The Abyssal Caller

The ocean is never truly silent. Even in its deepest trenches, there is the groan of shifting tectonic plates, the distant rumble of volcanoes, and the strange choruses of unseen creatures. But when the Calypso II descended into the uncharted stretch beyond the Mariana Trench, all sound vanished.

Dr. Evelyn Sharpe pressed her headset tight against her ears. “Hydrophones are blank. Not even shrimp crackle.”

Her colleague, Dr. Nikhil Rao, frowned. “That’s not possible. Something’s smothering the sound.”

The vessel’s lights flickered. Beyond the portholes stretched an endless, suffocating black. Not a flicker of plankton, not a flash of fish. Only an ocean that pressed in as if it were alive.

They were nearly eleven thousand meters down—the farthest humanity had ever dared.

Captain Lewis, a man hardened by decades at sea, gripped the controls tighter than he needed to. “I don’t like this. If the sub fails here, we won’t even leave debris behind.”

Evelyn ignored the unease in his voice. Her career—her life’s obsession—had led her here. Legends spoke of leviathans lurking in abyssal depths. Sailors whispered of eyes that watched from trenches no sonar could reach. Tonight, she would prove them real.

“Maintain course,” she ordered.

The first thud came then—faint but deliberate.

Everyone froze.

“Seismic activity?” Nikhil asked.

Evelyn shook her head, eyes wide. “No. That was contact.”

Another impact followed, harder. The hull groaned. Pressure gauges spiked.

Then came the sound.

Not static. Not natural ocean noise. A call—low, resonant, layered with harmonics too precise to be random. A voice.

Evelyn’s pulse quickened. “Record it. Now.”

Something moved outside.

At first it seemed like a shifting shadow, but shadows did not glow. Blue bioluminescence streaked across a massive form, tracing ridges and spines larger than the vessel itself. The body curved endlessly, a serpent’s coil of scale and armored flesh, alive with lightning veins.

Nikhil whispered, “It’s bigger than a whale. Bigger than ten.”

The creature’s lights pulsed in rhythm with the call.

It turned.

Two colossal eyes flared gold in the abyss, locking on the sub. Evelyn staggered as her mind tilted beneath their weight. It was not just looking—it was reaching into her. Searching.

The sub shuddered as something brushed its hull. This time, the voice did not come through the hydrophones. It spoke inside their skulls.

"Leave."

Evelyn gasped. “You heard that?”

Nikhil clutched his head with both hands as if he's gone crazy, “It’s in my head.”

Captain Lewis swore and shoved the thrusters forward. The vessel strained upward, but the water felt thick, resisting them. The giant’s light intensified.

And then, answering calls erupted from every direction.

Hundreds of voices.

Shapes emerged from the dark. Smaller than the sentinel, but still monstrous—each ringed in bioluminescence, each circling.

“They’re surrounding us,” Nikhil whispered.

Evelyn pressed a trembling hand to the glass. “It’s not hunting us. It’s guarding something.”

The hydrophones crackled—then cleared. Human voices broke through, warped by static.

“—Calypso II, do you read? Surface command—”

Evelyn froze. Their comms had been dead for hours.

“—warning—classified species—threat level—containment protocol—”

The transmission cut.

Nikhil turned, pale. “They knew. Command knew something was down here.”

The sentinel’s voice pressed into Evelyn’s skull again.

We slept. You woke us.

The smaller giants pulsed their lights in unison—patterns like words, or warnings.

Lewis yanked the emergency ballast. The sub lurched upward, alarms screaming, but the creature’s massive coil slipped around them. Not crushing—confining. A cage of living scale.

“Evelyn!” Lewis barked. “It really was unpleasant knowing you, I really shouldn't have fallen for your money. I can't die here, No!!”

She pressed both hands to the glass, staring into that burning eye. "We mean no harm, she thought. "We only seek knowledge."

For an instant, the eye flickered. The coil loosened.

Then a new sound rolled from below—deeper, darker, older.

The sentinel recoiled. The lesser giants scattered.

Something else was coming.

The abyss boiled. A shape rose from beneath—a leviathan so vast the sentinel seemed small beside it. Its maw opened, a ring of teeth like jagged cliffs, its body veined with complex, blinding light.

The sentinel dimmed in deference.

Evelyn could not breathe. “There’s… more than one.”

The newcomer’s song detonated through the water. Consoles shattered. Lights burst. Evelyn was hurled against the bulkhead, blood filling her mouth.

Through the chaos, she saw the sentinel give her one last look—something almost like regret—before vanishing into the dark.

The greater leviathan loomed, blotting out all light.

Lewis screamed at the controls. “We’re dead—we’re all dead—”

The final thing Evelyn heard was the leviathan’s voice, endless and cold, filling every corner of her mind:

"The deep was never yours to claim."

Then came silence.

A deafening silence.......