Chapter 11 — Archive of the Damned

  They were staring into the green pulse for an eternity. Not knowing what to do or where to run. He had been preparing himself to be face to face with whatever monster-shaped thing or even a human to step out of the door and make their situation even harder.

  But it never came.

  Time kept on crawling, but he had no idea how long they had been sitting there. Seconds bled into minutes, and minutes felt like hours in the rhythmic flicker of the status light. Every time the light faded into that three-second void of total blackness, Rowan held his breath, certain that when the green returned, a face would be pressed against the glass.

  His muscles began to seize in the stillness. The adrenaline that had carried him through the airlock cycle was long gone, replaced by a hollow exhaustion that made his head feel light and disconnected from his body.

  “It’s not coming,” Celeste whispered. The sound of her voice made him flinch. She was still coiled in the corner, her breathing finally evening out, though it sounded wet and labored in the dry atmosphere.

  Rowan didn't look at her. He couldn't take his eyes off the porthole. “Maybe it’s waiting for us to come to it.”

  “Or maybe there’s nothing there.” she countered.

  He swallowed hard, his throat feeling like it was lined with sandpaper. The silence was so absolute that he could hear the blood rushing in his ears, it felt like a frantic reminder that he was alive in a place that had to be a fucking joke.

  "How long do we have to stay here?" he croaked.

  "I told you. I don't know. The system is silent, Rowan." she sighed.

  "It feels like fucking years," Rowan whispered. He reached out, his fingers brushing the black silt near his knee. It was slightly warm with the heat radiating off Celeste. He wondered if they were to stay here longer, if she would eventually scorch the whole thing down. "I think I’m losing my shit."

  “I think I already lost mine.”

  The way she looked at him then made his pulse stutter. Her tongue rolled over her sharp, needle-like canines like a starved animal eyeing its next meal. In the flickering green light, her pupils were so wide they had almost erased the lavender of her iris.

  Rowan felt a cold sweat break across his neck. She wouldn’t do it. She couldn’t. They had survived the trench together. But as she shifted, her claws scraping against the metal floor, he couldn't help but realize how small he was, and how thin the air in the room had become.

  He clenched his jaw, “Don’t you dare look at me like that.”

  Celeste’s eyes widened, her pupils flickering as if she’d just been snapped out of a trance. “Like what?” she stuttered, her voice raspy and thin.

  “Like you want to eat me.”

  The laugh she let out was a forced, ugly sound that echoed off the rusted walls. “I don’t want to eat shit, Rowan. Thank you very much.”

  She turned her head away, but not before he saw the way her hands were shaking. Whether it was from hunger, the dry air, or the sheer effort of not collapsing, he couldn't tell.

  "Good," Rowan muttered, though his heart was still hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. "Because I'd most definitely taste like shit, and I'm not in the mood to be a snack."

  He looked back at the door, trying to ignore the heat coming off her. He needed to focus. He needed to be anywhere but in his own head.

  He could sense her gaze on him for a quiet while, a heavy weight that seemed to press against his skin. When it finally became unignorable, he turned his head to meet her eyes. He opened his mouth to snap at her again, the defensive words already bitter on his tongue, but she beat him to it.

  “I’m sorry if I make you uncomfortable.”

  She sounded genuinely unsettled. Her voice was a soft, fragile sound. All the irritation Rowan had been nursing, and the jagged fear that had made him want to lash out, just melted away. He looked at her and saw the tremor in her hands and the way she was trying to keep her own claws tucked in.

  He shook his head slowly, the anger leaving him in a long, shaky exhale. "No. You're... you're fine, Celeste. I'm just on edge."

  It wasn't like she was doing it on purpose. This terrifying form the System or whatever had shoved her into was taking a toll on her that he couldn't even imagine. He was afraid of being eaten, but she was the one living inside the hunger. If it was scary for him to look at her, it had to be a thousand times scarier for her to feel herself slipping away into those animal instincts.

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  "We're both just tired," he added, his voice softening. "And the air in here... it’s shit. It’s making me think about things I shouldn't."

  She nodded, a small, jerky movement, and looked down at her tail. For a moment, they were just two people trapped in a metal box at the end of the world, sharing a silence that was way too suffocating.

  But it didn't last.

  The silence was broken by a sound that made Rowan’s blood run cold. It didn't come from Celeste, and it didn't come from the pipes.

  It was a wet, sliding sound from the other side of the inner door.

  Schhllllp...

  Like something heavy was dragging itself across the floor of the hallway. Rowan froze, his hand instinctively reaching out toward Celeste. She didn't need to be told to be quiet; her ears were already pinned back, her glowing eyes fixed on the circular glass of the porthole.

  Schhllllp... thud.

  The sound stopped right outside the door. Then, the manual wheel, the one that had moved so oiled and easy before began to vibrate. It shivered as if something on the other side was leaning its entire weight against the iron, testing the strength of the seal.

  "Rowan," Celeste whispered, her claws scratching the floor.

  He looked at the porthole and his breath hitched. What he saw wasn’t a face but a handprint appeared on the glass from the steam of a breath hitting the cold surface. Someone or something was standing right there, looking in at them. And it was waiting for them to open the door.

  He stared at that fading handprint on the glass, his mind racing through a thousand impossible scenarios. If a human face appeared in that porthole, what would he do? Would he weep with relief? Or would he scream for help?

  For a split second, a delusional spark of hope flared in his chest. Maybe this was it. Maybe behind that door wasn't a labyrinth of monsters, but a way out. An elevator to the surface. A radio. A group of scientists who would be kind enough to save them from this hell. He imagined a hand reaching out, pulling him into a warm room with clean clothes and a glass of water that didn't taste like rust.

  But then his eyes drifted to Celeste.

  The hope died as quickly as it had ignited. If there were humans out there, what would they do to her? She was a lavender-scaled nightmare, six feet of muscle and shimmering tail, huddled in the corner of a high-security airlock. They wouldn't see the girl who had drained her magic to keep him alive. They wouldn't see the fear in her eyes. They wouldn’t see the human inside her skin.

  They’d probably just shoot first and ask questions once she was in a tank. Or worse, they’d shove him aside and treat her like a lab rat. But this wouldn’t be the first time they’d come in contact with a siren, not when the creatures practically owned the water this deep under the ocean. If there were people living and working at the bottom of the world, they wouldn't be surprised by her.

  He recoiled in horror when a second hand slammed against the glass. Then a third. They were clawing at the reinforced pane with a mindless, frantic hunger. The hands were pale, spindly things with elongated fingers and broken, blackened nails. They moved with a twitching, insect-like speed, palm after palm slapping against the porthole until the glass was almost entirely obscured by mottled, grey flesh.

  "Fuck," Celeste gasped, her voice cracking as she pressed her back against the rusted conduit. Her pupils had blown out so wide that her eyes looked like two bottomless pits of lavender. "They’re not human."

  The wheel began to vibrate with a violent, rhythmic force that attempted to tear the door off its hinges. The metal groaned, a high-pitched scream of protesting iron that vibrated through Rowan’s very cell.

  "What should we do?" Rowan panicked. He finally surged to his feet with a groan of pure, adrenaline-fueled effort, his bare soles skidding on the wet metal.

  Beside him, Celeste tried to scramble up, but without the buoyancy of the water, her powerful tail was a leaden anchor. She looked like a giant worm on the floor, her muscles rippling and bunching uselessly against the unforgiving iron grating. Staying here was a death sentence. The only exit was the way they came: the hatch leading back into the crushing, lightless void.

  Crack.

  A spiderweb of fractures blossomed across the porthole. The force behind the blow was inhuman. The way the hands moved on the other side, twitching and overlapping mindlessly, reminded him of every zombie apocalypse movie he’d ever seen, only this was worse. This was happening miles beneath the surface.

  “Celeste, we have to get out! Now!” Rowan roared over the chattering sound that was now leaking through the fractured glass.

  “But—but why did the System guide us here?” Celeste’s voice was high, and breaking. “To kill us? No, that doesn't make sense. Maybe there’s something we need to find out... something in the Archive we missed...”

  Her words were cut off by the violent, glass spray of the porthole finally shattering. The sound was like a gunshot. Instantly, the chattering grew to a deafening roar. Four, five, six spindly, grey hands thrust through the jagged opening, reaching blindly into the airlock. That was the last straw.

  "Screw the System!" Rowan lunged for the outer hatch. “Open, damn it!” he screamed. He threw his entire body weight into it, his face turning a dark, bruised red. With a sickening, metallic crack, the seal broke. The lever slammed downward, and the outer hatch began to swing outward with a groan as the pressure of the entire ocean began to push back.

  He turned to Celeste, his face twisted with effort, and tried to lift her. A groan ripped from his throat. She was fucking heavy. He was trying to hoist hundreds of pounds of muscle, bone, and water-logged scales. His fingers dug into her sides, his bare toes straining for grip in the black silt.

  "Push, Celeste! Help me!"

  The inner door groaned as the things on the other side began to force the frame. The dull green light of the Archive spilled into the room like a predatory fog. With one final, rib-cracking heave, Rowan dragged her toward the threshold of the outer hatch just as the water began to roar back in, reclaiming the room in a freezing, violent surge.