dam it all

 Once upon a time there was a boy who lived on a dam. The waters behind stretched as far as he'd ever been able to see and the land beyond always looked so beautiful from his lofty perch. The dam, so far as he'd been able to determine, was all that stood between the frothy waters above and the blissful serenity below.

The boy never had time to travel very far to sea or down to the valley below because the dam was constantly popping leaks. Every day, he'd get up and prepare some kind of quick fix so that he could keep the people safe below. Sometimes he'd get a day or two where there was only a minor problem, but every day there was an issue requiring immediate attention. He couldn't leave his station or the lands were doomed. 

The dam helped, in its own way. Whenever the boy needed supplies, he'd find them in an open storage area near where they were needed. If one of the pumps went down, the right tools were always in his tool bag when he went to make his repairs. On stormy days, he'd usually find himself working on one of the pumps to deal with the excess volume from the seas above. Alternatively, on clear days, he'd hear the breach alarm go off and find some mortar mix and tools ready to make the patch. The dam would have already diverted the flow and he'd get to work roping himself down the massive face of the dam to keep it safe for yet another day.

On quieter days, he'd have time to think about this bizarre situation. He also found the time to explore the dam, which was clearly a magical place. The library was difficult to find but filled with more books than anyone could ever read in a lifetime, though the boy had spent many lifetimes exploring those pages as well. 

Long ago, he remembered there was a reason he'd been set as the watcher on the dam. The little boy literally running around and putting his fingers in the dyke to keep the waters back. Someone important had tasked him with keeping this dam in place. Someone powerful had imbued it with the magic to help him keep the chaos out of the valley. For as much as he tried, he couldn't remember who, or why they'd done such things.

There's only so much space anyone has to remember things, after all. And after so many lifetimes keeping chaos at bay and filling his mind with all those books, he couldn't remember why the dam was created or why he was the one forced to stand watch. Was he forced to stand watch or had he volunteered? Had he made the dam? He had forgotten.

The serenity in the valley was too beautiful to let the stormy waters breach the dam. There were living beings down there and they needed something to keep them safe. Those creatures were what kept him at his post, performing his duties and keeping the status quo.

One day, the boy heard a commotion outside. Assuming there was some issue with the dam again, he headed quickly for the source of the noise. Much to his surprise, he saw one of the creatures from the valley.

It was a hideous thing. One of the disgusting, vile, monstrous things he'd read of in the books in his library. The monster hadn't seen him yet, but he was in shock. This was what he was saving from the flood? 

The mismatched eyes, glazed over with some kind of milky film, looked around but couldn't seem to focus on anything. Protruding at a sharp angle was a hook nose with bulbous growths on the end. Slimy mucus dripping from the tip. The gaping maw of the creature seemed wider and deeper than it needed to be for a creature that size and hung loose, drool pooling on one side and dripping down its outstretched tongue.

The jaw of this beast was angled inward towards its gargantuan midsection which had three distinct protrusions that could be called limbs. At the end of two of these were tiny, curled appendages that could be used for grasping. The third limb had more bends than seemed natural and was tipped with two larger grasping digits, one of which dangled limply.

The commotion that he'd heard was the beast's awkward gait. The exceptionally large midsection was supported by a tripod of bottom limbs to match the other three. Two gaunt and graceless limbs with digits being mashed uselessly into the dirt at the ends with a third larger limb supporting most of the weight. The resulting movements were awkward at the best of times, but in the high winds of the rising storm, the creature barely managed to make forward progress. It shambled and stumbled and spent a third of the time trying to maintain its balance.

The boy, finally coming to his senses, took swift action. He grabbed a piece of rusty rebar from a damaged portion of the dam and ripped it the rest of the way free from the wall. He quickly strode over to the beast and jammed the rod through its eye socket. The creature made a weak shriek followed by loud gurgling as it collapsed to the ground. 

The boy was sure the creature would be slain instantly with such a forceful strike to the insides of the skull, yet the creature lay on the ground writhing and gurgling for a long time. It eventually choked to death before it bled out, but the boy watched and made sure it was dead.

Once he was sure the beast was slain, the boy walked off towards the sunset and never returned.