Chapter 5 - The Abyssal Descent
The freezing, briny air rushed up from the open floor panel, smelling of burnt wiring, sea salt, and ozone. Julian coughed, shielding his face as a plume of grey smoke billowed from the dark shaft. The red emergency lights cast long, jagged streaks across the wet metal stairs leading down into the bowels of the dying luxury liner.
"We can't go down there," one of the subordinate officers stammered, her navy blue uniform sticking to her skin from the rising humidity. "Sector Four is completely submerged! The watertight doors will crush us instantly if the pressure sensors fail!"
Evelyn Briggs didn't hesitate. She retrieved her dropped firearm, holstered it securely, and grabbed a heavy emergency flashlight from the service bar wall. She turned her fierce, determined gaze back toward Leo. The toddler was calmly crossing his legs in the leather armchair, checking the time on his platinum wristwatch as if waiting for a delayed flight.
"You're coming with us," Evelyn declared, stepping toward the armchair and reaching down to scoop the toddler into her arms.
Before her hands could touch the maroon velvet blazer, a sharp, deafening electrical arc snapped across the floorboards between them, scorching the Persian rug. Leo didn't flinch. He simply tapped the face of his wristwatch again, and a blinding perimeter of blue laser light formed a shimmering barrier around his chair.
"Touching company assets is strictly forbidden, Officer Briggs," Leo rumbled, his deep, authoritative voice carrying an unmistakable edge of finality. "My physical presence here is a logistical necessity. Yours, however, is rapidly expiring."
Julian grabbed Evelyn’s arm, pulling her back from the humming energy barrier. "He won't move, Evelyn! He's wired himself into the ship's local grid. If we stay here arguing with a toddler, we drown in this room."
Evelyn glared at Leo through the translucent blue laser grid, her chest heaving with rage and adrenaline. "This isn't over, you little monster. When we get to the surface—"
"There is no surface," Leo interrupted softly, adjusting his designer sunglasses. "Only the bottom."
With a final, desperate look at the unmoving toddler, Evelyn turned and plunged down the open stairwell into the freezing, dark water of Sector Four, followed closely by Julian and the two remaining officers. The heavy steel hatch above them groaned under the immense water pressure, vibrating violently as it began its automatic descent sequence.
As the water rose to chest height on the flooded stairwell, Evelyn looked back up through the narrowing gap of the hatch. The last thing she saw before the heavy steel doors slammed shut was Leo lifting his silver spoon, calmly taking another bite of his vanilla ice cream in the dry, amber-lit luxury lounge.
The ship plunged deeper into the pitch-black ocean trench, the groaning of metal hulls sounding like the agonizing roar of a dying beast. Julian swam ahead through the flooded corridor, his flashlight cutting beam paths through swirling debris, broken glass, and floating luggage.
"Hold your breath!" Julian screamed back over the roar of rushing water as a massive secondary bulkhead groaned ahead of them, threatening to collapse at any second.
Evelyn kicked hard against the current, her navy blue boots dragging her down, but she forced herself forward through the freezing abyss. They broke through a rusted service hatch into a pitch-black cargo hold, gasping for air as a thin pocket of oxygen remained trapped against the ceiling.
"Where... where do we go from here?" one of the officers choked out, shivering violently in the freezing brine.
Evelyn wiped the salt water from her eyes, aiming her flashlight beam toward the far corner of the cargo bay. There, strapped to a pallet and blinking with a steady, menacing red light, was a military-grade acoustic transmitter broadcasting a high-frequency digital signal directly to Leo's wristwatch.
And right beside the blinking transmitter lay a second, identical maroon velvet blazer, resting neatly folded on a crate with a single note pinned to the fabric.
May you like
Evelyn swam over, picked up the note with trembling fingers, and held her flashlight beam steady against the paper. Written in the exact same crisp, meticulous handwriting were three simple words that made her blood run colder than the surrounding ocean.
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