From Below

by Darcy Coates

Then the voice rose, flooding his ears, filling his head, raw and battered with terror: “There are bodies in the walls.”

That didn’t mean the depths wouldn’t be hell for their bodies. The added pressure had become noticeable at only ten feet down. At a hundred feet, they would be breathing harder just to compensate against the squeeze. Anything over a hundred and fifty feet required even more specialized qualifications and prolonged training to withstand. By two hundred and twenty feet, even the oxygen in their canisters would begin to turn toxic. Cove and her team were traveling down three hundred and twelve feet.

When the ship left port on 6 April, twelve days before its last contact, it was under the command of Captain William Virgil and was manned by two hundred and sixty-five crew, along with four hundred and nine passengers. No bodies were ever recovered.

The black holds them in its hands. The void, beautiful, voracious. They want more air but there’s none to take, just the deep thick water. Skin turns white as they try to hold their breath inside. They can’t. The bubbles vanish from their gaping mouth. You watch as they drown.

A true ghost ship. A phantom of the deep, manned by the bodies of the dead.

When you go somewhere most people can’t or try something dangerous, there is always a fee. You either pay with caution and a level head, or you pay with your life.

Fitz had exposed a span of exterior hull four feet by five feet. And, inside, he had revealed a shriveled, twisted corpse.

Once we die and once the soul separates, we are no longer human but only a body to be returned to the soil.

Regeneration followed after death. Growth required change. Life was a constant battle of give-and-take, a bittersweet tango that demanded full participation.