The last light from the surface was gone.

  A pale blue glow from the control panels illuminated the faces of the crew, casting them in hues of artificial light as Deep Crown descended further into the abyss. The floodlights carved a narrow path through the black water, but beyond them, the ocean remained unknowable. It stretched outward in all directions—an infinite, swallowing dark.

  Nathan Henshaw kept his hands steady on the controls, his breathing even, though tension knotted in his shoulders. He wasn’t afraid of the deep. He had spent years learning to master it, to navigate through the crushing pressure, the absolute silence, the sense that if something went wrong, there would be no coming back.

  But the silence tonight felt different.

  It was the kind that waited.

  “ANDI, confirm depth.”

  The AI’s voice was calm, clinical, the same detached efficiency it had always had.

  "Current depth: 4,600 feet. Descent rate steady. Hull integrity at optimal parameters. All systems fully operational."

  Elizabeth Ward sat across from him, monitoring her telemetry feeds. “External pressure holding. Temperature’s dropping fast.”

  Sinclair exhaled, arms crossed over his chest. “Feels like a long way down for a bad idea.”

  “Keep chatter to a minimum,” Ortega said without looking up.

  Nathan barely registered their voices.

  He was slipping somewhere else.

  The hum of the submarine faded, replaced by the muted echoes of a small apartment—one that always smelled of coffee and cigarette smoke, even long after his mother had died.

  He had been seven. Julian was five.

  He didn’t remember much about her anymore. A kind voice. A quiet presence. The way she would hum when she cooked, the melody rising and falling between breaths. She used to call him soldier boy, ruffling his hair before sending him off to school.

  Then she was gone. A car accident. One moment there, the next… nothing.

  Their father never recovered.

  First, he was distant. Then, he started drinking.

  Not the kind of drinking that was social. Not the kind you could excuse. It was the kind that numbed everything. The kind that made a man forget he had children waiting for him at home.

  Julian had never known their father before their mother’s death. He hadn’t seen the man he once was. Nathan had.

  That made it worse.

  Their father changed overnight. Once a pillar of strength and discipline, his demeanor shifted to one of detachment and sorrow. The man who had been their anchor became a ghost in their home, present in body but absent in spirit.?

  Nathan and Julian, young and bewildered, watched as their father's grief consumed him. He withdrew into himself, his interactions with them becoming sporadic and mechanical. The warmth that had once filled their household was replaced by a cold, pervasive silence.?

  The responsibilities of the household gradually fell upon Nathan. At seven years old, he found himself attempting to fill the void left by their mother, caring for Julian and trying to maintain a semblance of normalcy. But the weight was too heavy for his small shoulders.?

  Julian, only five, couldn't comprehend the magnitude of their loss. He became clingy, seeking comfort in Nathan, the only constant in his life. Nathan did his best to shield Julian from the harsh realities they faced, but the cracks in their family were too deep to hide.?

  Their father's descent into alcoholism was gradual but unmistakable. Bottles began to appear around the house, and the smell of liquor became a permanent fixture. His moments of lucidity were rare, and when they occurred, they were often accompanied by anger and regret.?

  The boys learned to navigate their father's moods, treading carefully to avoid triggering his ire. The home that had once been a sanctuary now felt like a minefield, each day unpredictable and fraught with tension.?

  School became an escape for Nathan and Julian, a place where they could momentarily forget the turmoil at home. But the shadow of their father's grief loomed large, affecting their performance and interactions with peers. Teachers noticed the change but were ill-equipped to intervene.?

  As years passed, the brothers grew closer, bonded by shared trauma and the need to survive their circumstances. Nathan took on a paternal role, guiding Julian and making sacrifices to ensure his well-being. Julian, in turn, relied on Nathan for support and guidance, their brotherly bond strengthening with each hardship faced.?

  Their father's health deteriorated due to his alcoholism, leading to frequent hospital visits. The man who had once been a towering figure of authority was now frail and vulnerable. Nathan and Julian watched helplessly as he succumbed to his demons, their feelings a complex mix of anger, sadness, and pity.?

  Together, they navigated the complexities of adulthood, their past shaping but not defining them. The scars they bore were testament to their survival, and their bond a reminder that even in the face of profound loss, family could be a source of strength and redemption.

  When Julian turned eighteen, they both decided to enlist. It wasn’t even a question. It felt like the only thing that made sense.

  Their father had been military. It was in their blood.

  Nathan figured anything was better than staying home.

  They had made a pact.

  Get through training. Get stationed together. Never leave the other behind.

  And for a while, it had worked.

  Until the war reached them first.

  The memory shifted. Years blurred together. Training. Drills. The ocean. The way the deep had always called to him, offering something beyond the suffocating life he had left behind.

  He and Julian had trained together, brothers in uniform, side by side.

  Then, one day, a letter had come. Their father was dead.

  He had barely felt it.

  Only a thought. Of course he’s gone. He had already been gone for years.

  But he had felt sorry. Sorry for the man he used to be. Sorry for the man he never became.

  The day their father passed away was met with a confusing blend of relief and grief. Relief that his suffering—and, by extension, theirs—was over; grief for the loss of the father they had once known and the family that could have been.?

  Nathan Henshaw had never believed in ghosts, but Julian haunted him in ways that defied logic. He wasn’t a specter in the dark, wasn’t a whisper in the wind or a flicker in the periphery of his vision. No, Julian lived in the spaces between Nathan’s thoughts, in the silence after the gunfire, in the moments when the world was quiet enough for grief to slip through the cracks of his resolve.

  The pain wasn’t sharp. It wasn’t a wound that bled or a bone that could be set. It was deeper, heavier—something embedded in his marrow, too much a part of him to ever be excised. He carried it in his lungs, in the weight of every breath. Some days, it was suffocating. Others, it was just enough to remind him he was still alive.

  Julian had been his shadow, his reflection, the only constant in a life that had offered nothing but turbulence. They had grown up side by side, two soldiers before they ever wore the uniform. When their mother died, it was Julian who sat beside him in the funeral home, gripping his wrist so hard it left bruises. When their father spiraled into grief and whiskey, it was Julian who slept on the floor beside him at night, like he could keep the nightmares away by sheer proximity. And when war came for them, Julian had been there, fighting at his side, sharing the weight of their choices, of their kills, of the unspoken understanding that no one else could ever know them the way they knew each other.

  And then Julian was gone.

  The moment itself had been cruelly brief, almost absurdly simple. Nathan could do nothing to stop it. He had always assumed death would come like it did in the stories, in the war films—a slow collapse, final words, a chance to hold on, to say something, anything.

  But death was quick. Efficient. Indifferent.

  Julian had been there, and then he wasn’t.

  Nathan had held him in his mind and soul, not in an act of mourning but in sheer disbelief. He had pressed his hand to Julian’s chest, waiting for the rise and fall, waiting for the heat to linger, waiting for some proof that the universe had made a mistake. But Julian had already become a body instead of a person. Something hollow, something weightless.

  There had been no time to grieve. There never was.

  He buried himself in routine, in orders, in the cold precision of command. He forced himself to function, not because it was easy but because it was the only way he knew how to survive. He didn’t drink. He didn’t talk. He didn’t sit in empty rooms and let the weight of loss pull him under. He simply kept going.

  It wasn’t about strength. It wasn’t about resilience.

  It was about necessity.

  Grief was a wound that would never close, but if he ignored it long enough, he could pretend it wasn’t there. He could pretend he wasn’t still bleeding.

  The Deep Crown mission had been an escape. A way to disappear into the depths, where the world above no longer existed, where the silence was absolute. The ocean was a different kind of battlefield—no enemy lines, no gunfire, just the weight of the abyss pressing in from all sides.

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  He welcomed it.

  He needed it.

  Because out here, in the crushing black, he could finally admit the truth he never dared speak aloud.

  Julian was gone.

  And Nathan didn’t know how to exist without him.

  The sub lurched.

  A deep, metallic thud rang through the hull.

  Nathan’s fingers clenched around the controls. The memory dissolved, replaced by the cold, mechanical beeping of the alarm systems.

  The crew had frozen in place, eyes flicking between monitors. The hollow tension of deep-sea silence filled the room.

  Then, ANDI spoke.

  "Unidentified contact. No damage detected. Scanning for anomalies."

  Elizabeth’s hands flew across the console. Her voice was measured, but tight. “I’ve got movement—thirty meters starboard.”

  On the sonar screen, a shape flickered in and out. A distortion, not quite defined.

  Sinclair leaned in. “If it’s alive, why the hell isn’t it showing up properly?”

  Ortega’s jaw tensed. “Maybe it doesn’t want to be seen.”

  The tension in the room thickened.

  Then, as suddenly as it had appeared—the interference vanished.

  Sonar cleared.

  Nothing but empty water.

  Nathan exhaled, forcing himself to focus. “ANDI, recalibrate sensors. Maintain full spectrum scans.”

  "Recalibrating. Scanning... No immediate threats detected. Continuing descent."

  Ortega’s gaze lingered on the monitors. “That was a response.”

  Nathan didn’t disagree.

  The abyss was supposed to be indifferent.

  But this wasn’t.

  Something had just acknowledged them.

  Ten thousand feet.

  The hull groaned under the pressure, but the sub held firm.

  “External conditions stable,” Elizabeth announced, though the way her fingers drummed the console betrayed her nerves. “Visibility is… poor.”

  Sinclair adjusted the external cameras, but the floodlights barely cut through the darkness now.

  What lay beyond their reach didn’t want to be seen.

  A flicker.

  Not a malfunction. Not a trick of the water.

  Something had moved past the lights.

  Ortega stiffened. “Tell me you saw that.”

  Elizabeth rewound the footage. The playback showed a shadow slipping just beyond the light’s edge.

  Not debris. Not an illusion.

  Something was following them.

  Sinclair let out a slow breath. “That’s too big for a deep-sea fish.”

  Elizabeth’s voice was barely above a whisper. “It’s moving with us.”

  Then—the sub trembled.

  A low vibration ran through Deep Crown, like a pulse.

  Elizabeth’s eyes widened. “Did we just—”

  “We didn’t hit anything,” Nathan said. His grip on the controls tightened.

  Something hit us.

  A deep, groaning sound reverberated through the hull.

  Not the creaking of stressed metal. Not something mechanical.

  It felt alive.

  Then—the lights flickered.

  A sharp burst of static hissed through the comms.

  Every instrument panel blinked erratically, data scrambling before stabilizing.

  ANDI’s voice returned, its usual clinical tone almost distorted.

  "External interference detected. Running diagnostics."

  Sinclair gripped his console. “Jesus Christ.”

  Elizabeth worked furiously. “No breaches, no damage, but… something is affecting us.”

  Another tremor.

  This time—from below.

  The floor beneath them lurched, as if something massive had just passed beneath them.

  Ortega unstrapped from his seat, bracing against the wall. “What the hell is out there?”

  Nathan didn’t answer.

  The sub tilted slightly.

  Not much. Just enough.

  A nudge.

  Not random. A test.

  Elizabeth’s voice was almost breathless. “Something’s circling us.”

  On the sonar screen, a distortion appeared.

  Not a solid contact—but a shifting presence, moving all around them.

  Then, a new sound.

  A tapping against the hull.

  Rhythmic.

  Not random. Not the current.

  Fingers.

  Drumming.

  Sinclair’s voice barely escaped his lips. “Tell me that’s not coming from inside.”

  The tapping stopped.

  A final deep vibration ran through Deep Crown.

  And then—

  Silence.

  The abyss had fallen silent.

  Not the comfortable silence of solitude, nor the ordinary hush of deep-sea pressure muffling the world above. No, this was a deliberate silence, a waiting silence—the kind that belonged to the hunter before it strikes.

  Nathan Henshaw sat rigid at the controls, his pulse a steady drumbeat in his ears. Every instinct in his body was screaming at him to abort, to pull Deep Crown out of the trench before it was too late. But it wasn’t that simple anymore. This mission had shifted, changed shape like the shadows outside their floodlights. This wasn’t just about exploring the unknown.

  It was about surviving it.

  "Sonar pulse," Ortega ordered, his voice taut, strained. "We need a reading."

  Elizabeth hesitated, her hands hovering over the console. Then, with a slow, measured breath, she initiated the pulse.

  The sound wave rippled outward, stretching into the void like an unseen hand reaching through the darkness. For several long, breathless moments, the monitors returned only the cold indifference of the trench walls.

  Then—

  The screen lit up like a goddamn Christmas tree.

  Henshaw felt the hair on his arms stand on end. A single contact at first. Then two. Five.

  A swarm.

  Sinclair jerked forward in his seat, his face paling under the dim glow of the monitors. "That’s—That’s a school of whales, right? Tell me those are whales."

  Elizabeth’s voice was barely above a whisper. "Whales don’t move like that."

  Henshaw’s fingers flew over the controls, shifting the external cameras, extending the floodlights into the black. The beams cut through the water, their glow dissolving into the abyss.

  That’s when they saw it.

  A shape emerged, shifting just beyond their range of clarity. Not one entity, but many. A mass of moving shadows, blending and separating, flickering between moments of visibility and distortion—as if even the light itself rejected them.

  They weren’t swimming. They were circling.

  Coordinated. Methodical. Predatory.

  Then, one of them broke away.

  It drifted toward the sub, weightless in the water, its form still too obscured to make out completely. But Henshaw could feel it—an unnatural wrongness, something his instincts recognized before his mind could process.

  Then came the first impact.

  BOOM.

  The sub lurched. The sound reverberated through the steel walls, a deep, resonant thud—not an accidental bump, but something deliberate.

  "Impact on the port side!" Ortega barked, gripping the console as the sub trembled. "Hull integrity stable, but whatever that was—it meant to hit us."

  Another impact. Harder this time.

  "Jesus—" Sinclair swore, strapping himself in. "We need to move. Now!"

  Henshaw’s hand shot toward the thrusters, but before he could engage them, the sub jerked violently.

  The forward floodlights shattered in an explosion of glass and flickering filaments. Tiny shards spiraled into the water, catching the last remnants of light before disappearing into the dark.

  Elizabeth’s voice rose in urgency. "Multiple contacts—They’re everywhere!"

  The noise came next.

  A horrible chattering sound, like an orchestra of grinding teeth and clicking mandibles. It wasn’t just coming from one place—it surrounded them, vibrating through the steel, slipping into their ears, their bones.

  Henshaw clenched his jaw, fighting against the raw, primal fear curling in his gut.

  Then—

  SLAM.

  A massive impact struck the stern. Deep Crown pitched violently to the left, sending equipment tumbling, alarms blaring, the monitors flickering wildly.

  And then—

  Total blackout.

  No lights. No power. No sound but their ragged breathing.

  The abyss had swallowed them whole.

  The emergency lighting flickered—dim, weak, casting long shadows over the crew’s pale faces.

  For a moment, no one spoke.

  Then Ortega’s voice, eerily calm, too calm. "We’re… we’re not moving."

  Henshaw’s grip on the armrest tightened as he tried to steady his thoughts. "Elizabeth, give me propulsion readings."

  She barely breathed as her fingers danced over the darkened controls, manually rerouting power to the diagnostic systems. The screen flickered back to life.

  Her face paled.

  "The propeller—It’s damaged. We’re dead in the water."

  Sinclair let out a sharp exhale. "So, what? We just sit here? Hope those things get bored and leave?"

  Henshaw didn’t answer. He was already thinking, already calculating.

  "Can we repair it?"

  Sinclair scoffed, shaking his head. "Not from in here, we can’t. Someone would have to go out there."

  The words sat heavy in the air.

  Henshaw saw the fear ripple through them, the awareness of what it would mean.

  Elizabeth swallowed hard. "Not just that."

  They all turned to her.

  She hesitated, as if saying it out loud would make it worse.

  "They hunt by sound."

  The silence that followed was absolute. Crushing.

  They were trapped in the blackest depths of the ocean, surrounded by something unknown, and now they couldn’t even make a single noise.

  Henshaw forced his mind to steady. There was no time for fear. No time for doubt.

  They had one choice.

  They would have to fix the propeller in the dark—

  And in absolute silence.

  A new voice cut through the stillness.

  "Analysis complete."

  The AI’s voice had changed. Deeper. More calculated.

  Henshaw turned toward the flickering systems screen. "ANDI, what’s the status?"

  "Propulsion offline. Current depth: 16,500 feet. Structural integrity at 98%. Unknown entities remain in proximity. Probability of external repair success: 23%."

  A cold chill slid down Henshaw’s spine. "What’s our best option?"

  A pause.

  Then—

  "Rerouting emergency power. Activating passive camouflage. Initiating counter-frequency dampening."

  Elizabeth frowned. "Camouflage? We don’t have—"

  The sub’s systems whirred softly as the external plating shifted, realigning its composition. The dim lighting faded further, adjusting to match the surrounding pressure gradients.

  Sinclair’s eyes widened. "That’s not—How the hell is it doing that?"

  ANDI’s voice remained even.

  "Adapting."

  A pause.

  "Commander. Your orders?"

  Henshaw hesitated. For the first time since stepping onto this mission, he felt it—

  The AI was learning.

  It had anticipated the threat. It had developed a countermeasure.

  But it was still waiting for him.

  He exhaled, steadying himself.

  "Keep us hidden, ANDI. We’ll repair the propeller manually. If those things come back—"

  His eyes flickered to the sonar, where the shadows still lurked, circling, waiting.

  "—then we deal with it."

  The abyss had made its move. Now it was their turn.