Leviathan: Ten Thousand Meters Down

My wife was a deep-sea submersible pilot on a state-of-the-art research vessel. When she returned from an expedition to the Abyssal Sea Trench, she was no longer the woman I had married. She had lost her mind. She could no longer remember where we had gone on our honeymoon, refused to drink freshwater, and stuffed our home's drains so tightly with seaweed that nothing could pass through. Every full moon, she would stand beside the bathtub with a fishbone needle in her hand, staring at me as I showered. Her gaze never wavered, yet she never brought the needle down. I asked her again and again what kind of monster she had encountered 33,000 feet beneath the sea. Her pupils would lose focus as she whispered the same words over and over, "I saw Leviathan." A team of specialists eventually concluded that she was suffering from severe hallucinations triggered by deep-sea claustrophobia. However, when I hacked into the research vessel's classified navigation logs, I uncovered something far more disturbing. Over the past five years, seven submersible pilots had returned from that exact set of coordinates. Every single one of them had gone insane. Even worse, all seven claimed that they had been blessed with Leviathan's shield. On the seventh day after each pilot's descent into madness, their partners all drowned inside their own sealed bedrooms. Chapter 1 The day Xena Thompson came home, my seven-year-old son, Harry, and I were waiting for her at the entrance to the naval base. The car door opened. Harry ran toward her with a bouquet of flowers, shouting excitedly, "Mom!" Xena stepped onto the concrete. She did not take the flowers or hug her son. Instead, she lowered her head and stared intently at a puddle beside her feet. A light rain had fallen that morning, and the puddle reflected the gray sky. She stood motionless at its edge, seemingly unaware that mud and water were soaking the soles of her shoes. The base personnel who had brought her home gently called her name, and only then did Xena slowly raise her head. She looked at me, her lips cracked and pale. "What's today's date?" I froze for a moment. "October 27th. Why?" A hoarse gasp escaped her throat. "The night of the full moon. Six days left." I had no idea what she meant. When I pressed her for an explanation, she had already pushed open the front door and walked inside with a blank expression. For our first meal together, I had made the chicken soup she used to love. Harry thoughtfully brought her a glass of warm water and carefully held it out to her. "Here, Mom. Drink some water. Dad filled it up for you." Xena stared down at the glass. Without warning, she suddenly swung her right hand, knocking the glass out of his grasp. It crashed onto the tiled floor and shattered, sending hot water splashing across Harry's pants. Startled and frightened, he stumbled backward, then burst into tears. Xena did not even glance at our son. She stormed into the kitchen, grabbed the pot of steaming chicken soup from the stove, and dumped the entire contents into the sink. Then, she emptied the water from the kettle, the juice from the refrigerator, and every bottle of drinking water in the house. She poured out every last drop of fresh water as if she had completely lost her mind. The water swirled down the drain and disappeared into the pipes. She tore open a bag of coarse sea salt from the cupboard. Grabbing a handful of salt crystals, she shoved them straight into her mouth. The hard crystals ground between her teeth. A thin streak of blood appeared at the corner of her mouth. I rushed forward and grabbed her arm, trying to wrest the bag away from her. "Xena, what are you doing?" She jerked free and turned to stare at the gurgling drain. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her voice rose to a shrill, almost unrecognizable pitch. "It's too fresh! The salinity is too low! It'll crush your body!" Suddenly, the water purifier beneath the kitchen sink switched on by itself. The pump inside began to vibrate with a low, heavy hum. Xena shuddered as if she had been electrocuted. She snatched up the iron wrench beside the cutting board and brought it crashing down on the purifier's plastic casing, repeating it again and again. The casing split open. The filter cartridge tumbled out, and a small puddle of clear water spilled onto the floor. She dropped the wrench and crouched amid the broken pieces, breathing in ragged gasps. In the living room, Harry was crying so hard that he could barely catch his breath. I carried him into the spare bedroom and shut the door. When I returned to the kitchen, Xena was still curled up in the corner. I crouched beside her and reached for her wrist. Her skin was freezing cold, like raw meat that had just been dragged out of a freezer. Before I could touch her, she recoiled violently. In our eight years of marriage, I had never seen her look at me with the kind of suspicion she might have shown an enemy. "Xena, look at me." I forced down the chill creeping through my chest. "What was down there, ten thousand meters beneath the sea? What happened to you?" Xena lowered her head and clenched her jaw so tightly that her teeth ground together. After a long silence, her unfocused gaze drifted past my shoulder toward the gloomy sky outside. "I saw Leviathan." Chapter 2 I pressed her to tell me what Leviathan actually looked like. Xena's face instantly turned from pale to ashen. "Don't ask!" "Was it some kind of unknown deep-sea creature?" "I said shut up!" She suddenly grabbed the wrench from the floor and slammed it into the metal sink. The shrill clang echoed through the room. From the spare bedroom, Harry cried out for me. At the sound of our son's cries, Xena's hand froze in midair. She neither apologized nor looked at me. Instead, she turned and strode into the master bedroom, locking the door behind her. Both the aerospace and deep-diving programs had protocols for psychological trauma. I assumed she was suffering from a stress disorder triggered by prolonged confinement in an enclosed environment. However, that evening, Xena left the house alone. Half an hour later, she returned dragging two enormous burlap sacks stuffed full of fresh seaweed. Barefoot, she paced through the house, shoving the slimy, foul-smelling seaweed into the kitchen sink, the bathroom basin, and the toilet. Finally, she packed the bathroom floor drain so tightly that no water could possibly pass through it. A pungent stench of rotting seawater filled every room. When she finished, she pulled a needle carved from fish bone out of her pocket. It had been sharpened to an incredibly fine point, which glimmered with an eerie green sheen beneath the dim hallway light. Clutching the needle tightly, she stood in the middle of the hallway and warned me. "Don't touch the seaweed. Under no circumstances are you to move it before the night of the full moon has passed." "Why?" Xena looked straight into my eyes. Her voice was so flat that it held not a trace of emotion. "If you move it, seawater will flood back in. Every one of us will be swallowed by the sea." At 9:00 pm, Harry knocked on the master bedroom door, clutching his picture book. His school had assigned an oral presentation about the ocean, and he had been begging to hear a story about the deep sea. Xena sat on the edge of the bed without speaking for a long time. Harry tugged at her sleeve and refused to let go. "Mom, does Atlantis truly lie in the deep sea?" Xena lowered her eyes and finally began to speak. I watched them from the half-open doorway. Her voice was barely above a whisper. She said there was no remains of the city at the deepest point of the Abyssal Sea Trench, nor were there schools of glowing fish. There was only an enormous black shadow, one that had slept for countless years in eternal darkness. It was icy and lonely. It needed living people from the land to descend into the depths and keep it company. Harry listened, completely absorbed in the story. Unable to contain his curiosity, he looked up and asked, "Then who does it choose to keep it company?" Xena stared at her son without expression. "It chooses a bride or a groom." "Mom, have you seen it?" The air in the room seemed to freeze. Xena's expression changed. The bone needle in her hand nearly pierced the back of her own hand. She sprang to her feet and roughly shoved Harry toward the door. "Go to bed! No more questions!" Harry stumbled backward and collided with my legs. When Xena saw me standing in the doorway, a flicker of panic crossed her face. She hurried out, grabbed my arm, and shoved me into the spare bedroom across the hall. "Stay in here tonight. Whatever you do, don't go back to the master bedroom." With that, she slammed the door shut. I barely slept a wink that night. The whole room reeked of rotting seaweed and salt, the stench so heavy that my chest felt tight. Around 3:00 am, the sound of dripping water came from the living room. The drops fell at steady intervals, each one tapping against my eardrums. I rolled out of bed, moved quietly to the door, and eased it open. The master bedroom door stood ajar, but the room was empty. At the far end of the hallway, a dim yellow nightlight glowed inside the bathroom. I hurried over. The moment I pushed open the glass shower door, my blood seemed to stop flowing. The bathtub was empty of hot water. Harry stood in the exact center of the tub with his eyes closed, looking as though he were sleepwalking. The seaweed that had been stuffed into the drain had been pulled out and tossed onto the floor. The overhead cold-water shower was turned all the way up. Freezing tap water hammered down on Harry's head, soaking his pajamas and streaming down his body. He was drenched from head to toe. His lips had turned purple with cold, yet he was not shivering. He had not even woken up. Slowly, the corners of his mouth stretched sideways, forming an unnaturally stiff, grotesque smile. Water streamed down his cheeks. With his eyes still closed, Harry moved his lips and spoke in a light voice. "Dad, the water is rising. I want to go to Atlantis." Chapter 3 I twisted the faucet shut, and the freezing water from the showerhead stopped instantly. I yanked a bath towel off the rack, wrapped it around Harry's soaked body, and lifted him out of the tub. The bathroom door flew open, and Xena rushed inside. She was still clutching the fishbone needle in a death grip. When she saw the seaweed that had been pulled out of the floor drain and tossed aside, she shuddered violently, as if someone had just lashed her with a whip. She dropped the needle and lunged forward, shoving me out of the way. Roughly tearing the towel off Harry, she began stripping away his wet pajamas. The icy sensation jolted Harry awake, and he burst into terrified sobs. Xena ignored him completely. Her hands frantically searched his freezing skin. She turned him over and stared intently at his back and neck. There were no blisters. No strange growths had appeared on his skin. Xena collapsed onto the waterlogged tiles, gasping for breath. Then, as if possessed, she scrambled to her feet and rushed into the kitchen. She returned with the half-empty bag of sea salt. She scattered handful after handful of coarse salt into every corner of the bathroom. The crystals mixed with the water, dissolving into murky white puddles across the floor. I could not take it anymore. I strode over, snatched the bag from her hands, and shoved her away. Xena crashed against the edge of the sink. I pulled Harry behind me and shielded him with my body. "Have you lost your mind?" Xena did not argue. She simply stared at the floor drain, repeating the same words over and over in a nervous, almost frantic voice. "Don't move the seaweed. The seawater will come in." … The next morning, the atmosphere in the house was suffocating. Harry sat at the dining table, too frightened to even drink his milk. He glanced at Xena, who sat across from him, and asked in a timid voice, "Mom, is it true that Leviathan can offer people its shield?" The spoon slipped from Xena's hand and clattered onto the table. She stared at her son in horror. "I never said that! Who told you he could offer shield?" She jumped to her feet and retreated into the master bedroom. … Later that morning, while Xena was asleep, I went into the spare bedroom to pack Harry's schoolbag. As I gathered his colored pencils, I pulled a sheet of paper from beneath the desk mat. Its background had been completely covered in blue crayon. In the center of the drawing stood a family of three, surrounded by an ocean that seemed to stretch down into endless darkness. The little figure representing Mom stood at the front. Behind her, a gigantic black shadow had been heavily scribbled in with black crayon. The figure representing me had been drawn in the bottom corner. A white needle was stuck into my neck, and a stream of bubbles floated out of my mouth. I was drowning. As I stared at the picture, a chill crept through my hands and feet. I folded the drawing, slipped it into my pocket, and headed into the study. I booted up my computer and connected through a backdoor I had left behind from my days doing network maintenance at the naval base. I hacked into a deeper, top-secret archive at the research institute and entered the names of the seven submersible crew members who had gone insane. One after another, their case reports appeared on the screen. I opened the death records of their partners. All seven had died in exactly the same way. Each death had occurred on the night of the seventh day after the crew member returned from the deep-sea mission. Every single death had coincided precisely with the full moon. The cause of death was drowning. All the bodies had been found inside bedrooms with their doors and windows tightly shut. There were no large containers of water anywhere in the rooms, yet the victims' lungs had been filled with highly concentrated seawater. What chilled me most was the physical evidence collected at each scene. Every victim had a tiny puncture wound on the neck. Forensic investigators had recovered a sharpened fishbone needle from every scene. I thought of the bone needle in Xena's hand, its tip glowing with an eerie green light, and finally understood what I was facing. I was the next sacrifice. I scrolled to the bottom of the archive. In the signature field of the final report, I saw a familiar name. Former director of the Marine Research Institute, Prof. Arthur Turner. Chapter 4 Today was the seventh day. That afternoon, I left Harry in the care of a colleague from the naval base and went alone to Arthur's retirement residence. I knocked on his door for a long time. Someone was inside, but nobody would answer. Standing outside, I leaned toward the peephole and said one sentence, "Professor, it's the seventh day." The lock clicked. Arthur opened the door. His hair had turned completely white, and his face was paler than paper. He ushered me inside, then grabbed my arm in a death grip before I could say a word. "Tonight, when the moon is full, no matter whose voice you hear in your house imitating the sound of ocean waves… Don't open your eyes. Under any circumstances." I asked him why. Arthur drew the curtains and switched on an old computer sitting on his desk. He opened a black-and-white surveillance video with no sound. It was footage from the first case. The screen showed an ordinary bedroom: the partner of a submersible crew member lay sleeping peacefully in bed. The crew member who had gone insane stood beside the bed, holding a fishbone needle. Something seemed to be moving in the corner of the room. Arthur pointed at the screen. "Watch the person's eyes." In the video, the sleeping man seemed to hear something. He frowned, then slowly opened his eyes. The instant his eyes opened, the crew member lunged at him and drove the fishbone needle deep into his neck. The surveillance footage began flickering violently. Thick layers of static swallowed the screen. When the picture finally cleared, something impossible had happened. A massive volume of black seawater had appeared out of nowhere inside the sealed bedroom. Within seconds, the water level rose above the bed. The man who had been stabbed lay in the water, his arms and legs twitching feebly. His mouth fell open as he drowned in his own bed. Arthur switched off the video. His hands were trembling. "Whatever they brought back from the depths needs a vessel. Whatever happens, don't open your eyes." At nightfall, I rushed home. The moment I pushed open the front door, an overpowering stench of the sea hit me. The power was out, and the house was so dark I could not see my own hand in front of my face. The spare bedroom door was locked from the inside, but I could hear Harry singing a childish tune through it. The melody was unfamiliar, an eerie underwater nursery rhyme I had never heard before. I felt my way toward the spare bedroom, intending to smash the door open. Suddenly, a freezing hand clamped over my mouth from behind. Xena grabbed me and dragged me backward into the master bedroom. She locked the door. In the faint moonlight filtering through the window, I saw that her face was streaked with tears. She held the fishbone needle in her hand, her entire body trembling. "Run. Get out of here. Leave this place." For a brief moment, she seemed to have regained a sliver of her sanity. However, before I could say anything, a sound suddenly came from outside the door. "Whoosh… Whoosh…" It was Harry's voice. He was imitating waves crashing against the rocks. The instant the sound began, the tears on Xena's face stopped flowing. Within a single second, her expression became utterly blank. She suddenly forced me down onto the bed. The sharp fishbone needle pressed hard against the carotid artery in my neck. The sound of the waves outside stopped. Harry's voice came through the door. "Dad, open your eyes and look at me." Large beads of cold sweat appeared on Xena's forehead. She pinned me beneath her, her voice hoarse as she warned me. "Don't open your eyes. If you see it, I won't be able to tell the difference anymore." I lay on the bed, the needle pressed against my neck, as the surveillance footage flashed through my mind: The victim opened his eyes, then the needle pierced his neck. The seawater appeared, and the victim drowned helplessly. At that moment, every clue fell into place with terrifying precision. I looked at Xena's false, self-righteous face, at the expression of pain she was pretending to wear, at the way she was pretending to protect me. Suddenly, I could not stop myself from laughing. My laughter sounded horribly out of place in the dark bedroom. I stared straight into her eyes and spoke slowly, emphasizing every word. "Xena, I know what you're trying to do."