Darkness swallowed everything.
Not the absence of light—this was thicker, heavier. A darkness with depth. A darkness that felt aware.
I wasn't standing anymore.
I was floating.
Cold water lapped against my skin though I couldn't see it. My breath came out in sharp, panicked bursts, echoing strangely, as if the sound had to push through layers of fog before reaching my ears.
Then a faint glow pulsed beneath me.
Not light…Memory.
Images rippled beneath the surface like reflections trapped in the water itself.
A fishing boat rocking on a moonless night.A lighthouse spiraling into static.An eye staring up from beneath the ocean floor.
Each fragment rose, touched me, then dissolved.
A voice whispered through the darkness:
"Do not resist."
I spun around. The void stirred, swirling with faint outlines—faces drifting like fog. Some I recognized from earlier files, but most were strangers. All were watching.
Then one figure emerged clearly from the dark.
A woman.Hair drifting weightlessly as though underwater.Eyes completely black.
She moved toward me without disturbing the water.
"You opened the Deep File," she said, her voice soft but warped at the edges. "Now it shows you what it holds."
"I didn't ask to see anything," I managed, though my voice cracked.
She tilted her head gently, almost pitying."No one asks. But once you read a truth born of the sea, the sea will read you back."
The water beneath me churned.
A whirlpool formed, spinning faster until an entire scene dragged itself to the surface—
A harbor.Night.Crowds screaming.A massive shadow rising from the depths, towering above the boats.
I gasped."I've seen this—these cases—these disappearances—"
"You've seen the aftermath," the woman whispered. "Not the cause."
The scene shifted violently.
Now I stood—no, hovered—above a research vessel. Floodlights blazed across the waves. The crew shouted numbers into radios, panicked, frantic. Instruments spiked wildly.
A figure stood at the bow, clutching a soaked notebook.
His voice trembled:"Whatever is down there… it's listening. It knows we're here."
The ocean beneath the ship rippled outward like a breathing chest.
Then something enormous pressed against the underside.
Not rising.Not attacking.
Studying.
I flinched backward, but the woman's cold hand caught my wrist.
"You understand now," she murmured. "The archive does not record monsters."
Her black eyes narrowed.
"It records the consequences of calling them."
The whirlpool surged again, pulling the scene apart. New fragments spiraled up:
—An abandoned lighthouse with all its windows shattered inward—A diver's helmet filled with brine and ink—A map of the coastline marked with spirals thickening each year
My pulse hammered."Why are you showing me this?"
"Because the Deep File does not belong in this world," she whispered. "Yet someone brought it here."
Her grip tightened—ice-cold, desperate.
"You must decide whether to return it… or let the sea take back the archive."
Before I could speak, a deafening crack tore through the darkness.
Water exploded upward.
Dozens—hundreds—of skeletal hands burst through the surface, clawing toward me. The drowned voices shrieked in unison:
"REMEMBER US."
The woman shoved me backward, her voice slicing through the chaos:
"Wake up—before they pull you under!"
Black water surged over my head.
And I fell—
—back into the archive.