. . .
Date: July 22, 2007
Location: 11°22.4′N 142°35.5′E.
. . .
“What… what the fuck…?” Captain Tomes managed to choke out, sounding just as sickened as I feel, “What the hell happened here?”
My best guess is the impact had done such a devastating blow not only to the submersible but to the survivor as well. And yet… those raw, open wounds… his broken bones–they all looked like they’ve been somehow inflicted upon him on purpose, laid out so hatefully–maybe they really did encountered something else while they were wandering in the depths, an animal attack, perhaps?
But what kind of animal could possibly be lurking around these parts (where life itself was barely recorded, mind you) that it actually managed to sink down not only one but two vessels?
Do I even want to know?
“You know what, Captain? Fuck this shit, let’s just get the hell out of here, this isn’t worth it,” I muttered, shaking my head, “Besides, I don’t see anyone else but this guy. And with the damage like that, there’s no way there are other survivors...”
“But we don’t even see any more corpses–!”
“You want to go looking for dead bodies? Be my fucking guest! They could have been washed adrift at sea,” my voice unintentionally rose, “Captain, I’m sorry–I really am, but you should know that these kinds of things do happen on the job–it is a natural, occupational hazard! WE’RE JUST LITERALLY RISKING OUR NECKS FOR NOTHING HERE!”
He gritted his teeth, angrily gesturing over to the Submerged’s remaining survivor, “Oh yeah? You ever see this shit before?!”
I faltered, “No… but staying here and dying isn’t going to bring them back. It’s literally not going to help anyone here!”
The Captain groaned and turned away from me for a moment, angrily scratching over his face as he did so, his breathing a bit labored, “Fucking forget it, fine… but you do realize still have to find that goddamn baby blue?”
Oh…
Oh, right.
I almost forgot about that.
We were both quiet as the Captain pressed and messed with some of the buttons before he gently steered our submersible around the wreckage in a slow, full circle. When we still found nothing, he moved our submersible just overhead to take in the whole extent of the site before we stopped for a moment to get a better look.
The Diamond has probably been hovering around the area for at least a few minutes when the Captain deigned to speak up again: “The commander said you’ll know it when you see it,” he muttered, eyes still focused on the screen, “Any idea what we’re looking for?”
“No. I’m just lost as you…”
“Damn it,” he shook his head, “And that was our main priority.”
“We could try looking into the interior,” I suggested, leaning a bit closer to peer around the screen, trying to ignore the way the corpse’s lifeless eyes’ seeming to drill into our own, “Maybe we’ll find something there… but let’s be quick. The possibility that this was an animal attack remains to be seen and I don’t really want to go face to face with it myself should it decide to come back,”
“Don’t jinx it,” he shot back.
I almost smiled.
Those were my words earlier.
Guiding the submersible back to where we started, Captain Tomes narrowed his eyes as he gently brought the Diamond even closer to the torn apart submersible.
“Wait,” I sat up straighter, “Is that an underwater camera?”
“Yeah,” he grunted, pressing over another button before turning to look at me, “The Diamond’s crew is composed majorly of docs like you, and they often went out of their sub to record marine life closely so those aren’t anything new.”
“You think we can still retrieve it?”
He gave me a look, “What for?”
“They might be on to something,” I explained, settling back into my seat, “And it will be a waste of data if they did manage to record on it only to be left behind here. Come on, let’s go get it.”
“Whatever you say, Doctor.”
. . .
Once Captain Tomes managed to retrieve the underwater camera using this retractable claw-like hand that resembles one of those things you’ll find in arcades, crane games I think… (Please cut me some slack I literally have no idea what that thing’s called), we waited for the water to subside before he deemed it safe to open the panel and bring back the camera.
“Are we heading up now?” I asked.
“No. Not yet… we still have to retrieve the baby blue, remember?” he reminded me as he settled back into his seat.
“Worth a shot,” I mumbled as I began to mess around with the camera. It had sustained some minor scratches, nothing too serious; hopefully it’s not too damaged. That would be just real sad, “…and I’m pretty sure the Commander had called it the blue baby.”
“Yeah, whatever,” he groused, “Same hat.”
The camera started to power up.
I silently let out a relieved sigh.
There wasn’t much, just pictures of marine life and a few, short videos of the others (as well as the young man who I deduced was a marine biologist like me) inside the now fallen Submerged.
“Try checking the last shot,” Captain Tomes suggested.
“Good idea…”
* * * * *
It was a video.
And the young man in the video (which we quickly identified as the same one we just found… dead) was desperately trying to steer the submersible upward judging by the way he frantically tries to keep leaning back. I’m not really sure because the camera was at a bad angle.
But I can see his name on his left: Jacobi, J.
There were muffled screams ringing faintly in the background, the sound of crashing water and something like shattering metal and glass effectively making everything else almost inaudible.
Then, we heard it.
A piercing wail resounding powerfully.
It sounded near and far at the same time.
It… didn’t sound human.
No human could ever make such a god-awful sound–it was difficult to put it into words, but I could only describe it as something as between a roar and a scream, a battle cry that practically shook the very submersible Jacobi was in, a sound that practically rattles and settles deep within your bones, that I can only think such a sound could have only been made from such a large animal… but it didn’t sound like a whale. It didn’t even sound like any animal I’ve ever heard or seen before.
We were so startled by the strange noise that I and Captain Tomes almost missed it… but then we saw what really happened, clear as day.
He had just ejected himself straight on the cliff.
Pure darkness had immediately settled everywhere around him and in front of the screen, his headlights can only make out nothing but a seemingly never-ending abyss as he falls further.
But there was something else that was slithering dangerously close to the screen in front of him, to the point that the already dim headlights had illuminated what seemed to be a huge shadow hovering just overhead his submersible for a few seconds.
There was something blue glimmering in the distance.
Then, just as seamlessly, it fades out of sight.
Wait a minute.
WASN’T THAT FROM EARLIER?!
Before I could think about it even more, the sounds of the young man who was practically choking back sobs at that point distracted me for a moment.
God, he sounds so young, so vulnerable… the words ‘Oh, God please help me’ and ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry’ was practically mixed together in one breath as he and his vessel continued to fall further down, down, down…
On his side, I can faintly make out the numbers written on his screen. It was the depth modulator, which was rapidly increasing the same way ours had just recently done: 1850m, 18800m, 19000m, 19150m…
But then, he suddenly stopped right at 19190m.
“W-What… the…?”
Then, there was a loud creaking noise.
“FUCK! OH GOD PLEASE, NO!” he wailed, “NO–!”
A loud crash, one that felt like it came out of nowhere suddenly caused the entire submersible to shake; it almost knocked the young man right out of his seat if he hadn’t righted himself back on time. I can only watch in muted horror as the view literally turned upside down–and I know there and then that the submersible had been upended–before his vessel slammed right over to one side of the rocky cliff, causing long winded cracks to start appearing all over on his screen.
“DAMN IT!” he screams as he frantically tried to steer his submersible away in spite of the way his vessel was being literally slammed here and there at the same time.
19200m, 19430m, 19510m…
Whatever was attacking him was practically batting and playing around with him the same way a cat would do to its prey.
It was cruel.
Like a long and pointless joke.
It was literally dark where Jacobi was now, but from time to time I can still faintly make out shades of what seemed to be a faint green and that glimmering, familiar globe of blue slithering just past the broken screen from time to time.
The creature was probably swimming around the broken submersible now, hovering way too close to the screen, knowing that it was only a matter of time before it gets its hands on him.
…Like it was mocking him.
“FUCK YOU!” the young man screams at it.
Then, he slammed his fist to send a distress call.
Red warning signs were showing all over on the screens as the young man suddenly slumped back on his seat before burying his face in his hands, shoulders shaking as he wept like a child.
It was a picture of defeat, of bitter resignation.
He had known he wasn’t going to make it.
In front of the young man, the dim headlights couldn’t make out anything past the darkness (the lengthening cracks weren’t even helping) but from time to time, I could still see the rocky silhouette from the sides of the cliff we just passed by as well as his submersible continued to crash here and there, an enormous tentacle slithering in and out of view–
Wait a minute.
What.
What the hell?
For a few seconds, we couldn’t hear anything else but the young man’s quiet sobbing as he was jolted around. But he didn’t dare to move as everything around him continues to be torn apart.
Then, something even worse happened.
The young man was just about to raise his head when the glass in front of him suddenly grew longer and longer, bigger and bigger until it finally succumbed to the pressure at the next second, water suddenly bursted in as the glass quite literally shattered right in front of his face, filling the submersible with water and darkness.
He didn’t even have time to scream.
My insides churned as I watched the young man helplessly grasping on to anything that he could reach, his helmet slipping from his other hand as he flailed around the water.
There was that god-awful noise again.
It was softer this time.
…Much, much softer.
And something deep in my gut practically screamed at me that whatever that thing was, it was just literally right there now–
The young man suddenly snaps his head to the side, just in time to see… something before his mouth falls open into what seemed like a soundless scream as he stared and stared, his face twisting into pure terror before something enormous lunged at him.
I couldn’t get a better look at whatever animal that just attacked him but for the life of me, I couldn’t make heads or tails of what it was, the simple fact of what the fuck am I looking at.
Because it did not match any features of any marine animals I have encountered, let alone have ever seen before in books or in person. I doubted anyone aside from us ever had seen it and actually lived to tell the tale. Forget about deep sea gigantism, it literally looked like something out of this world.
The remaining seconds of the video shows nothing but the young man’s feet that I can barely see flailing and kicking in panic, desperately moving about like an animal caught in a trap.
Then, he suddenly went very still.
We watched with bated breath as his body was seemed to be dragged right out of his submersible, the jagged glasses easily cutting through his diving suit before a resounding crash followed through just as the submersible falls all the way down.
That was the end of the video.
What the fuck did I just watched?
“What the fuck, I thought you said whales don’t go down here!” Captain Tomes suddenly shouted, jolting me in my seat.
“For god’s sake Captain, I know what I said!” I snapped, my heart still pounding madly in my chest. Son a bitch just caught me off guard… “That’s sure as hell not a fucking whale. Are we watching the same video? Did you even saw it?!”
“Hell yeah I sure did. What the fuck was that?” he demanded, a hand clawing through his hair, “What the fuck were they up against?!”
“Damn it, Captain… like hell I know!”
“Aren’t you supposed to be a doctor for these things or something?!” he slammed his hand over on the control panels, “Oh, fucking hell… how are we supposed to find that the blue baby with that thing lurk around now?”
“You’re still going on about that?! Just forget about the mission!” I snapped, throwing my hands up, “Let’s get out of here while we still can, damn it!”
“Fucking hell–” he glanced at the screen. His face instantly turned as white as a sheet of paper, “…Aw, shit.”
“What?” I demanded, “What the fuck is it now?!”
The words were barely slipping past my lips when my eyes immediately caught sight of something on the screen.
There’s sonar activity.
Namely, something huge was lurking by.
And it appears to be looking for us.