Depth and Darkness

The sand shifts beneath your boots, scraping against the rubber soles as you crouch to double-check the straps on your fins. The ocean stretches out in front of you, an endless expanse of dark blue  under the pale morning sky, clouds hovering over the sea as if in warning. Your gear lies scattered around you—packs and containers that are your lifeline for this trip. A regulator rests on a patch of sand nearest to you, its black hoses coiled like a sleeping snake. You pick it up and rotate it in your hand, fingers brushing over the connections to ensure nothing is loose. While your hands are steady, your chest feels tight, a tension you can't quite place, and you put aside the feeling because it will get in the way. The wetsuit sits coldly against your skin. For something that is supposed to keep you warm under the cold winter waters, it sure isn’t doing a good job now. You reach for your dive computer next, strapping it around your wrist and tapping the screen to let it  run through its diagnostics. The numbers blink in bright colors: depth tolerance, check; oxygen supply, check. As routine goes, the tri-gas tank is next, two of them in fact, full to the brim with helium, oxygen, and nitrogen. 

You glance toward the waves crashing against the shore, rhythmic and steady. It’s almost sending you into a trance. The ocean is not a steady being. It’s a dangerous, unpredictable force of nature, and it surely is not inviting to those who willingly climb into its arms. You take a deep breath, tasting the salt that’s clinging to the air, and reach for the dive mask. It’s heavier than usual, or maybe that’s just your imagination. 

The ocean’s low roar only grows louder with every step you take, the sand giving way to pebbles that clink against each other. The splashes of the tide wrap around you like a binding rope. When you finally reach the point where the water reaches to your knees, the water starts to rise even higher, ignoring the fact that you have not moved from where you stopped. You pause, adjusting the strap on your tanks one last time before diving quickly into an oncoming wave.

The first sight of your trip is pretty ordinary, a thick kelp forest full of life, swaying with every current. You follow them down like a beacon pointing to home,  fish swimming around you as if you’re just another victim of the call. A seal twirls its way into your view, looking to where you’re headed and back to you, its eyes blown wide. It looks… concerned almost. But that’s silly, animals can’t be concerned, especially when they’re in their element and you're completely at their mercy. 

Soon, the kelp you have been following starts to lose its color, and all of a sudden, it is just you and the deep expanse. The fish have seemingly all stopped following you, perhaps tired, or avoiding a predator. Regardless, it’s not too late to turn back, but isn’t this one of life’s adventures? Seeing what comes next in a mystifying experience? 

The kelp has started to twist in your hands, something you fail to notice as you keep following it down. The leaves are traced with something dark, almost maroon if your headlight hits it. One would consider this a red flag, but everything loses color this deep in the ocean. 

At last you finally reach the ocean bed, or simply an elevated part of it. Something is off. There is no sand on this floor, only rocks, old and murky, that cover as far as your eyes (and light) can see. As you check your dive computer, it starts sputtering numbers, levels of pressure you’ve never seen before. Strange, you don’t feel much different. You proceed to walk forward, fins scraping at the floor with every step, and it’s almost like your back on land. A current whips past you, and it’s like a chilly breeze, leaving you to struggle for a few steps. Suddenly, the rock stops. 

There is nowhere else to go, and everything is lifeless. There is just a simple black expanse in front of you, and looking down at your computer again, you see your numbers going haywire. Your tank stutters, and with wide eyes you fumble to switch the tubing system to your backup. It’s time to go up. 

Just as you have the thought, something stirs. You can’t see anything, but your gut twists as if it’s being grasped by giant hands that are trying to shrivel it up till it no longer exists. The stirring becomes a vibration, barely distinguishable from your own trembling body. But it grows, a thrumming that resonates in your heart. Panic gnaws at you as you back up on the rock, the kelp you used to get to the bottom no longer there. You keep your eyes on the chasm, looking, waiting for something to appear. There is nothing. Just black, impenetrable black. But the thrumming grows louder, a low frequency that isn’t sound but pressure, pressing into your mind, into your soul.

A shadow shifts in the distance, darker than the void itself. It isn’t the absence of light; it’s something swallowing the light, bending it. As the light from your headlamp reaches it, the light warps and gets swallowed by the creature. Your breath catches as your dive computer pings loudly, the sound carrying. Checking it, you notice bright alarms (no longer red, as the world is devoid of color here) signaling a nearly empty tank. Your lungs constrict with the effort to draw in the thin, metallic-tasting gasp. The shadow grows, not moving closer, but expanding outward, as if the very concept of the ocean is being unwoven to reveal it.

The first detail that emerges is the size—its vastness defies comprehension. It stretches beyond your peripheral vision, its edges blurring as your brain fails to process its scale. Its surface is slick and glistening, and it seems distinctly as something born before the concept of light. This was not something to be seen, certainly not by human eyes. 

A jaw unfurls from the mass, impossibly wide, lined with teeth that shimmer faintly in the dim glow of your diving light. The teeth are jagged, mismatched—some impossibly long, others broken or twisted, and they radiate fear as a wave, making it clear that there is a hunger deep within it, a hunger that isn’t to be filled with food, but power. 

Your body is no longer your own. Your limbs twitch uselessly as the creature moves closer—not with speed, but as if simply expanding further. The water itself seems to bow to its will, currents swirling around its massive form. 

You try to move, but your muscles refuse to obey, locked in terror. Your computer blinks furiously, flashing warnings you can’t comprehend. The sound comes again, a low, reverberating groan that breaks the fragile, logical part of your brain. It tells you that you are nothing. A brief flicker of life in an ocean that will remain long after you are forgotten. Your light flickers once, twice, and then fails completely.