Face to face with the Sea

The sound of an alarm woke Tom up from his sleep. He sighed and rolled over to reach out for his phone to hit snooze. As he opened his eyes, confusion hit. That wasn't the sound of his phone alarm, he thought. That alarm was something different.

Tom was a Royal Navy chief engineer serving on a Vanguard-class, ballistic submarine. He's served six months onboard the Vengeance, following his requested shore transfer after the death of his son.

As he sat up in his bunk, his eyes widened with urgency. It was 3:42 am his phone read, yet his alarm was set for 7. The subs alarm continued sounding, echoing in the distance. Reflecting against the metallic walls of the submarine creating a never quietening noise. He realised it was the evacuation alarm. That something was wrong.

He climbed down from his bunk and headed towards the light switch at the entrance to the room. Whilst walking, he wondered why he couldn't hear any of his bunkmates. He switched the light, nothing. It wasn't working. He opened his phone and turned the flashlight on. Using the light, he looked over all the bunks in the room. No one was there. No sign of them. He put his shoes on, grabbed his shirt off the hook on the wall next to the door and stepped out into the hallway. With panicked breathing, he looked in both directions and could hardly see. Save for the dim, emergency lights every few yards. The alarm was much louder in the hallway. It created an almost echo effect that sent chills to the back of his neck with every blast. He looked up and saw a siren, flashing an orange light with speakers next to it emitting the piercing alarm sound. He wondered what had caused this.

He decided to turn right and head towards the control centre to see if he could find anyone who knew what was going on. There he would see if he could turn off the sodding alarm with its high-pitched blares going every other second.

He'd been walking for nearly five minutes now along the metallic gridded floor. He could only hear the alarm and the weight shifting on the cold steel floor as he walked along the hallway. As he walked along, he shone his phone light into every open bulkhead, hoping to find someone else. Anyone else.

He reached the control centre and saw computer screens flickering their displays from outside the entrance. As he stepped over the bulkhead and slowly peered around the room, he saw smashed glass and equipment scattered all over the command centre. Lights flicked on control keyboards, and wires hung from the ceiling, showing signs of a struggle. He approached the station nearest to him, looking for an off switch to the alarm. He instantly stepped backwards as he felt a cold, soggy cling to his foot by his sock. The floor was wet. He took a closer look at the stations and saw water dripping from all of them. What the hell happened here, he thought. Is the sub leaking?

He apprehensively pushed forward towards the central station and saw that everything on the sub was in the green. Engine levels, oxygen levels, hull integrity, electrical and power relays were all working. Everything was working; nothing was wrong with the sub. There was no breach; the sub wasn't leaking. So, what happened, he thought?

He turned the alarm off at the press of a button, and the main power came back on. Immediately he reached for the comm station and started scanning the sub with the ship-wide CCTV. The mess, kitchen, training platform, missile bay. Nothing. He couldn't see anyone. He landed on the feed for the tactical room and saw a flickering candle in the glass window between two of the stations. That was odd, he thought. He wondered if he was indeed the only soul on board.

He continued going through the camera feeds until he found something. In the data server room, there was blood. Except it was floating in the air. There were lots of it. His eyes widened, and he leaned in; he realised that the room was filled with water; it was flooded. He switched the camera feed and saw that the bulkhead for the data server was closed. The water was contained. He sighed in relief.

He reluctantly switched back to the server room camera feed. As he scanned the frame, he could see something in the top-right edge of the frame. He took remote control of the camera and panned it right, tilted it upwards. His hand covered his mouth; he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

The crew. They were dead. Their stiff bodies were floating at the top of the room. The blood was theirs. He could see blood leaking from their ears as if their brains had exploded.

He fell backwards into the captain's chair and sat there holding his head for a few moments. What the hell is going on? he thought as he ran his hands through his hair.

He got up from the chair and started to look through the ships logs to see if he could find out what happened. But then he heard faint footsteps in the distance coming from the hallway. It sounded like they were getting closer. They were slow as if the person was strolling, not making as much noise as the footsteps got louder as the person was coming ever closer. He decided to grab something, just in case.

He saw what looked like a piece of the sub's periscope on the floor by the navigation station and quickly grabbed it and hid behind the captain's chair. The footsteps were now right outside the room, and they stopped. He knew whoever it was, was looking around the room. Tom could now hear a noise coming from the entrance, where the person was standing. It sounded like running water. Like a washing machine. Water being swished around constantly. For a tense moment, and what seemed like minutes, there was silence, save for the sound of water Tom was hearing. Then slowly, the footsteps started again; he could tell they were going down the hallway. With that, the swishing sound got fainter as the distance between Tom and whatever that was, increased. His breathing got sporadic, and he could feel his heart bashing against his rib cage. He wondered what that was? Who could make a noise like that?

He decided to stand up quietly and head back to the comm station and check the CCTV of the hallway. He changed the source input, and there it was. The person, although it wasn't a person. It was a watery figure, human-like in shape. It appeared to be made entirely out of water. The water was transparent and was constantly swishing around within the shape of the figure like a whirlpool. Tom could see that there were puddles of water in the wake of the footsteps from this figure. Similar to what he stood in earlier.

What is that? Did that kill the crew? Did that flood the server room, Tom thought. He couldn't believe his eyes. Surely this can't be real, he thought to himself.

After a couple of minutes, he realised that he had to escape. That he had to find a way out. He sat down and looked at the subs depth levels and saw that the sub was 500ft down and was 200 miles from the nearest landmass. He needed to activate the transmission beacon and alert the home base that the sub was down and needed rescue. He had to surface the sub if he wanted to activate the beacon.

As chief engineer, he knew exactly how to do that. It's his job. Usually, he has a team of people in the engine room with him monitoring the systems live. This time it's just him. He knew it would be a risk, but he had to take it.

He went over to the helm station, engaged the engine, and rerouted power to the flood chambers. Nothing. No response. That's when he remembered that the shut off valve had to be turned into place manually before surfacing. He knew that it would take 5 minutes for the power to reroute to the engines and that he had to switch the valve before that time was up manually.

Hastily he checked the CCTV to see if he could see where the ghastly figure from before was and if it was on his route to the engine room, but no luck. He had to go; he had to risk running into that thing.

He grabbed the piece of periscope and ran. He knew running would be louder than walking, but he had to get there fast. With every forward plunge of his legs, a loud heavy thud was heard against the metal grid. The sound echoed down the hallway. He was sure that the figure would hear it. He kept going. Panting with exhaustion and running purely on adrenaline, he reached the engine room. He looked down the ladder and saw a pool of water on the floor. He estimated about ankle deep. He couldn't waste time, he thought. He jumped down and was shocked that it was waist-deep. He made a loud splashing noise but continued regardless. His lip quivered as he waded through the water towards the shut of the valve. He lunged forwards and swam towards it. Once he reached it, both hands grabbed hold of it and pulled it to the right from its central position. It required him jumping up and using his body weight to shift it down. It worked.

He took a moment to catch his breath before heading back to the command room. But there it was. He could hear the swishing sounds from before. Only this time, it was loud; it was deafening. It sounded like it was coming from directly behind him. A low rumbling growl was heard. He knew that it was the figure from before. His lips trembled as a tear rolled down his cheek. He knew he was going to die. He took a deep breath and turned around. Facing the figure.

There it was. Right in front of him. Easily 7ft tall, leaning over Tom with what looked like a grin on its watery face. Tom looked up into the figure face. He could see whitewash from the water whirling around within the space of the figure. It was oddly beautiful. Like a water decoration, he thought. As Tom's gaze reached higher, towards the eyes, he saw red. Two crimson red whirlpools circled viciously where the eyes would be. He remembered the blood in the server room and realised that the red was blood. The figure leaned in, and the swishing sound was deafening loud. Tom smelt salt; the water was salt water, he thought. Seawater. Was this a creature of the sea, he wondered?

As the figure leant forwards and encased Toms head within its body. Tom thought of his son and how much he missed him. His reliving memory slowly started to fade away as blood and water washed over Tom's eyes. As he choked on the water, and blood seeped out from his ears like he was leaking, the sea figure titled its head upwards. Blood from Tom's ears started to travel upwards throughout the whirlpool of the figure's body. It travelled upwards towards the figure eyes, where it fused with the crimson read whirlpools already there. His blood became one with the figure. His blood became one with the sea.