treacherous deep by mr malice metal groans in discomfort as its frame compresses glass shakes and snickers full knowledge that it alone stands as a barrier between the crew and the black depth outside like invisible arms squeezing the cabin with all its might wishing only to crush the sub like a tin can within were five derelicts a term coined for salvagers they were investigating a signal that blew through the system from 15 000 miles below the tense surface of water clean lacking waves like a marble it took four blasts from an orbital kinetic cannon to break the surface tension allowing the derelicts to go beneath its murky waves passing 4 000 meters the abyss where no light dare tread and where only one singular pulse of light may emit fiery red beams from a subsurface station pulsing again again again it was still a few thousand meters down in the pitch black beneath us perched on the only continental mass we could find between two cliffs leading into a massive and unexplored crevice depth calculators still haven't found the bottom hidden as it is we were sent in to find where the sos was coming from passing 6000 meters it's been quiet with only a few low groans from the ballast interrupting that silence hideous and beautiful the ocean is nothing but a masterpiece our sonar has not picked up anything thus far and with a 4 000 mile radius it's only proof that we are truly in an abyss no rock formations no life forms not even bacterial life just our sub the ss malloc as we sink deeper into the abyss my job becomes far more difficult i manage room pressurization normally automated but the station wanted us to be extra cautious after 10 000 meters it's one button pressed from instantaneous death due to borrow trauma i've seen it at this depth the body is its own weapon implosion your body guts itself brutally the fashion by which it does this involves innumerable organs expanding and collapsing in the blink of an eye what used to be your friend is now a misty cloud of parting crimson passing 9000 meters in just a few minutes our ears will start to ring a signal i need to up pressurization in the sub just a tick too much however and we will meet a watery grave the control panel in front of me started to beep a couple hundred meters up showcasing a warning that the pressure in my specific cabin was getting too low if i let it beep for a second longer a cabin would have collapsed adding to the weight of our sub and eventually sinking the ss malloc everything must be perfect every tiny calculation no room for error our oxygen supply if the temperature increases the entire supply could explode and puncture the bow dragging us all down with it the sonar if we lose power to it even for a moment we won't be able to notify us of our descent speed moving too fast we hit a rock and implode moving too slow and we are wasting valuable minutes beneath the surface the pilot his hands are weary and eyes are straining sweating profusely one wrong move and we've lost time down here this sos beacon was calculated to be below 20 000 meters under the crust and buried in the mantle ten thousand meters we found the station who then signaled us into a dry dock for resupply and a small break lasting only two hours a mistake in my opinion the break may only slow us down i remained on the ship telling those on the station i cannot leave until i can guarantee the safe reentry of my companions about 30 minutes in i gave in and left the station was dilapidated held together by the bare minimum i believe i found some gum holding a small hole in the ground of the dry dock together frozen by nitrogen depth gum too made out of plants found down here eases anxiety while retaining focus the crew aboard the station station la mia one of four here and the only one at this depth in the trench the crew were all very calm relaxed and overall pleasant they gave us food water the occasional ration of alcohol and eventually sat us down for more serious topic the trench the widest birth they found down here was a mere 800 meters in diameter our sub could easily slip through but that was merely the opening past 14 000 meters the diameter never opens up to 800 meters meaning we would need to take it slow and cautious they warned us of the wildlife down here as well incredibly territorial and incredibly large to boot the largest creature they've seen can dwarf the entire station it's so massive that it could never find its way out of the cavern system the caves it resides in are too far beneath the trench to explore but a probe was sent in and never found the bottom only the horrifying sight of an unknown station upon exploration of it the researchers found scriptures of unknown languages a sign we have been looking for a sign of sentient alien life the unknown station was named incognita and has been probed only twice the full station has not been explored as part of it was burrowed into the wall of the cave another threat they mentioned oozing black liquid so strong it could stick our whole sub to the side of a building on earth with only five square inches of it it's so powerful that extraction is next to impossible they would require a requisitioned extraction mech and have it modded to survive at this depth to put it lightly this cave system wants us dead the water wants us dead the creatures the rocks the currents all of it wants us dead the final and most foreboding threat they warned us about the water itself it's not water it feels looks tastes like water but it's lighter and on a microbial scale it too moves upon its own volition tiny molecules that sink into the pores of skin and bones the molecules themselves will expand and connect during expansion when you swim in the water you can't come out they happily gave us a new depth suit only one and not fitted we boarded our sub and said goodbye the crew gave us hugs and we left with a somber farewell they didn't expect to see us again passing 12 000 meters the pressure is off the charts and hard to control outside is no longer black but now gray rocks painted by light these rocks moved swiftly i thought they said this cave had a wide berth i said to the captain the radio clicked on yeah i thought so too i can't remain mad at them though i wouldn't want to do a constant calculation down here he had a point but this is a lot smaller than they led us to believe we barely fit through some caves the stalactites nearly scraped my window but they were pointed at a peculiar angle odd why would they be pointed off to the side maybe the ship nudged them passing 15 000 meters we were nearing the point of the sos with enough oxygen to get us back to the station in an hour to spare and enough fuel to get us back to the surface we were all feeling very confident the crew had snuck a pack of depth gum for us on the ship so we were all feeling more relaxed than normal even with our ship barely fitting through some sections the ship groaned a few meters down made us all jump out of our seats it was so loud we thought we had scraped against the wall turns out the ballast just kicked some sand from the bed our onboard engineers screamed watch it we don't want to poke a hole in the ballast you know that right the captain quickly responded i i didn't hit it the sonar didn't state the bed was anywhere close to us we had about a 10 meter difference between the ballast and the sand bed uh-huh the engineer groaned just make sure you watch it next time please of course the captain weirdly said he looked more confused as he examined the sonar i peeked over and saw what was confusing him the sand bed behind us was now much lower how could that be it's solid rock with a pile of sand on it thank god we only nicked the sand pile itself passing 17 000 meters this cave is by far an anomaly nothing we have ever seen before the cave walls shift i swear on my life i told the captain and he said nothing just a blank stare of course that's a staple of him he wears drab tire only his captain coat and hat set him apart from the rest of us the generic blue captain's coat was nothing to scoff at however for he had a number of badges which all decorated his upper left shoulder one patch was a commendation of performing 12 missions below 10 000 meters this would be his 13th another patch sowed his military service during the fall one for 40 years of service and finally there was one i hadn't recognized a red patch decorated with a blue rose in the middle with the words floss assadire encircling it i know that patch i just can't put a name to it passing 19 000 meters we were approximately one hour from the sos the captain turned to me with his dead glare and said i want you to go in the suit and investigate the signal i was surprised why me i asked he spoke again this time without tone i want you to go in the suit and investigate the signal that's in order i quickly responded yes sir something felt off about him as we descended the pressure began to stabilize and i asked him may i go get a drink sir he nodded quietly eyes fixated on the sonar which shifted every few minutes i got up and began my descent into the musty storage room where i picked up a flashlight a seal and a bottle of water as i turned around the engineering chief was behind me glaring at me with similarly dead eyes you got what you need for your dive i nodded shaken by his posture and gaze wait how did he know i was diving the captain never sent out a mess he turned around and grabbed a handheld sonar in the dive suit i was going to wear better get prepared we were only 500 meters from the bottom then he shoved them all into my arms and slowly walked away i was trembling both from that encounter and the thought that we were already only 500 meters away from the bottom which means either we are descending fast or the cave shifted again bringing the beacon closer to us for some unexplained reason 20 000 meters we stopped just a few meters away from the derelict crushed into itself with triangular holes roughly grinded into the body the scene was horrendous i was alone in the jettison chamber in my suit with an hour of oxygen available to me i booted up my seal and it began to whirr rapidly i turned it off to preserve power and gave a thumbs up to the camera voice comms weren't available in this suit unfortunately so i was on my own the chamber opened and a cold wash of liquid cleaned the scuffs off my suit and i was immediately enveloped by the deep black the ship's bow lights were on illuminated the whole of the wreck i booted my seal up again and it tugged me towards the wreck where its perched flashlight poked into recesses and revealed exploded oxygen tanks and cracked glass after surveying the outside i wormed my way within through an incredibly large hole the same triangular holes decorated the rim of it the steel door ahead of me was covered in that sticky goo the crew on the station mentioned so i wasn't getting in through that luckily the way the ship was bent showed a smaller hole that gave way to the inside i barely squeezed through and before i knew it i was inside the medical bay only a distorted arm floated towards the ceiling other than that the place was empty i noticed that the door had claw marks on it something with incredible strength tried to break in i found the sos beacon and turned it off as soon as the switch clicked into place though the lights from the sub were gone there was a deafening squeal of metal against stone and at the same time a rumble began beneath my feet i had to get out of the sub i clawed my way to a hole and began to tear through the rusted metal with only my hands unfortunately the metal had cut a hole into my glove i swam out searching for my sub but nothing was there except the dead black limitless i used my seal to chase upwards for a minute and found nothing not even the cave walls i felt a current a pool the water shifted from behind me an unknown presence i quickly descended back to the sub and sheltered myself inside the medical bay i saw something move something massive enormous teeth and a gaping maw eventually it all went black again my light flickered off so all i could see was blackness when it came back on it illuminated a pale figure in the distance outside the hole of the sub a massive mouth with hundreds of teeth all swirling in an oval it drew closer and closer until i could see the shining on its teeth it slammed into the sub my light flashed off again and all i could hear were the hideous moans emitted from the sub itself as it conformed to the mouth biting into it the rumbling began again god i can't take another cave shift it continued for minutes on end until grinding to a halt and then it was quiet my light still didn't work the battery had finally ran out i could feel the rush of the water as it shifted again but this time it was shifting very close to me i reached out for my belt and grabbed an emergency flare i struggled with the tip for a while and fumbled lighting it until eventually it snapped to life and before me illuminated by the red of my flare a horrific figure appeared and disappeared again it looked like it had tentacles i slowly rose to my feet the whole medical bay was illuminated now i could see the hole instantly i got up and swam out where i was met with a distant sound that rang through my body i felt something slowly envelop my leg and tug me downwards i let go of the flare and flailed back and forth as the thing grabbing me did i was hurled into the sand where i snagged a small pointed rock which i used to jab into the gripping mass with one hand i held it and with the other i punched into the squishy thing with the rock it finally let go and i began to fall deeper the flare was below me showcasing a massive cave something from my deepest nightmares the walls were flexing and slowly writhing into itself weaving a horrid shape around me i continued to fall feeling the water rush around me watching the flare as it too fell the walls began to slowly narrow until only a small hole big enough for one person to fit was found it looked like it was excavated when i gently landed beside the hole i picked up the now dying flare as i raised it i noticed nothing was around me but i felt the water rushing to and fro i reluctantly hopped into the hole and slowly descended into it i fell for what felt like hours before reaching a small cave with no way out when i hit the ground a horrific sound bellowed through the cave another groan the flare died out i was alone in a crunchy pit it felt like the floors were made of wood that had been burnt to cinders an hour passed and i began to cry watching as my oxygen supply depleted slowly just let me die already before me i saw a small yellow light and it was growing in size this has to be the end i'm finally free i jumped to my feet and stammered closer on my approach i realized it was something physical size of a walnut growing becoming more bright it began to illuminate something it was hanging on moved in for a closer look my hand outstretched to grab the pulsing seed until the seed flashed brightly and showcased the horror that held it long gangly hands all of its bones were grotesquely lengthened and a swirling mass of tentacles weaving into a ball laid at its feet a human skeleton its rib cage still loosely intact and its arms slowly enveloping me the skull was fully dysmorphic the upper half of the skull was lengthened with sharp elongated teeth pointing from the front below the skull its jaw hung barely holding on from the roof of the mouth the seed hung how was it moving the last thought that crossed my mind and then i realized that that very same black goo covered the joints and crossed from one bone to another as its arms closed in on me its head moved towards my face and the light began to fade [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] you
2021-05-31