Beneath The Velvet Sea

A Dive Too Deep

Later that afternoon, while Iris was reviewing data in the lab, Rory approached her with an awkward shuffle. He glanced around to make sure no one else was nearby before sliding a notebook across the desk.

“What’s this?” Iris asked, arching an eyebrow.

“I, uh, went back through the sonar logs,” Rory said, his voice low. “There’s something I think you should see.”

Iris flipped through the pages. Rory had carefully sketched a map of the dive site, marking areas where the sonar had picked up unusual readings. In several places, he’d noted anomalies large, moving objects too big to be fish but too fast to be geological features.

“These readings were during the storm?” Iris asked, her brow furrowing.

Rory nodded. “And a few days before, too. They’ve been circling the area around the coral.”

“Why didn’t you show this to Marge?”

Rory hesitated. “Because she’ll just say it’s nothing. She’s been weird about this whole thing like she doesn’t want us to dig too deep.”

Iris sighed, tapping her fingers against the desk. She didn’t want to believe Marge would hold back information, but Rory wasn’t wrong. The captain’s caution had bordered on secrecy lately.

“I’ll handle it,” she said finally, closing the notebook.

Against Marge’s orders, Iris and Alex prepared for another ROV dive. This time, Iris directed the vehicle toward one of the anomalies marked in Rory’s notebook.

“I don’t like this,” Alex muttered as the camera feed flickered on. “If Marge finds out, she’ll have our heads.”

“She won’t,” Iris said, her eyes fixed on the monitor. “Not unless you tell her.”

The ROV descended, its lights cutting through the gloom. The coral was brighter than ever, its glow almost pulsating like a heartbeat.

And then, the anomaly appeared.

At first, it was just a shape indistinct and shadowy, moving too quickly for the camera to focus. But as the ROV drew closer, the shape resolved into something unmistakable: a humanoid figure, sleek and scaled, with glowing eyes that seemed to pierce the darkness.

“Oh, hell no,” Alex said, leaning back from the screen. “What *is* that?”

“I don’t know,” Iris whispered, her heart pounding. “But it’s watching us.”

The figure darted closer to the camera, moving with unnerving speed and grace. For a moment, it paused, staring directly into the lens. Its features were otherworldly sharp and elegant, with fins that fanned out like a crown around its head.

And then it was gone, vanishing into the darkness as quickly as it had appeared.