Chapter 13: The Blue Light from the Deep

My name is Kaito, and I was part of the team that found the ghost ship.

The S.S. Meridian wasn’t just a shipwreck; it was a pristine tomb raised from the abyss. A marvel of 1990s engineering, all sleek, brushed steel and darkened glass, it should have been a crushed ruin on the ocean floor. Instead, when our remote submersibles found it, it was sitting perfectly upright on a plain of eternal midnight, as if some giant hand had gently set it down. Strange, grayish barnacles crusted its hull like a fungal growth, the only sign of its decades-long slumber.

Our mission was simple: board her, recover the flight data recorder, and solve the greatest maritime mystery of the 21st century.

The moment the airlock hissed open, the past greeted us with a cold, stale breath. It wasn't just silent; it was empty in a way that felt wrong. A half-eaten sandwich, fossilized by time, sat on a mess hall table. A game of cards lay scattered, as if the players had vanished mid-hand. The air carried the faint, metallic tang of dust and salt, but underneath it all… was something else. A faint, sweet, and spicy scent I couldn't place.

We found the Emergency Recording Box in the bridge, a hardened black cube bolted to the reinforced floor. It was our prize. Dr. Arisawa, the lead researcher and my mentor, carefully extracted its solid-state memory chip. Her hands, usually so steady, trembled slightly.

Back in the sterile safety of our modern research vessel, the Odyssey, we gathered around the speaker. The recording began with cheerful, professional voices.

"Log Entry 1: August 12, 1997. Captain Tanaka. Maiden voyage is a resounding success. It's so calm out here, the ocean looks like polished obsidian."

For days, it was mundane. Weather reports, engine stats. Then, the shift was as sharp as a knife.

"Log Entry 14: August 26. First Officer Chen. We've spotted a small dinghy. No identification. No sign of propulsion. We're altering course to investigate."

The next voice was a young woman, Deckhand Maria Flores. Her voice was initially curious, then laced with a creeping unease.

"We got close… maybe a hundred meters. There was one person, sitting too still. They were wrapped in a heavy, dark cloak, and the smell… it was overwhelming. Like cloves and decay. And they were singing this… this tune. It wasn't music. It was wrong. Like scraping metal and whispering."

On the recording, we could hear it—a thin, reedy melody that made the hairs on my arm stand up.

"They held this lamp," Maria's voice cracked, "an old thing with a frame of tarnished blue metal. The light it gave off… it was a cold, electric blue. It didn't light up the water; it stained it. And then… the dinghy just faded. Like a mirage. But the song… it's stuck in my head."

That was the beginning of the end. The subsequent logs were a symphony of terror.

"No one can sleep," said Engineer Davies, his voice ragged. "Flores is hysterical. She says the blue light is burned onto the back of her eyelids. I… I think I see it too when I close my eyes."

Captain Tanaka’s voice, once authoritative, was now frayed with panic. "The smell of cloves is in the ventilation system. I can't get it out of my nose. Fights are breaking out everywhere. They're all seeing things in the blue."

The logs descended into hell. A whisper from an unknown crewman: "Jenkins just stabbed the cook! He said the cook's face was made of blue light!" Another, screaming: "It's showing me things! It's showing me how easy it would be to break bones!"

The final log was a cacophony of madness. Over the sounds of screaming and crashing, Engineer Davies shrieked, his voice tearing with insane glee, "Don't you see? Sleep is the lock! The light is the key! WE MUST ALL SEE THE LIGHT!" A final, deafening roar of tearing metal, and then… the chilling silence of the deep.

The playback ended. The silence in our lab was heavier than any ocean pressure. I realized I’d been holding my breath. I rubbed my gritty eyes; we’d been working for nearly forty-eight hours straight. The phantom scent of cloves seemed to linger in the air.

Dr. Arisawa slowly turned to me. Her face was a mask of dread, her knuckles white as she gripped the table.

"Kaito," she whispered, her voice hoarse. "Tell me you don't see it."

"See what?" I asked, my own voice feeling too loud.

She pointed a trembling finger towards a dark corner of the room, far from any screen or indicator light.

"That," she breathed. "That little spot… of blue."

I squinted, my tired eyes struggling to focus. At first, there was nothing. Just shadow. Then, as my pupils dilated, I saw it. A single, minuscule point of light, hovering in the darkness. It wasn't warm or friendly. It was a cold, electric, and utterly unnatural blue.

My heart slammed against my ribs. A faint, reedy melody, the one from the recording, began to echo at the very edge of my hearing, a ghost song stuck on an endless loop.

The curse of the Meridian wasn't a story on a recording. It was a virus, and we had just infected ourselves. The first symptom was seeing the light. The final symptom, according to the logs, was murderous insanity.

And I couldn't look away.