Dagon: War of Worlds (Dramatized) recap

During the First World War, an unnamed merchant-ship supercargo escapes a German captor in a small boat and drifts across the Pacific. He awakens after a violent disturbance to find his boat stranded on a vast, foul expanse of seabed that has abruptly risen above the water. Crossing it on foot, he reaches a chasm containing an ancient monolith carved with aquatic humanoids and encounters an immense living sea creature beside it. He flees in terror and later wakes aboard a rescuing ship. No one confirms what he saw, and neither scientific inquiry nor study of ancient sea-god traditions gives him relief. Addicted to morphine and convinced that beings from the ocean depths threaten humanity, he records the experience before planning his death. Sounds at his door and window interrupt the manuscript, suggesting either that the horror has followed him or that his fear has finally consumed him.

An unnamed merchant-ship supercargo, writing under the effects of morphine, explains why he expects to die. During the First World War, a German raider captures his vessel in the Pacific. He escapes alone in a small boat, drifts without navigation, and wakes after an extraordinary upheaval to find the boat grounded in a huge plain of black, decaying mud where open ocean should be. After waiting for the ground to dry, he walks across it and reaches a hill overlooking a deep chasm. There he finds a monolith covered with carvings of fishlike humanoids and enormous marine animals. A gigantic amphibious creature rises from the water and clings to the stone, sending him fleeing back across the waste. His next clear memory is of a hospital after a ship rescues him. Later investigation yields no confirmation, but reading about the ancient god Dagon intensifies his belief that powerful beings live beneath the sea. Unable to escape the memory, he prepares to kill himself. His narrative ends abruptly when something seems to approach his room and appear at the window, without resolving whether the threat is physical or hallucinatory.

After being rescued from the Pacific, the narrator can find no public record of the upheaval that exposed the strange seabed. A scientist dismisses his questions, while his own study of the ancient god Dagon strengthens his fear that immense sea-dwelling beings survive beneath the oceans and may one day rise. Morphine no longer suppresses the memory. As he finishes his written account before an intended fatal plunge from his window, he hears a heavy sound at the door and then the movement of a large body. The final lines break off as he reacts to something at the window, leaving it uncertain whether a creature has truly found him or terror has overwhelmed him.