Chapter Text
There is something in the waters outside the base. You only noticed it recently. The first time had been an accident; you’d dropped a thermos of tea and spun around to grab it as it rolled away. Something moved in the corner of your vision, and all you caught was a blur. But it was big. Bigger than the creatures that normally lived around the plain the research facility was located on. Bigger than the juvenile goblin shark you saw on camera last week. Bigger than you.
You had not been scared, not at first. It was something you prided yourself on, something your coworkers would confide in you during the darker days, when the isolation from the rest of the world was too much to ignore. You always remained steadfast and rational, no matter what malfunctions or misplaced data sheets life threw at you. Your first thought had been that you and the creature - if it was one - had been moving in opposite directions and your swift turn had stretched it out. Your second thought had been an adult goblin shark; perhaps it had come to investigate the strange structure and found nothing of interest, leaving swiftly thereafter. Your third thought was that it was either part of a carcass or a piece of debris.
So, no. In that first week, you had not been worried. In fact, you nearly forgot about the incident.
Nearly, being the key word here. Because then it happened again.
You were walking down that same hallway, water bottle firmly clasped in your hand, a clasp envelope under your arm. The door to Aria’s (nicknamed Jack-O’ due to her love of Halloween) office was only a few feet away.
Something moved out of the corner of your eye. You only caught a glimpse, but it was large.
You stop dead in your tracks, slowly turning towards the window. You see a hand.
Your water bottle crashes to the ground, an apocalyptic clang! that echoes down the suddenly too-quiet hall.
Jack-O’ pokes her head out of her office, a worried frown on her face. The hand is gone.
It was just a trick of the eye. Something that looked similar enough to a human hand as it moved that your brain thought it was one. That is what you tell yourself, at one in the morning, dry eyes heavy but refusing to close.
The base’s walls and windows were thick; had to be, in order to withstand the pressure of the bathypelagic zone’s deepest depths. Nothing could get in, not on purpose, anyway. Even the dock - where the facility’s submarines and drones were housed - would only open to the open ocean when something left or returned. The team before you never made any mention of a possible new species, and nothing had occurred during your last tour here. You were safe.
The stack of books sitting on your desk - which had seemed like a good, if ironic choice at the time - told a different story.
In space, no one can hear you scream. The same can be said for the ocean floor.
Your coworkers notice almost immediately, of course. There’s only a handful of you here, and your workstations in the main observation room are nearly on top of one another.
Dizzy approaches you first, compassionate soul that she is. “Good morning, Daryl! How are you doing?”
“Good morning,” you raise your mug in greeting, finding the fabric flowers on your desk suddenly very interesting. “Well enough, I suppose. How’s your family?”
“Oh, wonderful!” she smiles, knowing full well you’re deflecting. Frederick (often called Sol for reasons you aren’t quite sure of; it can’t be his personality, unless they mean his temper) and Zappa politely pretend not to listen. “I spoke to them last night. Sin’s always so excited to learn about everything we’ve found. Ky says it’s nearly impossible to get him to bed on time afterwards,” she giggles.
Dizzy sets down a small stack of photos on your desk, taken from the perimeter cameras. They’re spaced out in 100 meter intervals, circling the base. It takes all of your willpower to not frantically scan for any large creatures caught in them.
“Here are the photos you requested. I’m sorry it took so long; Faust needed my help in the labs earlier.”
“Oh, it’s fine, Dizzy. Thank you.”
She looks you over, the tiniest of frowns growing. “Are you sure everything’s alright, Daryl? You look exhausted…”
“I assure you, it’s nothing serious,” you laugh. Not yet, at least. “I simply didn’t sleep well last night. It probably wasn’t a good idea to read those horror books right before bed.”
Dizzy laughs along with you, and thankfully drops the matter.
You have been here for 3 weeks out of your 6 month station here. Your only hope at this point is to return alive.
Later, you’re in the observation room alone. The only lights currently on are the low, red ones near the floor; enough light to get around while disrupting the natural environment as little as possible.
You lean against one of the worktables, arms folded across your chest, staring out of the large window that takes up nearly the entirety of the southern wall and part of the ceiling. For a few minutes, a sense of calm washes over you, as it always has when you look out into the ocean. Where others saw a mostly-barren hellscape of giant creatures that will gleefully hunt a human down, you saw the planet’s lifeline. Where others conspired about still-living megalodons or world-ending kaiju, you pondered what delightful lifeforms were still out there to be discovered.
Earth was 70% water, and thus far they had only mapped out about 25% of the ocean’s floor. It wasn’t impossible that…
You shake your head, then shake it harder to dispel the memory of the trench a kilometer away from the base. It was deep, and reached far into the abyss; perhaps even to the hadal zone, but no one was sure yet. Only a few of their drones were durable enough to make the trip, but their battery lives were very short. The caves along the trench’s walls would remain unexplored- for now.
Something large swims by the window right in front of you. Your heart stops. Against your better judgement, you look up.
The bottom half of the creature looks like a Greenland shark drawn after a game of telephone, rich navy blue scales with white spots. Its torso was thick and uncannily human, with more white spots clustered around the shoulders. The creature’s arms ended in webbed hands with more joints than a human’s, and short, sharp claws on the tips of its fingers. It had two odd, short nubs protruding from its forehead, almost like horns (the biologist in you was kicking up a fuss; what were they for?! ), and what appeared to be silver hair.
It was a mermaid. And it was staring right at you with dull gold eyes.
You find yourself glued to the spot; no matter how fervently you command your legs to move, they remain locked in place. The creature presses its hands to the glass, tilting its head in what you would nearly call fascination, those flat eyes lighting up as it takes you in.
It removes one of its hands from the glass, and waves. Its mouth stretches wide as it bares its teeth. Was it trying to smile?!
Your legs unlock, and you nearly fall flat on your face as you rush to the door, slamming it shut behind you. In that moment you do not care that the sound will be heard throughout the base. Your vision tunnels as you race towards your quarters. Your hands shake violently, and you nearly drop your keycard three times trying to unlock the door.
You squeeze yourself under your bed, your only consolation the boxcutter that, at this point, has hardly seen any use. You clench it between your hands in a white-knuckled grip, brandishing it before you like a priest would a crucifix.
Oh god! Oh god! Oh god!
Time blurs around you. You try to slow down your breathing, and mostly succeed. Jack-O’ knocks on your door. You do not move. A few minutes later, she places a tray with tonight’s dinner - bigos, your favorite - outside your door. You think she lingers for a few more minutes, waiting to see if you’ll emerge.
Eventually, the fear recedes and exhaustion takes its place. You crawl out from under your bed, and to the door. You’re too tired to be embarrassed, and no one’s watching anyway. You crack open the door, thankful, for perhaps the first time, that your hallway doesn’t have any windows. Dragging the tray inside, you lean against the door, taking a slow breath in. It wheezes out.
You take a small spoonful of the bigos. It’s cold. You nearly cry with relief at the familiar flavors bursting across your tongue. Pork and poultry, sauerkraut, fresh cabbage and onions, allspice, bay leaves, paprika. You tear into the dish with a reawakened hunger, using the slices of rye bread Jack-O’ probably had to fight for to soak up every last drop.
You place the tray on your desk to return later, and toss your dust-covered clothes into the hamper. The dregs of your earlier panic still cling to your joints, but fed and clean, you feel better.
You do not sleep at all that night.
Surprisingly, it is Sol who walks up to you first tomorrow. Despite your poor mood yesterday, the way you dashed to your room and refused to leave, it is your avoidance of windows - especially the one in the observation room - that damns you. You always have your gaze focused on some distant, unseen horizon, full of curiosity as to what lies beyond. To shy away from it? To duck and hide like an injured animal? That, above all else, is what raises your coworkers’ concern.
“So. Did you like it?” Sol asks, leaning against your desk.
You startle. “What?”
“The bigos. Did you like it?”
“Oh, yes, I did. Did you make it?”
“Yeah.”
Sol’s gaze burns you, his eyes dragging over you in what few would recognize as worry. Though his attitude would better suit a pirate ship, Sol did care about the people around him. He was just so damn quiet about it you wouldn’t be able to tell until after the fact.
He seems to weigh his next words- something so rare you nearly leap from your seat and activate the base’s alarm system, because it surely meant the end was nigh. Eventually, he settles on, “Went out earlier. One of the security cameras died, so I had to fix it. On my way back I noticed some scratch marks on one of the hatches. Looks like something was trying to bite at the wheel. Or maybe turn it.”
Your stomach drops for about the 5th time in the past 12 hours.
Sol leans down, looking you dead in the eye. “Be honest. Are we in danger?”
Your first instinct is to say yes. You bite it down.
Because even though you’re scared out of your wits, you’re still a marine biologist. You’re still a scientist. And what kind of scientist would you be if you provided a conclusion with insufficient evidence to back your claims?
You take a deep breath. You think of the mercreature. Obviously, it had been watching the base for some time, enough to understand and copy their mannerisms. The base was 2 years old and no one had gone missing. If humans were on the menu, it would have done something by now.
You exhale. “No,” you say with conviction. “But if that changes, you’ll be the first to know, Sol.”
Sol nods. “Good.”
In the following weeks, you remain in the base. Though it earns you more concern, Dizzy takes up your monthly supply run with only a sympathetic look.
You do what you do best; bury yourself in work.
Every now and then, you catch glimpses of the creature, either in the cameras or outside the windows. But never more than that; sometimes you begin to question whether you saw it that night. At least until you see a webbed hand curiously poke at the casing of a camera, or Sol quietly tells you about new scratches near the base’s entry points.
The creature may have realized it scared you, if its recent avoidance of being caught after it so overtly presented itself to you is anything to go by. Perhaps it has been trying to arrange another meeting? Its continued attempts to break in may be bids to establish contact, one where you had the advantage. To show you it meant no harm? To further understand the strange beings in its home?
The only way to find out was to meet with it. Alone.
At the beginning of your third month at the base, you take the supply run back from Dizzy, thanking her profusely. You start up the one-man submersible, anxiety roiling in your gut, but you refuse to give up. If nothing else, you need to know if your coworkers’ lives are in danger.
As you begin the ascent to the drop off zone, doubt begins to set in. The creature obviously lived in the benthic zone, perhaps even originating from the trench near the facility. Would it be able to survive closer to the surface? Blobfishes were the most well-known examples of what would happen to a deep-sea fish when depressurised. They would swell up and die from the low pressure as their decompressed organs ruptured. Would that happen to the creature as well?
Your trip remains uneventful as you breach the surface and load up this month’s supplies, exchanging light conversation and completed reports with Baiken. The sunlight feels almost foreign on your face. You dawdle. You watch Baiken steer away and slowly shrink as she nears the horizon. You take some photos to show Faust later. You pick at some seaweed stuck to the roof of the submersible. You sigh, climbing back inside, checking over the crates one last time as you start the engine.
You move all of 2 meters when something bumps against the submersible.
You kill the engine immediately, eyes darting around, searching for whatever, or who ever hit the vehicle. You almost begin to think you accidentally whacked a fish when a blue arm comes into view, pointing upwards.
Nerves claw at your throat as you climb the ladder, nearly hitting your head on the hatch. You squint at the light as you reemerge. You sit on the edge of the hatch, feet on the ladder, ready to dive back inside if things go south.
Water laps the half-emerged roof of the submersible as a dark shape rises to the surface. You ball your hands into fists, scrunching the fabric of your diving suit.
The creature’s head pokes out of the water, only its eyes visible. Its silver hair floats with the current, some of the shorter strands clinging to its forehead. At your lack of reaction, more of the body follows as it tentatively swims closer, grabbing on to the submersible almost delicately.
It looks up at you with those tarnished gold eyes, and for the first time you realize that both of you are baring your throats.
You steel yourself.
Holding out your hand, you say, “Hello there. My name is Daryl. What’s yours?”
The mercreature takes your hand. It’s larger than yours. Its jagged claws catch on your glove. The creature looks at your joined hands, trying to remember what it had watched you do, and shakes them once.
A voice as rough and old as time itself replies, “Chaos.”