“There’s something below you, but it’s hard to make out what it might be. The shape is too large for sonar to get a complete picture.”
A prickle of unease ran through me. Something was lurking beneath my feet, too large for sonar to get an accurate read on. The urge to summon fire was strong but a few things stay my hand. First, there’s the environmental impact a boneheaded move like that would entail. I could be frying a few thousand undocumented creatures just to sate my need to defend myself. Besides, any light I was able to draw upon would immediately be doused.
I paddled out a few more feet and my foot knocks into something hard and metallic. My heart leaps in sudden hope. It must be our sunken ship. What else could it possibly be at this depth? I drop to my belly, searching along the metal surface for a seam that I can use to haul it upright. For several yards I find nothing. Then my searching fingers pressed into something that’s decidedly non-metallic. Something squishy and warm, despite the temperatures at this depth.
I frown. Even I’m not warm this far down. It’s frigid here. Only Valerius has kept me from freezing solid. And yet whatever I’m touching felt warm and pulsed with life. I drew my hand back and backpedaled away from it, my brain conjuring nightmarish visions about what I just touched. It was probably just some species of barnacle.
A barnacle that could survive at this depth? My mind mocked. Yeah, that was likely.
I told the lippy part of my brain to shut up. I always got this way when I was frightened and denial was as good a coping mechanism as any.
I swam still further, hands out for any seam I could find. For a while, the hull was heartlessly smooth and I ran into warm flesh again. It seemed to be suckered onto the hull tightly. It pulsated slightly when I touched it and I squirmed in discomfort.
Just a barnacle, just a barnacle, just a barnacle…
It is not a barnacle and you know it, my host, Valerius butted in unhelpfully.
“Shut up.”
There is something living here. You must prepare.
His mind cycled through the nightmare creatures we researched before diving to this depth. He was hoping for a giant anglerfish.
“Good God, do not put that image in my mind ever again, Valerius. I will find a way to exorcise you.”
He snorted in amusement. Good luck with that.
I kept searching for an opening and eventually found a jagged edge. It appeared that the ship split like a soda can and was almost in two pieces. I yanked on the aft, where most of the storage should have been kept. It came loose in my hands and I was pushed back almost a meter by the force of my own strength.
The second I did, the unthinkable happened.
Light blinded me, electric blue and dizzying and coming from all directions. Spots danced in my vision as I tried to adjust to the onslaught. When I could finally make sense of what I was seeing, it didn’t make things any better. In fact, I was a hundred percent sure things had just gotten much, much worse. The light shone phosphorescent from a thousand suckers, a pair of narrowed eyes and a beak-like mouth that was jammed full of metal. One suckered arm swung toward me and I was barely able to dodge it. As it was, the water displacement knocked me almost a mile away.
I gawped and my undead heart tried to perform a somersault.
“Holy fuck,” I breathed.
“What?” Dom demanded. “What’s going on down there, Nat?”
“It’s a motherfucking Kraken!” I exclaimed. “And it’s eating the ship!”
The End
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