From Below

by Darcy Coates

This ship—this goliath—had been carried into a dimension it was incapable of returning from.

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

You always pay, her father had told her once when she was a teenager. 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.

A human is only human for as long as it’s alive.

Reluctantly, she let herself tip into the hole leading to the lower level, knowing it likely wasn’t a coincidence that the only path left open to them was the one that carried them deeper into the ship.

They don’t want us finding our way out. We should have expected that.

A fine curtain of silt grazed over them as the aged hinges responded. They were smoother than most of the doors Cove had struggled through before. She hoped that was because the wood had swollen less; she dreaded the alternative, that things had been moving through the door before them.

Where the hallway above had been visible through the door was now only grim metal. Something had closed the door.

Her fading light caught something dark on the opposite wall. Words, scrawled messily, almost frantically: THEY HEAR YOUR WHISPERS

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