Deep Sea

I look towards the depthometer.

1000 meters.

2000 metres.

With every descent my heart ascends further and further into my throat.

3000 metres.

4000 metres.

I’ve made this trip down to the lab more times than any of my colleagues, and yet I’m still not use to it. I don’t know what it is, but I’ve never felt comfortable in here. Maybe it’s the clicking noise that marks every 1000 metres descended, maybe it’s the rickety noises the elevator makes as it grinds its way down into the unknown, or maybe it’s the lack of windows, hiding the evidence that the world below is part of the one above.

5000 metres.

6000 meters.

7000 metres.

CLANK. CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK.

The mechanics say that noise has to do with the rapid change in water pressure, or something like that, they say it’s completely safe, but I just can’t bring myself to believe them. It’s like some instinct developed through centuries of evolution was specifically preserved to detest that noise. Like an ancient warning to deter all of humanity from coming here. Something is telling me; I shouldn’t be here.

8000 metres.

9000 metres.

10000 metres.

SHUNK.

 I breathe a deep sigh of relief; the worst part is over. The doors grind open, I make my way to the workstation, walking through the large circular hallways brandished with cold steel, standing sturdy with a purpose to keep all that is not within, out. I enter the lab, where I expected to see the school of genetically modified snailfish we were researching, alive and well. The sight I am instead greeted with, is nothing.

The snailfish were kept in an outside container which was attached to the outer wall of the lab with a sturdy thin mesh to keep them from escaping. Peering out through the observatory window, I am left baffled. The mesh is too small for them to escape, and too strong for any predators to break through, as if there would be any at this depth.

I check the camera footage in search for answers, but what I find is only more questions. I play the footage from weeks back and lapse it until this morning. Everything’s normal, and then in the last few seconds of the tape, the fish are gone. I play the footage from this morning again at half speed.

I begin journaling in the logbook we use to manage the fish’s vitals. I write “The fish existed right up until five minutes from 1:07 pm, at which in the span of three frames, they were no longer. The first frame: the fish were present. The second frame: a large circular object took up the entirety of the camera, within it, I saw what I believe to be the world in 50 years, it was empty, I believe this circular object to be the pupil of an undiscovered organism, and I believe this organism to be something beyond all known understanding of coherency and rationality. The third frame: the fish are gone.