merihirviö {fin. sea monster}

While we are sitting together, right here, wrapped in our warm cozy blankets, let me tell you a story about a mystery that has happened not too long ago…

It was a cold day in mid-February. Darkness was falling upon the snowy landscape of Helsinki. The
golden light of a dozen apartments shown out into the early evening as a light snow fell from the
grey sky above. Jazz music was emanating from Ekberg café.
On that fateful night, a young man entered a small Italian restaurant called La Familia Italia and was greeted by a blonde girl with the most beautiful smile in the world. Surely, it was said smile that would hypnotize his heart forever. “Welcome to La Familia”, she said smiling. After shaking off the snowflakes on his heavy coat, he spoke: “A table for one, please”. Looking at him fondly and with curious eyes, she led him to an adjacent room and offered him a table there.
For the next ten days, he would return to the very same restaurant in hopes of catching just a
glimpse of that beautiful smile. Each day thereafter became punctured by angst and anxious
restlessness until he could lay eyes upon her once again. On the days she wasn’t there, the world
had gone dark and cold. “The check“, he said faintly as she hurried by one evening. In her very
Finnish manner, she simply nodded. But before she could run along, he added, “and your name,
please”. She smiled, as she always did, and quietly walked away. Minutes later she returned holding a single piece of paper with a name on it – Nelli.
Nelli, Nelli, my Nelli. He would repeat that name over and over. It consumed his thoughts and left
room for nothing else. No concerns, no desires, no feelings… just Nelli. He longed for her and
continued to see her every evening at her work. One evening, in his eager anticipation to see her, he arrived at La Familia only to learn she was gone and would not be returning. His heart sank.
He must see her again.
One day, not long after, he passed her on the street. She smiled. He stopped her and after some
small talk, she agreed to meet him at a small café.
Perhaps she had learned of his reputation as an author. He was, after all, quite unique and would
one day be famous. He wasn’t like others, and neither was she. They fell in love. They burnt for each other like a mixture of fire and oil. Never had he felt this love before. Never had he felt so complete.
One day in early spring, they agreed to meet for a quiet lunch on the boardwalk. He waited and
waited but she never showed up. Night fell.
Again his love was gone. And she would never return.
Nelli, Nelli, my Nelli. Where did you go? And why did you leave? Torment once more plagued his
soul. He wrote her reams of literature, poems, short stories, and love letters. But, they were never
answered. He longed for her and for the answers to the mystery of her whereabouts. He would
devote the rest of his life to finding her if need be. He lived in desperation during her absence as he agonized over her sudden and strange disappearance. As each day wore on, he often sat sulking along the Helsinki waterfront. One early morning on the dock, he suddenly saw something bobbing up and down in the water nearby. Quickly, he ran toward the form. It was a woman’s body. It was Nelli. But, could it really be Nelli? His world stopped. She had now become one of many, for a plague so hellish even the devil repulsed it, had befallen the city.
The Finns called it Merihirviö or as the English termed it many years later; liquid death.
Day after day, week after week, people simply vanished, only to turn up drowned in the Baltic sea, floating right outside the skirts of the city. Some, perhaps more conservative folk, thought it to be a curse. Born out of lust, envy, and greed by society. Born into the ocean as a monster, set out to wreak havoc and death upon the citizens of Helsinki. With its long, dew and algae-covered arms, it pulled the most sinful persons out of their beds at night. Some, perhaps more progressive folk, thought it to be the work of a serial killer. To the young author, it meant no difference. His Nelli had been taken. Taken to suffer in the eternal depths of agony.
Nelli, Nelli, my Nelli. Why did you leave? And where did you go?
So, the young author set out to find the answers to the questions burning into his very existence.
Obsessed by this Merihirviö, the young man spent day and night searching but to no avail. The monster had hidden well.
One starless night, while walking along the waterfront, as he had been doing since spotting his beloved, he noticed something creeping only a few meters away from him. There, hunched over and sleuthing along the way was the monstrosity. Spawned out of the depths of the Baltic sea, it had returned to feast upon the poor people of Helsinki once more. He sped up for this was his time to take it down, to take his final revenge. But when he blinked, it was gone. Believing to have seen a phantom, he went home to sleep, for sleep would surely take him into her loving arms once more. 
The monster has never been seen again since, but neither has the young author…

There are some that say, ever since that day, another Merihirviö is lurking in the cold cruel depths of the Helsinki port.