I face the deep drop-off.
I ignite the floodlights. The twin beams cut through the gloom like twin spears of artificial light, piercing the unknown darkness.
"I'm coming, Vaelis," I whisper into the empty cabin, the words a cold promise in the crushing silence.
My own voice, when it comes, sounds wrong. It sounds like the rocky ocean floor grinding together.
My hand, now calloused, finds the heavy lever. I shove it forward.
The skiff drops like a heavy stone. The ballast tanks flood with a rushing hiss. The depth gauge on the main console spins out of control. Two hundred fathoms. Three hundred fathoms. Five hundred.
I should be terrified.
The immense pressure outside the iron-glass hull is enough to turn solid bone to fine powder. The darkness is total. It's a crushing, suffocating weight pressing against the reinforced viewport. The glass groans under the strain. Any normal betta-mer would scream in panic.
But I am not normal. I am not the same Mira.
The Abyssal Draught courses through my altered veins. It burns my core like liquid nitrogen. It freezes my fear. It slows my racing singular heart to a heavy, rhythmic thud. It sounds like a hammer striking an iron anvil.
Thud.
I wait in the cold silence.
Thud.
My reflection in the dark glass stares back. The eyes are different. The pupils are blown wide. They swallow the colored iris, turning the entire field of vision into a monochrome landscape of high-contrast gray. Microscopic silt particles dance in the freezing water outside. Shifting thermal currents twist in the floodlights.
I am a hunter. I am a weapon.
I level the skiff out at the edge of the Midnight Zone.
I scan the barren ocean floor.
I don't need to guess the monster's path. The beast left a chaotic trail a blind heavy-lifter could follow in the dark.
A deep, jagged furrow cuts into the sediment. It winds down the steep continental slope like an ugly scar. It is the distinct track of something heavy being dragged against the current.
"I see your path," I whisper.
My voice sounds alien inside the small cockpit.
I push the throttle forward. The hydro-engine whines in protest. The pressure fights the mechanics, but the skiff shoots forward. I follow the deep track.
Down.
Always down.
I cross the invisible threshold into the true Abyss.
The water outside the reinforced viewport crystallizes into lacework patterns of ice. The iron hull groans, the sound a tormented wail that travels up my arms and into my bones.A new warning flashes across the main console, its red light painting the dark cockpit in crimson pulses.Warning. Structural Integrity Compromised.The mechanical voice chirps, useless against the crushing dark.
I ignore it. My attention remains fixed on the descent gauge.
The Abyssal Draught has remade me. The poison now knits my cells together against the pressure that threatens to pulverize this vessel. My skin, once soft as a Vaeil's should be, has hardened. I could abandon this iron coffin now, swim into the freezing black, and tear the shark apart with my bare hands.
The violent thought intoxicates me. A small, quiet part of my soul screams in protest. The old Mira, the girl who preferred warm currents and polishing ceremonial spears, shrieks in terror at what I've become. She knows this unnatural strength comes at a terrible cost. She knows I'm borrowing years I can never repay.
I silence the weak girl. Vaelis needs my strength. He's waiting in the dark for a hero to cut his heavy chains.
