Submerged

Mina’s daily routine on the research ship Leviathan didn’t differ much on a daily basis. After waking up at first light, she would eat a meager breakfast of gruel and sausages, spend most of the day doing routine maintenance and cleaning, and occasionally assist Dr. Bhatt in his research.

She was never bored or unappreciative, though. Her friends convinced her that being an intern was just about getting coffee for the employees and would not really do anything for her. But she had managed to secure an opportunity that took her out to see on an eight-week voyage. There was a week to go before it was complete and then she would get her $20,000 paycheque, which she could use towards her graduate studies.

As a bonus, Mina frequently got to sketch the marine life in her little sketchpad, as she had done her entire life. She had dreamed of being a marine biologist since she was a little girl, and she was so close to making it a reality. Several of the crew, even Bhatt, knew that she did this and complimented her on her sketches, most of which were her pet goldfish. Despite what she wanted to do, Mina did not like to make waves, which made it weird when Bhatt has called her into his office that night.

“Mina, interns so rarely get real hands-on experience, which is why I like to do things a little differently,” Dr. Bhatt stated in his soothing voice. “Tomorrow, if you’d like, you’re going to take the one-man sub for a spin.”

Mina’s eyes widened: a one-man sub mission, all on her own? It was a bittersweet feeling. Sure, she had studied the machine and manual in her down time, but was she ready to take the controls on her own? She had been waiting for this chance since childhood, but was she finally ready to take that leap? She loved the sea, but she knew it was to be respected, and what if something went wrong?

“Do you think I’m ready?” Mina shakily asked.

Bhatt smiled. “In my experience, there’s not such thing as ready. Every plan… EVERY plan… always has something that undoes everything. You’ll die before you’re ready. Just take the plunge and get it done.”

Mina nodded. “I’ll do it.”

The next morning came simultaneously too quickly and not fast enough. As nervous as Mina was, she was equally excited. After she suited up, she met the crew on deck, all of whom were inspecting and preparing the sub for her. The spherical glass shape seemed fragile, but she knew that it was a sturdy material that wouldn’t easily break. Bhatt helped her climb into the sub and she buckled herself in.

“Hold on!” Bhatt cried. “You’ll be needing these.”

Bhatt lowered his hand towards Mina. He was holding a small, black, leather bound notebook and a mechanical pencil.

“I found an old, unused one in my storage. You’re going to see things more intense than a goldfish, so you’d better make it count.”

Mina beamed at Bhatt as she took the notebook from him.

He sealed the hatch, jumped down to the deck, and shouted “Let her down!”

As the sub sank beneath the surface of the water, Mina turned her attention downwards, focusing on the vast emptiness of the ocean below her. She wondered to herself how deep it went and how deep she could sink.

Once she was fully submerged, and all the communications were double-checked, Mina took a leisurely trip down into the murkiness of the water. As she descended, she began to see more and more of the marine life. Brilliant pallets of yellow, blue, orange, and green danced in the lights of the sub. Few of the fish stayed long for Mina to sketch them, but she did her best.

There was a great feeling of serenity being down here. A stillness in the water, even amongst the floating fish, that seemed to lift any sense of burden from her shoulders. It was as though she were floating herself, only required to focus on her breathing.

There was a sudden crash and the sub rotated violently, hurtling off into an uncontrolled direction. Mina struggled to get the sub stabilized, but it was no use. She spun round and round until she finally lurched forward, hitting something that caused her to stop.

It took Mina a few moments to gather her composure. She felt dizzy and nauseated, but she was alive and she seemed relatively okay. She clicked on the comm button.

“Dr. Bhatt? Anyone?” She cried out.

If someone was at the other end, Mina couldn’t tell; the transmission was garbled by static so that only every other syllable or so was mildly discernible. Mina looked out the window and saw that the lights were still on. However, she saw that she was askew and that she had two ledges on either side of her. She was trapped in a crevice.

Her breath quickened. Her first legitimate day in the water, and she managed to get herself trapped at the bottom and out of contact with her mentors. And that wasn’t even the worst of it. She knew that if she didn’t do something, there was a chance of dying via drowning, oxygen loss, or starvation.

“Okay, calm down Mina. You can get out of this.”

She pushed on the controls, but nothing happened. She tried to comms again but got only static. If this was like any other machine, then she’d have to reboot the system. It would take a few minutes, but she’d have the back-up power until it would. Then, she could move the sub or get communications re-established.

She turned the ignition and shut down all the buttons. Everything in the sub went dark, save for the red glow of the emergency power light. Though she was blind in front of her, the lack of light would attract fewer of the unfriendly creatures in the ocean.

Next was to establish the severity of the situation: how deep was she, and how much oxygen did she have left? The depth was not terrible, sitting only at 3000 feet deep. The oxygen situation was worse, however, resting at 60% remaining and dropping.

Mina steeled herself. If she passed out due to lack of oxygen or shock, the odds of being found, and thus survival, would drop significantly. She looked at the clock and took several quick, shaky breaths. She took a few more, less shaky. The longer she tried to make her breathing, the less shaky they became, which helped to calm her.

From what she gathered, if she could keep her breathing in check, she’d have enough oxygen to last another fifty minutes. That didn’t give the crew much time to find her. She glanced out of the window, looking towards the opposite direction of the crevice. It was no use: the light from the surface wouldn’t even be visible at 1000 feet, let alone triple that.

She decided to look straight forward, choosing to focus on the calm of the water that she had experiences before and the serenity that it had brought her. There didn’t seem to be any obstruction on top of her, and the crevice didn’t seem to have much of a grip on her, so she would be able to drive the ship out of there.

The computer beeped; the reboot was complete.

The lights outside the sub flashed on and illuminated the crevice in front of Mina. Her eyes widened and her breathing became incredibly shallow. Staring back at her, from the darkness, was a set of cloudy white eyes, encased in a gargantuan black creature, with a set of jaws that looked capable of eating her entire sub whole. A fleeting glimpse is all that she got, as the sudden return of the light forced the creature to flee.

Stunned by what she had just seen, Mina instinctively grabbed the little black notebook that Bhatt had given her and quickly sketched out every detail that she could remember. This wouldn’t be her best sketch, given how little time she’d had to even see it, and she’d never even heard of a creature like that. Did she even really know what she had seen?

She didn’t even know what to do. She wasn’t ready for this. She wasn’t ready to face a monster that she wasn’t even sure she had seen. She wasn’t ready to drive a sub that had been damaged and wasn’t sure how to account for that. Most of all, she wasn’t ready to die.

Mina started to sob. She pressed the comm button.

“Is anyone there?” Static. She was alone.

An alarm blared and Mina looked back at the oxygen tank. Twenty-five percent. She thought back to what Bhatt had told her last night: “You’ll die before you’re ready. Just take the plunge and get it done.”

Mina wiped away her tear and took a deep breath before pushing on the controls.

They were sluggish and didn’t move as effectively as before, but still… she was moving. Slowly the sub hoisted itself out of the crevice.

While most predators would go after slower moving targets, assuring themselves a meal, the result of pressure disequilibrium would cause far more damage to Mina. Though every instinct in her body told her to go quickly, she knew that the best way to reach the surface was to go slowly.

After what seemed like an eternity, the shimmer of the surface started to appear before her. Mina’s breath slowed to a manageable rate. The midnight black of the water slowly dissipated int a murky green. Mina started seeing familiar fish as she continued to rise.

500 feet to go, the sub lurched forward unexpectedly. Mina held her nerve and kept the controls steady. It was more likely the sub mechanics misbehaving than anything else. She struggled to maintain her breathing, starting to feel woozy. But she knew if she broke now, she’d risk losing oxygen faster, and there wasn’t enough to spare.

She could see the shimmer of the sunlight above, getting closer and closer to her. And yet, everything was getting darker and darker. She was beginning to pass out.

The next thing that Mina knew was that she was on the deck of the Leviathan, getting CPR from Bhatt. A wheezy cough and Mina was awake, safe, and alive.

Much of the following weeks were lost to Mina in a daze: Bhatt had given her the $20,000 paycheque, a letter of recommendation, and even a standing job offer. She had applied to graduate studies and was on her way.

The only things she truly retained were the haunting images of the creature in the crevice. She struggled every night to recreate the image of what she had seen in the book that Bhatt had given her, but it was always just shy of perfect.

Her graduate years passed by in a blur, but she never forgot the creature and decided to make it the focus of her studies. When she was face-to-face with the grant comity, proposing her own expedition, they only had one question:

“What do you think is down there?”

“I don’t know,” Mina mused. “But I want to find out.”

THE END.