Shattered Light

The pressure groaned against the hull of the *Stingray*, a living thing fighting to collapse us. Mitch pressed his face to the viewport, the thick glass distorting the inky blackness. Outside, it was pure, suffocating void, broken only by the sub's cutting spotlights. "Two thousand fathoms," Lena's voice crackled, tight as a drum, through the comms. "Holding steady. For now."

Silas, perpetually calm, even now, adjusted his console. "Alright, Mitch. You see anything yet?" His voice was a low hum, a counterpoint to Lena's nervous ticks. Jax grunted from his perch in the back, checking the seals on his exosuit. The air reeked of stale coffee and body odor, a smell Mitch had come to associate with money, or the desperate lack of it.

Then, a shimmer. Faint at first, a ghost of light where no light should be. Mitch blinked, pressed harder. It wasn't natural. Couldn't be. "Yeah," he breathed, a raw sound. "Yeah, I see it. Just like the intel said." His heart hammered, a frantic drum against his ribs. The glass city. The whispers and drunken tales, finally real.

It materialized from the dark, a sprawling metropolis built not of stone or concrete, but of purest, impossible glass. Spires rose, fragile and elegant, catching the sub's lights and refracting them into a thousand shifting rainbows. Domes, impossibly smooth, sat nestled amongst the spires, hinting at interiors long flooded and forgotten. It was beautiful. And they were here to strip it bare.

"Target is the central dome, boys," Silas ordered, his voice sharper now, edged with the scent of a kill. "Artifact *Echo*. The big one." Mitch swallowed, feeling the old familiar tremor in his hands. This wasn't some sunken freighter. This was… delicate. Fragile. And worth more than he could spend in two lifetimes.

The submersible nudged against a massive, broken archway, the entrance to what must have been a grand avenue. Mitch and Jax suited up, the heavy exosuits clanking, the air in their helmets suddenly close. The robotic arm deployed, its claw extended, ready to snip through the ancient glass like a surgeon. Lena guided it, her fingers dancing on the controls, her breath held.

Inside the dome, the filtered light turned the water into a kaleidoscope. Statues, perfectly preserved, watched them with vacant, glassy eyes. Furniture, desks, even books—all crafted from the same transparent material—lay scattered, coated in millennia of silt. And in the center, resting on a pedestal that was itself a work of art, was *Echo*. A sphere, impossibly intricate, spiraling inward like a frozen galaxy, radiating a soft, internal luminescence.

"Okay, Mitch, Jax," Silas's voice was a whisper in their ears. "Get in there. We need the retrieval net tight. No cracks. One wrong move, and it's dust. And we're dead." Jax, heavy-footed, moved first, kicking up clouds of ancient dust. Mitch followed, his own movements slower, more deliberate. The sheer size of *Echo* was daunting, easily two meters across. It would barely fit through the sub's airlock.

They had the net positioned, had just begun to secure the sphere, when the proximity alarm blared in Lena's voice, raw and panicked. "Silas! Movement! Another signature, big one, coming fast! From the north wall!"

Silas cursed, a low, guttural sound. "Damn it! Someone else knew!" Jax immediately pulled a heavy-duty laser cutter from his belt. Mitch glanced back at the sub, then at *Echo*. The money. His stomach twisted. The new signature was closer now, its lights cutting through the murky distant glass. They were big. Heavy. Designed for salvage, not stealth.

"They'll bust through us to get to it!" Lena yelled. "We have to move!" But Jax was already making a decision, a terrible one. He jammed the laser cutter into the base of the glass pedestal *Echo* sat on, ignoring Mitch's horrified shout. "If we can't have it, no one can!" he roared, the sound distorted by the comms. The pedestal, ancient and brittle, began to crack, a spiderweb spreading rapidly.

The rival sub’s lights flared, illuminating a squad of heavy divers already deployed, their weapons extended. Silas screamed, "Jax, you idiot! Stop!" But it was too late. With a deafening groan that reverberated through the water, the pedestal shattered. *Echo*, the impossible glass sphere, wobbled, then plummeted. It hit the glassy floor of the dome with a sickening *CRACK* that sent a ripple of destruction through the entire structure. The dome itself began to sing, a high-pitched, terrible sound of breaking glass.

"GET BACK!" Mitch screamed, grabbing Jax, shoving him towards the sub as the world around them began to collapse. Shards the size of cars rained down, propelled by the immense water pressure. The rival divers, caught off guard, scattered, some cut down by the glittering shrapnel. Silas was already maneuvering the *Stingray* into a desperate escape, Lena yelling instructions, tears in her voice. Mitch pulled Jax into the airlock, the metal hissing shut just as the dome imploded entirely, a blinding flash of light and a shockwave that rattled the *Stingray* like a toy.

Back in the bleak confines of the submersible, the only sound was the strained groaning of the hull and Lena's ragged sobs. Jax sat in the corner, staring at his gloved hands, covered in silt and microscopic glass dust. Silas, pale but composed, just stared at the empty screen where the city once was. He didn't look at Mitch. He didn't have to. The taste of salt and iron was thick in Mitch's mouth, and he wasn't sure if it was from the sea or his own empty gut.

He looked out at the featureless black. Nothing left but the deep.