Sure! Here's an extended version of your story, reaching approximately 1,200 words while maintaining its suspenseful tone.

The Edge of the Horizon: A Captain’s Descent into the Unknown

The first time Ellis saw the horizon swallow a ship, he was ten years old. His father, a grizzled sailor with skin like old rope, had pointed toward the disappearing vessel and said, “That’s where the world ends, boy.”

Ellis had believed him, but not in the way most did. The older sailors spoke of the horizon as a barrier, a point beyond which ships never returned. Some claimed the ocean poured over the edge into an abyss. Others whispered of islands shrouded in mist, of a place where the rules of the world unraveled. Ellis never laughed at their stories. He listened.

Now, years later, he stood at the bow of the Marrow, the ship his father once commanded, staring at that same horizon. The sun bled into the sea, staining it crimson. His crew worked in silence around him, their movements slow, careful. They had been sailing for weeks beyond the trade routes, following rumors, following a dream. Or a nightmare.

Captain Ellis North had set out to prove one thing: what lay beyond the horizon.

A Ship Without a Home

The journey had already cost them. Half their provisions were gone. A storm had stolen two men, tearing them into the black water before the crew could throw them a rope. And then there was the mist—unnatural, clinging to the ship like a living thing. It had arrived three days ago and hadn’t lifted since.

“I don’t like it, Captain,” said Jory, his quartermaster, as he adjusted the compass for the hundredth time. The needle spun uselessly. “It ain't right. We should turn back.”

Ellis didn’t answer. He gripped the railing, watching the water. There were no stars above, no sun, no moon—just mist and shadow.

That night, the crew heard whispers in the fog.

The Voices of the Deep

They sounded like their own.

Ellis heard Jory’s voice first, calling his name from the stern, though Jory stood right beside him. The others heard their own voices, luring them into the darkness. A deckhand, Ren, swore she heard her dead mother singing an old lullaby.

By morning, another man was gone.

“We’re cursed,” muttered Griggs, the ship’s cook, clutching a rusted charm around his neck. “I told you all, there ain’t nothin’ but death past the horizon.”

No one argued.

Ellis, though, felt something stir in his chest. It wasn’t fear. It was something colder, something that had always lived inside him. He had never believed in curses. But he did believe in the unknown.

The Shape in the Fog

On the seventh day in the mist, something changed. The ship stopped moving.

The water beneath them was still, thick like oil. No wind filled the sails. The Marrow drifted, held in place by something unseen.

Then they saw it.

A shape in the mist. No, not a shape—a ship.

It was massive, towering above them, its masts splintered, its hull covered in barnacles. No flag flew from its mast. No voices called from its deck. It floated silently, as if waiting.

“God help us,” whispered Jory.

Ellis ordered a launch. Against the protests of his crew, he and two others rowed toward the ghost ship. The closer they got, the worse the air smelled—salt and rot, decay that clung to their skin.

When Ellis reached the deck, he saw the bodies.

The Dead Crew

They stood where they had died.

Sailors, their flesh gray and bloated, their eyes hollow, frozen mid-motion as if caught in the middle of their duties. One man still clutched a rope. Another leaned over a barrel, his hand curled around a ladle.

None of them had decomposed. None had fallen.

It was as if death had taken them all at once, in a single breath.

Jory gagged. “We need to leave. Now.”

Ellis took a step forward. His boot hit something—a journal, its pages damp but intact. He knelt, flipping through it. The entries were scrawled in an unsteady hand.

"We were wrong. The edge is not empty. It watches. It waits."

The last page held only four words, written so violently the paper had torn:

"We have been claimed."

A creak echoed from the bow. Ellis turned sharply.

One of the dead men had moved.

The Claiming

At first, it was a twitch. A jerk of a hand. Then another. Then another.

The dead turned their heads toward them, slowly, as if waking from a long sleep.

Ellis grabbed Jory and Ren. “Back to the boat. Now.”

They ran. Behind them, the dead shifted, their limbs stiff but determined. A wet, rattling breath filled the air.

The moment they hit the rowboat, Ren cut the ropes. Jory rowed, his hands shaking.

The fog swallowed the dead ship, and then it was gone.

But something followed them back.

The Thing Below

The Marrow was silent when they returned. Too silent.

Ellis climbed aboard first. The deck was empty.

His heart pounded. “Where is everyone?”

Then he heard it. A scraping sound.

Not above.

Below.

Ren took a hesitant step toward the hatch.

Something knocked from the other side.

Once.

Twice.

Then, in a voice that did not belong to any of them:

“Captain?”

Ellis stepped back. “No one opens that door.”

Jory swallowed hard. “But what if it’s them?”

Ellis stared at the hatch.

What if it was?

What if they were still alive down there?

What if they weren’t?

His hands clenched at his sides.

The silence stretched. No wind stirred the sails. No stars pierced the mist. The ship drifted on an ocean without a name, toward a horizon no one had ever crossed.

A second knock. Then a third. Faster. Harder. Urgent.

Ellis’s breath came shallow. He had spent his life chasing the unknown. He had defied warnings, ignored superstition, risked everything for a glimpse beyond the world’s edge.

And now, something was calling to him.

His fingers hovered over the latch.

Ren’s voice was barely a whisper. “Captain… don’t.”

Ellis hesitated. His heart pounded.

But the knocking did not stop.

With a deep breath, he reached for the latch.

The End… or Not?