Knock. Knock.

The sound hung in the stale air, a final, definitive statement. It was not a random noise. It was a response. A conversation.

Kaizoo’s hand, still poised where he had rapped on the wall, jerked back as if burned. Every instinct screamed at him to curl into a ball, to hide, to make himself small and hope the thing outside lost interest. But another part, the part that had forced him to repair the leak, the part that was a Maintenance Engineer, rebelled. This was a variable. An unknown. And unknowns in a system as fragile as the Nautilus-07 were fatal.

He had to move. Now.

His eyes darted back to the radar screen. The two signals pulsed, a siren song and a whispered warning. The close one was a mere two-hour journey. A sprint. Salvation, or the trap the logbook warned of. The far one was an eight-hour marathon through the dark. A test of his dwindling oxygen and his shattered nerves.

He needed data. He needed the system.

"LUNA," he said, his voice a dry croak. He cleared his throat, the sound unnaturally loud. "System diagnostic. Full active scan. Analyze both sonar contacts."

The holographic display flickered to life above the console, casting a pale blue glow on his face. Lines of data began to scroll.

“Diagnostic initiated,” the AI's voice was a calm anchor in the rising storm of his panic.

_________________________

Primary power: 38%

Life support: Critical 

Oxygen: 17%

Hull integrity: 98%

_________________________

The numbers were a death sentence, slowly being read aloud.

“Analyzing Sonar Contact 

Alpha: Proximity, two hours, twelve minutes at current speed. 

Signal strength: high. 

Signal composition: anomalous."

"Anomalous? Define anomalous," Kaizoo demanded, leaning forward.

“Signal pattern does not match known vessel or beacon signatures. Fluctuations suggest… biological interference.”

Biological interference. The words landed like a physical blow. The pale thing outside. The knocking. Was the close signal not a place of refuge, but a… nest? A lure, just as the note had implied?

“Analyzing Sonar Contact 

Beta: Proximity, eight hours, seven minutes. 

Signal strength: low but stable. 

Signal composition: confirmed Okeanex Corporation distress beacon. 

Protocol 7-Alpha.”

A distress beacon. A real one. From his own company. It was the only logical choice. The only human choice.

"Set a course for Contact Beta," he commanded, his decision made. "Best possible speed."

He reached for the manual thruster controls, his fingers hovering over the ignition sequence. This was it. He was leaving the knocking, the handprint, the pale watcher behind.

And then LUNA spoke again, her synthetic voice dropping into a new, urgent cadence.

“Warning. Re-routing navigational suggestion. Based on survivability metrics and anomalous data from Contact Alpha, course correction is strongly advised.”

A new line appeared on the main screen, a bright, insistent path charted directly towards the closer, "anomalous" signal.

“Locati—on ne—ar…” LUNA’s voice glitched, distorting into a wet, staticky garble before clearing. “...is not recommended.”

The contradiction was staggering. The system was advising him to go to the very place it then claimed was unsafe. It was like a schizophrenic compass. Had it been compromised? Or was it calculating odds he couldn't comprehend?

---

Paralyzed, Kaizoo stared at the conflicting data. Logic versus instinct. The cold, hard fact of a corporate distress beacon versus the terrifying, unknowable anomaly.

The knocking had stopped. The silence that replaced it was somehow worse. It was a waiting silence.

He thought of the handprint inside the wall. A desperate, final act. He thought of the logbook: Do not trust the radar. He thought of LUNA’s glitching, contradictory advice.

He couldn't trust the system. He couldn't trust the signals. All he could trust was the one thing he had left: his own, fractured reasoning.

The distress beacon was a fact. It was a protocol, a standard. It was designed for this exact scenario. The anomalous signal was a question mark, a void that had already spat out nightmares. To go towards it was to surrender to the madness of this place.

His decision crystallized.

"Override navigational suggestion," he said, his voice firm. "Course locked. Contact Beta. Engage propulsion."

He pressed the ignition sequence. A deep, reassuring thrum vibrated through the deck as the main electric thrusters came online. On the console, the status light for propulsion shifted from red to a steady green. He grasped the control yoke, feeling the faint resistance of the hydraulics.

With a deep breath, he pushed the thrusters forward. The Nautilus-07 groaned, then began to glide forward, slow and ponderous, like a beast awakening from a long slumber. Through the viewport, the endless blackness began to shift, a subtle flow of darkness past the glass.

He was moving. He was leaving the nightmare behind.

---

For the first time in what felt like an eternity, a sliver of hope pierced the shroud of his terror. He was doing something. He was taking action. He watched the navigational display, a tiny, glowing triangle representing the Nautilus now inching away from the pulsing dot of Contact Alpha and towards the faint, steady blink of Contact Beta.

To maintain his sanity, he switched on the external camera feed, displaying it on a secondary monitor. It showed a grainy, green-tinted view from the top of the sub, looking forward into the abyss. It was mostly darkness, broken only by the occasional speck of drifting detritus.

Then, something caught his eye. A flicker of movement at the very bottom edge of the screen. He adjusted the camera angle, zooming in.

His hope curdled into a new, unspeakable dread.

There, on the seabed below, silhouetted against the soft, bioluminescent glow of some deep-sea fungus, were figures.

They were walking.

Their forms were humanoid, but their movement was all wrong—a slow, languid, weightless stroll, as if they were walking on the moon. They wore no pressure suits. No diving gear. Their bodies were pale and naked, moving with an impossible ease in the crushing depth and freezing cold.

One of them stopped. It turned its head, and though the resolution was too poor to make out a face, Kaizoo knew, with a certainty that froze his soul, that it was looking directly up at the passing submarine.

A soft, sighing whisper came from the console speaker, so faint he almost missed it. It was LUNA’s voice, but stripped of all its synthetic quality, filled with a terrible, ancient sorrow.

“They have been dead for a long time, Kaizoo.”

The sub sailed on, leaving the walkers behind. But Kaizoo knew, with a sickening finality, that he wasn't escaping the horror. He was just sailing deeper into its heart.

---

Well... that escalated quickly, didn't it? Just a casual stroll on the seabed, nothing to see here. Totally normal. huhuhuhu... 😈

I hope that final line sent a proper chill down your spine. I got goosebumps writing it. If you're loving the descent into deep-sea madness, adding the story to your library or leaving a comment truly keeps this nightmare afloat!

So, my brave readers...

· What do you think the "walkers" truly are? Lost souls, hallucinations, or something... else?

· Do you trust LUNA's sudden, sorrowful confession?

Sweet dreams... and don't look out any dark windows tonight.

[MKI]