The Abyssal 's pressure hull groaned.
It wasn't the dry scrape of metal fatigue, but a sound closer to the protests of some leviathan's bones straining under ten thousand meters of crushing pressure. Every subtle tremor of the vessel traveled through the cold alloy deck plating, vibrating deep into Chen Shen's spine with a heavy, viscous frequency. Outside the thick viewport, the submersible's sole defense against the eternal dark, a stark white spotlight beam cut through the void. Countless motes of suspended sediment churned within its glare, like dust stirred after eons of slumber.
The depth gauge on Chen Shen's console pulsed a blood-red number: 10,971 meters .
Humanity's technological pride felt insignificant, a mere speck of dust struggling in the abyssal immensity. Beyond the reinforced glass lay absolute blackness. It was a tangible black, thick and greedy, devouring the light and leaving the Abyssal encased only within the pitiful sphere of visibility carved out by its spotlight. Each sweep of the beam over the jagged, tortured seabed landscape revealed fissures resembling deep, ragged wounds, poised to disgorge unknowable horrors.
"Captain, sonar indicates a large, irregular structure off the starboard bow, bearing zero-three-zero, range three hundred meters... the return signature is... anomalous." The voice of Zhao Lei, the co-pilot, held a thread of tension that cut through the suffocating silence of the control room. He stared intently at his screen, brow furrowed.
Chen Shen's gaze shifted from the deep-dive log to the sonar display. Beside the green icon representing the Abyssal , a blurred sonar return pulsed, its boundaries subtly, unsettlingly shifting. It bore no resemblance to known seamounts or the rigid geometry of wreckage. It looked more like... a coiled mass of writhing shadow.
"Set course zero-three-zero. Speed one knot. Hold distance. Prepare optical observation." Chen Shen's voice was calm, the cool detachment honed by countless extreme dives forming a thin veneer over his nerves. He nudged the control stick. Outside, a massive manipulator arm extended smoothly, the protective cover over its high-resolution camera sliding open.
The submersible adjusted its pitch. The spotlight beam, now a surgical scalpel, lanced precisely towards the target area. In the murky water, colossal outlines materialized under the intense glare. It wasn't rock.
It was ruins.
Tilted, shattered pillars of immense size lay half-buried in the black ooze, shrouded in thick sediment and unidentifiable deep-water growth. The material was neither stone nor metal, reflecting the light in a deathly, dull white. Far more disturbing were the patterns etched onto their surfaces—vast, twisting lines of asymmetrical geometries, nested and tangled in ways that sparked profound unease. These weren't carved; they looked... dissolved, etched by something corrosive. Within the deepest grooves of some lines, dark green, viscous residue clung stubbornly, seeming almost... animate.
"My God..." The voice of Dr. Lin Wei, the biologist, crackled over the comms, thick with disbelief. "This structure... these patterns... it can't be natural! Nor is it anything from any known civilization!"
"Structural integrity?" Chen Shen focused on the immediate threat.
"Scanning..." Zhao Lei's fingers flew across his console. "Primary composition unknown, abnormal reflectivity... Wait!" His voice shot up an octave. "Internal heat signature... spiking! Life-sign readings... detecting something! But the signal pattern... it's utter chaos! Unidentifiable!"
The words had barely left Zhao Lei's lips when every light in the control room plunged into darkness, then flickered violently like a death spasm! An ear-splitting alarm shrieked without warning, casting the frantic, rotating red glare of emergency lights onto faces twisted into masks of horror!
"Warning! Warning! External pressure sensor anomaly! Localized pressure readings... skyrocketing! " "Warning! Hull structural stress critical! Starboard D-section pressure hull... stress index exceeding maximum tolerance! " "Warning! Unknown biological signature intensity... exponential increase! Approaching! "
The cascade of alerts slammed into them like ice picks. Chen Shen's heart seized! He lunged for the depth control panel, slamming his hand onto the emergency ascent initiation!
Too late.
An indescribable force, vast and utterly implacable, hammered into the starboard underside of the Abyssal !
KRRR-BOOM—!!!
The entire vessel screamed in metallic agony! Chen Shen was hurled bodily against the console, bones jarring. The nightmarish symphony of rending metal, bursting conduits, and the terrifying, pressurized roar of seawater flooding in drowned out the alarms instantly.
Pitch blackness. Only the feeble, despairing glow of a few emergency lamps pierced the gloom. Freezing, bone-numbing water, bearing the immense weight of the deep, surged over Chen Shen's ankles and rose with terrifying speed. Desperate shouts, pained groans, the sizzle and spark of shorted electronics—all merged into a cold, grim funeral dirge echoing ten thousand meters down.
Icy, salt-heavy water choked Chen Shen's mouth and nose. The darkness was absolute, a devouring maw. Amidst the brutal concussion and paralyzing cold, his consciousness flickered like a dying candle flame.
Just as it was about to be utterly extinguished, a voice manifested—clear, direct, and utterly alien—within the core of his shattering mind:
"Listen..."
It defied all known language or timbre. Profoundly deep, vast, resonant with the echoes of dead eons—like the groan of tectonic plates or the basso profundo of some incomprehensible leviathan stirring in the depths. It bypassed his ears, flooding his consciousness like a glacial torrent.
Within this absolute sonic deluge, an undeniable compulsion branded itself into his awareness:
"Return..."
The frigid sea closed completely over Chen Shen's head. One final, fragmented thought surfaced—Not a sound... a... summons? From... the abyss itself?
Then, only silence. And darkness. Complete.