The single drop of black water gleamed on the floor. It was like finding something perfect and stunning, a beautiful, distant sun you couldn't help but move toward, even as it burned you. It was real. The entity had been here, inside his sanctuary, watching from the shadows as he bared his soul to a dead camera. The proof was irrefutable—a tiny black hole punched through the fabric of his reality.

But cosmic terror was a luxury he could no longer afford. It was supplanted by the visceral, immediate scream of his own body. A soft chime, the sound of a polite but firm executioner, echoed through the cabin.

“Oxygen levels at 8%,” LUNA announced, her voice a sterile monument in the thickening dark. “Critical hypoxia imminent. Unconsciousness and terminal system shutdown will follow.”

Kaizoo’s breathing was a tight, painful rasp. His lungs strained, not against pressure, but against a profound absence, pulling in a thin, metallic-tasting nothingness. A blinking of static sparks flickered at the edge of his vision. The number on the screen—OXYGEN: 8%—was no longer just data; it was the leaden weight of his eyelids, the dull, thickening throb behind his eyes, the way his own thoughts smeared into incoherent panic.

His hands, trembling with more than just fatigue, pulled up the full status report.

MAIN POWER: 41%

HULL INTEGRITY: 97%

LIFE SUPPORT: CRITICAL

OXYGEN: 8%

Stealing power from the Okeanex-03 was a cruel, cosmic joke. It had given him the energy to move, to think, to fully comprehend the architecture of his doom, but it couldn't manufacture air from the void. The scrubbers were recycling poison. He had minutes left. The entity, the doppelganger, the silent city—none of it mattered if he suffocated here, alone in the dark.

THUMP.

A heavy, resonant impact struck the hull directly below the main viewport. It wasn't the gentle, crushing groan of pressure. This was a solid, deliberate thud, like a hammer blow on a coffin lid. Kaizoo flinched, his heart leaping into his throat as he stared into the black glass. Nothing. Only his own pale, wide-eyed reflection.

Then, the radar chimed—a different, urgent sound he hadn't heard in hours or minutes?. After everything that had happened, Kaizoo didn't even remember or care how much time had passed. A new contact. He scrambled to the console, his movements clumsy. A blip pulsed, bright and strong. Not on the seabed, not distant. It was right there. Less than five hundred meters away. The identification tag flickered with damning promise: OE-PDB-77 - Okeanex Personal Distress Beacon.

A voice, weak and shredded by static, crackled from the comms. "...anyone... please... we're stranded... is anyone there? Help us..." It looped, a desperate, automated siren song.

Salvation. It was too perfect. A miracle laid at the feet of a dying man.

"LUNA," Kaizoo croaked, the word scraping against his dry throat. "Analyze. Why wasn't this signal detected before? Our power and sensors are stronger now."

A pause. A fraction of a second too long. The same pause that had happened when he asked about Contact Alpha. “Analysis: Signal was previously masked by a concentrated, localized dampening field. The masking agent is no longer present.”

No longer present. Just in time to save him. He didn't believe it. He saw the note taped to the radar screen in his mind's eye, the letters burning. Do not trust the radar. Maybe the note should have said, "Don't trust anything, including LUNA." He remembered the walking dead on the seabed, their silent, pleading gestures. But with 8% oxygen, a deliberate trap was a more active death than an accidental tomb. It was a choice.

"What choices do I have after everything that happened to me?" Kaizoo clasped his hands together, weighing the narrow decision. "Plot an intercept course. Best possible speed."

The NAUTILUS-07, now humming with robust, stolen power, descended towards the seabed. His lights cut twin sabers through the eternal night, sweeping across a barren plain of grey silt until they illuminated the source of the signal.

Another Nautilus-class submarine.

It was the NAUTILUS-04, its hull pristine, its paint unchipped and gleaming under his beams. It sat on the seabed as if it had been gently placed there by a giant's hand. No scars, no tears, no signs of a struggle or the slow decay of the deep. Its airlock was positioned in perfect, inviting alignment with his own. A single, unwavering green light glowed beside the hatch.

An open door.

This is a trap. It has to be. But a trap has something he needs.

The docking was seamless, a soft metallic kiss that felt obscenely intimate. Magnetic clamps engaged with a series of solid thunks, binding the two vessels together. His own airlock cycled with a hiss that sounded like a last, rattling breath. The moment the pressure equalized, he didn't move.

"LUNA, full spectrum scan of the Nautilus-04. Life signs, energy signatures, anomalies. Everything."

A pause. When she spoke, her voice was different—smoother, almost conversational. "Scanning. The NAUTILUS-04 is in perfect condition. Optimal. There is no problem here."

A cold knot tightened in his gut. "I want the raw data, LUNA. Give me the status report."

Static crackled, a digital hiss of pain. "Scanning... I... Main power: 49%. Hull integrity: 100%. Life support: Unknown. Oxygen: 66%." Her voice stuttered, breaking apart like a corrupted file. "No li-life signs detected. But... an-an-anomaly..." The word stretched and distorted into a wet, staticky gurgle. Then, clarity returned, sterile and abrupt. "Scan complete. No life signs. All systems nominal."

"LUNA, give me the ALL STATUS REPORT, AGAIN!" Kaizoo ordered, his voice firm and harsh.

LUNA

-----------------

Main Power: 49%

Hull Integrity: 100%

Life Support: Unknown

Oxygen: 66%

No Life Signs

All Systems Nominal

-----------------

This time, LUNA delivered the data directly, with no distortion, sounding like a normal AI with no problems.

"It's lying.Or it's infected. Or I'm already hallucinating again. But 'Anomaly' and 'Life Support Unknown' are really weird and suspicious." The thoughts were a spike of ice in his chest.

"I really need the Oxygen or I am going to lose my mind. Maybe low oxygen is making me lose focus and imagine things. Ah, forget it. Just go in and take the Oxygen," he muttered. With a final, shuddering breath of his own foul air, he wrenched the hatch open.

---

The air that washed over him was cold and clean. It tasted of nothing—no metal, no ozone, no sweat, no fear. It was the taste of a void pretending to be air, sterile and unnerving. The lights were a bright, surgical white, illuminating a cabin that was an immaculate mirror of his own, yet utterly alien in its perfection. No scuff marks on the floor, no grime on the consoles, no faded photos tucked into corners. It was a showroom model, a pristine egg waiting at the bottom of the ocean.

"Move, Kaizoo. Focus. Oxygen. Just get the Oxygen and get back. Go Now," he screamed a little, pushing himself to go inside.

He rushed to the life support panel. OXYGEN: 66%. His eyes darted to the bank of emergency canisters neatly secured in their racks. His breath caught. According to their gauges, they were full, pressurized to 98%. The system wasn't reading the reserves. Or it's lying about the ambient air.

A sob of pure, desperate relief escaped him, a broken sound in the overwhelming silence. He grabbed two heavy canisters, his arms trembling with their weight and his own desperate urgency. Suddenly, Kaizoo caught a glimpse of a child's drawing. He froze like ice, a feeling of immense pressure building in his chest. "Th... that's... Saaaam's.....same drawinggg... from Okeanex-03.... Impossible....."

"Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!" Kaizoo screamed, as if a colossal weight had crashed down upon him. "Daddy, Daddy. Look over there!" A little blurry, but it was a child calling him daddy, wanting to tell him something. "What the heck is that... STOPPPP ITTTTT.... STOOPPP IITTTTT...." The canisters in his hands dropped, and his body felt like it wanted to explode.

"Be calm, Kai. This is not your first time seeing it, and this is what you trained for. Just face the reality. Don't panic." That woman appeared again, but this time the memory was very clear. She was in uniform, her face still blurred, but her presence was neat, clean, and powerful, as if she had authority over him.

Kaizoo opened his eyes, feeling strangely calm, like an ocean after a tsunami. Despite everything that had happened, it was as if nothing had affected him. His body was sweating, but his mind was focused on his objective. "My objective is to get this Oxygen and get the hell out of here." He picked up the canisters he had dropped, stood steadily, and began to walk back from this tomb to his own.

As he worked, the absolute silence of the place began to press in on him, though it didn't seem to affect him now. It was a dead silence, a vacuum that sucked at his ears. His eyes fell on the main log console. With a sudden surge of curiosity, he approached it. He tapped the screen. It was blank, wiped clean. But then he noticed a note taped to the side of the screen.

The handwriting was his. But it was neater, more controlled, the lines firm and decisive, written by a hand that knew no doubt. It read:

BEWARE, THE PARASITE INSIDE IS WATCHING AND LEARNING.

The words echoed in the silent cabin, and a coldness, thick and heavy, settled in the marrow of Kaizoo's bones. Parasite? Watching? Learning? The memory of the shadow in his recordings, the thing that had moved when he wasn't looking, surfaced in his mind with terrifying clarity.

SKRITCH.

The sound was soft. Wet. Like a damp rag being dragged across rough metal.

It came from the forward corridor, the one leading to the bow.

Kaizoo froze, his grip tightening on the cold metal of the oxygen canister until his knuckles ached. He turned, slowly, his heart a frantic drum against his ribs, so loud he was sure the thing could hear it.

He aimed his headlamp down the dark passageway.

The beam cut a trembling path through the darkness, illuminating a figure. It stood with a vaguely human posture, tall and unnaturally thin. For a heart-stopping moment, Kaizoo thought it was a survivor, a fellow engineer saved from the abyss. Then the light fully captured its form.

Its pale, naked skin seemed to absorb the light, giving back only a sickly pallor. Its head was tilted at an angle that was almost curious. But where a face should have been, there was only a smooth, unbroken expanse of flesh, a blank canvas waiting for a portrait.

For a horrifying second, they stood in silence, the thing and the man, separated by twenty feet of sterile corridor.

Then, with a sudden, final flicker, the bright white lights of the Nautilus-04 died. Every single one. The darkness was instantaneous and absolute, swallowing him whole.

The only sound was the frantic, ragged gasp of his own breath.

And then, a new one, from the darkness in front of him.

Drip.

...Drip.

......Drip.

(A note from the author, transmitted from the depths):

Okay, I’ll be real—writing this chapter felt like something was reading over my shoulder. I had to triple-check my own reflection. 👀

I see you there, scrolling. Don’t think I can’t feel you lurking. You’re hooked, aren’t you? You want more. WELL, MY BRAIN NEEDS A NAP. Aaaahhhhhh…

Bzzt—kshhhh—

📡Automated Deep-Sea Transmission:

Do not ignore this signal.Adding this story to your library and leaving a comment provides essential life support to the author.Repeat: essential. We are watching. We appreciate you. Probably.

— [M...........K.................I]