this storm. I'd been hearing men shouting the entire time but when it sounded like something hit the water I looked up. A few of the men had gone overboard and if the storm didn't let up more of them would fall.

Then I heard running footsteps that would falter or stumble if the ship swayed, I squinted my eyes and saw someone coming toward me. I saw the dark blue of a navy uniform but couldn't make out who it was to save my life even without the raging storm. I was soon hauled to my feet and my glasses were put in my hand, I quickly put them on to find Tompkins standing in front of me.

He shouted over the howling wind, "We need to get inside the ship!"

I shouted back, "But everything in the ship will just be flying around!"

"Almost everything is bolted down, anything that isn't won't hurt you that badly!"

"But what about the men?!"

"If they're smart they'll do the same, if they don't they at least know how to hold on!"

I hesitated, I didn't want to just leave them out there but I nodded and we fought to get to the door of the ship. Just as we were about to reach it a huge wave crashed over the ship and forced us back, we both landed on the deck again but this time I kept my glasses. Tompkins and I doubted that we could get back to the door so we did what everyone else was, held on for dear life.

Within minutes the storm had calmed only slightly but it was enough that we felt much safer now. We would survive, we could get inside the ship and wait out the storm until it was safe enough to come out. A few of the men looked over the side of the ship to see if the others were still there, I didn't have much hope of that.

They searched the waters and the silence was filled with howling winds and waves splashing up against the side of the ship. The men that had recovered from the onslaught of water were helping the others up and seeing if they were okay. My head was still pounding but I didn't feel as sick now that the rocking of the ship was far less violent.

A few of the men continued scanning the water before one of them shouted, there was something under the water. I ran to the side of the ship hoping against all hope that it was just the men and they were still alive. But to my shock it looked like something else was moving under the water, it looked to be a very deep blue with a green sheen.

I wasn't entirely sure what I was seeing but it looked like scales, perhaps it was just a large fish? But something told me it wasn't, I was proven right when something burst out of the water and the storm seemed to have picked up a bit. The waved only came a few inches above the top deck so a bit of water would splash across the surface but it was enough to make us uneasy.

However that was the least of our worries, the thing that had emerged from the dark waters below us was absolutely monstrous. It towered well above us and easily reached above the height of the mast of the ship making it well over 24 feet just from what we could see. The creature let out what I can only describe as something between a roar and a screech that shook me to my bones.

Some of us just stared at the monster in terror, some panicked beyond all sense of reason, and a few brave men managed to keep their wits about them. Those that stayed calm did their best to reign in ones that panicked with little success. I admit with shame that I was one of the men that stared at that beast in fear, I thought my heart had stopped.

I did managed to shake myself of that dumb stupor and looked around, I noticed immediately that the ship was being surrounded. It took far longer then I wish to admit for me to realize that the ship was getting trapped not by more monsters but simply the same one. This beast was far longer then the ship making it well beyond the length of 200 feet.

I can only call this monster a sea dragon, perhaps it could not breathe fire but it was certainly just as ferocious if it's size was any indication. The men panicked more when they made the same observation I did, those that were composed were slowly crumbling under the weight of the situation.

Then the beast attacked the ship, it destroyed everything on the deck and even dented the metal the ship was made from. I think what truly terrified me was that this leviathan of a serpent could have easily crushed the ship like an ant under a boot if it so wished. It was powerful, strong, and far larger then anything I can hope to see in my life time again.

Yet despite all of that I tried to think of some way to stop this creature, surely there had to be some way to do it. I looked around for anything that could help me but I was only focused on the destructive power of the colossal monster. But I suppose that's what made me notice it, the way it moved, the way it attacked us.

This titan wasn't just randomly attacking, it wasn't hitting the ship with no rhyme or reason, it was all deliborate. It didn't hit the men, it hit the ship, our supplies, equipment, all of it was important and nothing else was hit. This savage looking beast was conscious of everything it was doing, so perhaps it could be reasoned with.

I ran into the ship as fast as I could leaving Tompkins on the deck looking perplexed and likely very angry. But I couldn't think about that, I ran to the bridge of the ship and found the sound system. The speakers on the ship may have been damaged, even to the point that they might now work, but this was the best idea I had.

I turned it on and pulled the microphone closer, "Wait, please!" I noticed immediately that the creature had slowed slightly as if curious to hear what I had to say, I didn't waste my chance. "Listen to me, we aren't here to hurt you, and if you somehow know we're here for the plant let me explain."

"We are at war, we have been for over a year now and good men are dying, we didn't want this war. Maybe we had a choice whether to fight or not but we couldn't stand by knowing what was going on. We aren't here for power, or glory, or anything else you may think we want, we just want to bring as many people back home to their families as we can."

"We want to save the lives of men that are fighting to free people that are being imprisoned, starved, and beaten to death. Those people did nothing to deserve it but our enemy does it anyway because they blame them for something they had no part in. So I'm begging you on behalf of those men and the people they're trying to save, let us go so we can help them."

The sea dragon had stopped now, my heart seemed to be beating against my ribs and I was sure it was just going to finish us off. Instead it slowly went back into the water, slowly descending into the cold and dark depths it had come from. The men were all standing there in stunned silence until they cheered, we were still alive!

We'd just seen a giant sea dragon and we were going to live to tell about it, we were manic with relief. The men hugged each other, threw their hands in the air as they celebrated, some were laughing as a few tears escaped their eyes. However our celebration was cut short when we heard something rise out of the water.

The dragon was back and I'm sure we all stopped breathing as we waited for it to swallow us whole. The monster leaned down and opened it's mouth but instead of trying to attack us again something fell out of it's mouth. It hit the deck and the dragon rose it's head above us again before leaving our sight for the second time.

We waited for what felt like hours before realizing that it was truly gone this time, it had let us go. With this second chance we turned the ship around immediately and sailed away as quickly as we could. We eventually escaped the storm and the skies were clear again which immediately make the atmosphere on the ship lighter.

Now that we were safe I decided to see what the serpent had dropped onto the deck. As I got closer I saw that it was some sort of plant, I felt my heart skip a beat as I dared to hope, I picked up one of them and examined it. There were lines of light blue running through it, it was quite obvious that it was a type of seaweed.

My breath caught in my throat, this is it, this is what we had done all of this for, it fit the description in the logs perfectly. The miracle plant, I took the one I was holding to the lower desk where I had a few basic supplies and immediately began my work. I needed to come up with a way to safely store it and hopefully in a way that others wouldn't know what it was.

Tompkins came in just minutes later and I told him to get a few men to wash and freeze the seaweed as soon as possible. It took several hours but I managed to make the seaweed into a mixture that could be easily stored in a bottle. Now to make sure it worked, having no other test subject I used it on myself to see if it could help my head injury.

With nothing else to do and my energy completely drained I went to bed on the small cot in the room, I fell asleep within minutes. I woke up what I am sure was hours later, I expected pain from my head injury but there was nothing. It worked, the plant had worked, so with a spring in my step I worked on making more of the seaweed into the mixture.

I could have waited but I'm known to work far more then I need to when I'm excited. The 9 day trip back to Britain was full of working on the mixture and figuring out how best to make it work. When we finally got back Churchill was there waiting for us, I told him everything, showed him the notes I'd taken, and explained why the ship was damaged.

He couldn't believe everything that I told him but he had no other choice but to take my word for it. Within days the mixture was sent to the soldiers, the war lasted for several more years and that mixture saved thousands of lives. We won the war, and I'd like to think part of the reason so many men came home was because of that mixture, and I have that sea dragon to thank for it.