[Original Novel] Pressure: First Encounter, Part 5

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Previous parts:} 1, 2, 3, 4

"BANG!". She jumped in her seat. It was so loud, but muffled, definitely originating outside the sub. As it turned to face the wall again she noticed the illuminated area was dimmer and to the left of center. She felt herself beginning to lose control. A quick glance outside revealed that the right arc lamp had imploded. The depth meter read "31,000 feet."

It was too fast. She felt certain such a rapid descent would be noticeable. She glanced outside again in the hopes of getting a sense of speed from the rock wall, but the sub once again turned away to face the abyss. "POP". Her focus shifted back to the radiating web of cracks, which had expanded considerably while she'd been distracted.

Nausea overwhelmed her. Tears began to well up, but she would not yet scream. If she could find the ballast controls, maybe she could still- "Yes! Oh thank you God, thank you!" She lunged for a pair of switches labelled "L" and "R" under "purge ballast".

In the span of a few seconds she went from dread to elation, imagining her safe return to the Argyro and how she'd relate her tale of near-death to the others. But nothing happened. She flipped the switches again. Then each one individually several times. Then both. Still no reaction. Angie brought her fist down on the control panel, screaming incoherently, finally letting herself cry. Then the lights went out.

When she regained her senses, her first impulse was to check the depth meter. "39,000 feet". She almost laughed. It was nonsensical, the deepest point in the trench was just over 33,000 feet. But the meter just kept going, in defiance both of Angie and apparently of reality itself. 39,640. 39,653. 39, 661. And no bottom in sight.

When the next pop came Angie didn't even react. The web of cracks had grown to the diameter of a dinner plate. A very thin jet of water issued forth. Any wider and the force would produce a stream capable of cutting her apart. Lifting her foot to turn around, she heard a splash. Angie hunched over and found her feet resting in about an inch of water, some small fraction of the ocean that had finally succeeded in breaching her armor.

"POP. POP POP." Both exterior lights had failed, but the cracks refracted the light coming from the pale green depth readout. Nearly the whole bubble was engulfed by the massive, tangled fissure. She knew what to expect. Like corn popping in reverse. There would be no time to feel anything.

Those precious few seconds she had to reflect on her life and emotionally prepare for death were already being burnt through as she sat there ankle deep in water, adding her own tears to the pool. The hull groaned. Mathematically perfect sphere, they said. Useless. A split second later, Angie felt a tremendous impact and closed her eyes to embrace death.

Long, quiet seconds passed. She felt absolute peace followed by the confusion of someone prepared for a death that never came. Outside, the remaining light flickered on and off, jarred back into partial function by the landing. And in fact it was a landing, what little the light revealed was enough. She'd hit bottom. The sub lay at an angle, tipped perhaps 30 degrees forward, such that Angie struggled not to slide off of the damp seat.

Before her, the mortally wounded viewing dome embedded halfway into the muck. All the water that had been pooled around her feet now collected in the lower half of the dome. Taking special care not to step on or touch the dome at all, Angie maneuvered herself so that she could inspect the controls.

A number of blinking red LEDs indicated what she already knew, that the sub was very near structural failure. The ballast switches had done nothing, but surely there was-" THUD. Something struck the upper half of the dome from outside. Angie waited a few seconds. Nothing.

By hanging off of the pilot's seat she was able to peer outside through the half of the dome not embedded in the muck, though upside down. The light, now somewhat steadier, revealed nothing. She could see a stretch of seafloor around the sub that extended maybe twenty or thirty feet. In the distance she could just barely make out the rock wall. By chance a blinking icon on the sonar UI caught her attention. Whatever Eliot had come to show her was now in range and ready to image.

Angie contorted herself to reach the touch panel and began the sounding. What it came back with was ridiculous. At first she attributed the shape on her screen to pareidolia. It's common to perceive familiar shapes in nature. Most likely just a strange rock formation. But with the increased clarity of the second sounding, her airway constricted. It looked for all the world like a human body laying on its side, wedged into the trench. But enormous.

The sonar wasn't even catching all of it, part of the arm and head were just out of the sonar's FOV. Legs, arms, a torso, all in perfect detail. Something was wrong with the anatomy though. Despite her surroundings Angie forgot the danger she was in for a moment and fixated on the shape before her.

The added detail revealed an upper body that was grossly asymmetrical, with a bloated shoulder on one side and an inset joint on the other. The lower body was gaunt, the thighs no thicker than either arm and both terminating in identical appendages that were neither hands nor feet.

THUD. Angie's attention returned to the dome. Angling herself to peer outside once more, she scanned the black expanse for some sign of what had struck the dome. Then, out of the darkness a familiar form approached her. Tiny, beady eyes pierced the ailing glass bubble and met Angie's gaze. It hovered at a distance of two or three yards, then suddenly propelled itself headfirst into the dome. THUNK. Everywhere it struck, new cracks appeared. "STOP!" Angie began to cry again. Of course it couldn't understand. "What do you want ??" It came around again. THUD, THUD THUD. All senses abandoned her. She hunched over in the rapidly deteriorating pressure hull and waited for the inevitable while the wriggling white thing outside searched for a way in. "I waited for you." Angie looked up. It was not a thud, or a splintering sound, nor the sound of the hull struggling to hold its shape. The thing was speaking.

"I waited. I was so patient." The pale, strange eel hovered in place just outside, peering in at her. "I waited for so long. But you came." It was too much. There was a physical sensation of sanity draining from her body. Moreso when she suddenly realized the voice had come from inside the sub.

She turned to face the rear seat. As the light flickered, she could make out the form of a grossly emaciated nude man. His skin was snow white but mottled with blemishes and dark patches. As the light continued to sputter, he slowly, so slowly, turned towards her. Just before she blacked out, Angie caught a glimpse of his face. Sharp little teeth, bony cheeks, and beady black eyes.

Consciousness. The curvature of the Argyro's hull faded into being overhead, and it took a few seconds to fully understand what she was looking at. Her eyes traced the circular frame of the porthole just above her bunk. That's when memories of the dive returned and she cried out. It was only for a split second.

Fatigue, coupled with the increasingly banal nature of her 'episodes' was beginning to desensitize her. If the rest of the crew heard her yelp they chose to ignore it. Sound carried exceptionally well within the confines of this metal cocoon, a boon for safety but not so much for privacy. She remained in bed until her heart rate normalized, recoiled at the dampness and frigidity of the floor, then set off in search of Eliot and the others.

It took her until she had reached the commons to wonder why the lights were off, and more importantly why the floor was damp. Luckily the furniture wasn't the only thing made of glow in the dark plastic. Strips of the material ran along the walls at ankle height and around the rims of doorways, permitting safe navigation in total darkness.

It brought to mind the bioluminescent plankton swirling about in the dark water as seen through her bunk viewport. Just then Nathan's voice reverberated down through the vertical trunk that led up to the observation bubble. "We all been here longer. It don't make sense why she's hardest hit. Back when it started I thought it was reachin’ you easier than me ‘cause you don’t believe, but maybe some are just more prone than others."

An agitated sigh followed. The next voice was hard to place at first. With some effort she recalled the face of Leonard, with whom she'd had only fleeting contact thus far. "Or maybe it's focused on her. Wants her more than us." It? What "it"?

Without thinking she stumbled towards the trunk, catching herself and adopting a gentler gait when she remembered the ease with which sound might carry. Steadying herself against the trunk entry, she continued to eavesdrop. "The sub records have her talkin' to herself all the way up until she reaches the same proximity Eliot figured out. No coincidence, that's got to be the maximum range."

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^{Stay Tuned for Part 6!}