Thalassophobia

All she can taste is blood. 

​

It is in the air. A scent so thick it’s cloying, sinking into your skin and sticking to the roof of your mouth. It doesn’t just come from the body, sitting slumped against the wall of the control room, head leaving streaks down the side of the windows. It’s coming from the walls, this iron coffin. 

 

There’s a body a room away. She is just another body, waiting to rot. There is symmetry in that. There is a metaphor. Her mind is too scattered to find it. 

 

“You an intern too?” 

 

Alice looked up and made eye contact with a boy who was wearing a red starter cap, turned 45 degrees to the side. “Yeah. Crazy how they allowed us on this trip, right?”

 

“Right,” he echoed. The wind blew through his hair. Alice shivered, wrapping her jacket tighter around herself. 

 

“You know, when I turned in my application I thought there was no way they were even going to take a look at it, much less accept me. I mean—” She giggled deliriously. “Half my class applied. They had to swap out the application bin for a basket. It was crazy.”

 

“What would two college students even be good for on a ship full of the smartest people in the world?” The boy laughed. “Clean the dishes? Wipe the windows? Make coffee?” 

 

Alice nodded. “We’re probably just going to be glorified servants.” 

 

“All worth it for the once-in-a-lifetime experience though, right?” The boy held up his fist and Alice knocked hers against his. “We gotta help each other, you know,” the boy said, suddenly serious. His eyes flickered over to the ship, where a dark-haired woman was frowning deeply while talking quietly with researchers Alice recognised from the university. She resembled a Roman sculpture, Alice thought, all deep lines and hard edges. Veristic. “We’re the only two normies on a ship full of super-geniuses. We gotta support each other.” 

 

“Interns supporting interns?” 

 

“Interns supporting interns.” 

 

The two stood by the harbour for a moment longer. Alice looked down into the ocean floor and thought of underwater cities. Giant monuments. Civilisation at depths beyond the possibility of life.

 

“My name’s Charles.” The boy had held out his hand. She smiled. 

 

“I’m Alice.”

​

She disposes of the body. 

 

The pressure of the metal submarine around her feels so immense that she wants to sink down onto the floor and remain there until she, too, rots away. 

​

She had to dispose of all of them. Though before, she wasn’t alone. There were six others with her, then just Mal. Mal, who treated the ship like a cadaver, like it was something to dissect and figure out. Mal, who said a seven-man crew was lucky. Mal, who is staring at her with milky white eyes and blood trickling from his head. 

​

Alice pulls herself up slowly. The gravity seems to press down harder, making her head swim. She’d done this before. She can do it again. 

 

“Two months!” The researcher called as Alice stared into the ocean and watched her own eyes stare back up at her. “Take the pictures, record the data, and come right back up. There are cameras in the ship and the controls are programmed to detect you going off route.”

 

A girl made eye contact with her and mouthed: “Two months till freedom.” Alice stifled a laugh. 

​

Arms under armpits, don’t look down. Throw it through the hatch, close it. Push the green button. Slump against the wall and try not to listen to the sound of the body drifting out to sea. 

 

And then there was one. 

 

“So it’s like Atlantis?” Alice asked, hands skimming across the map stuck onto the wall with two pieces of tape.

 

The captain scoffed.  It was a scoff that said, “Of course you would say that”, like Alice was stupid. “Silly girl. You know nothing of this world you’re in.” 

 

“Not all lost cities are Atlantis, kid.” The captain shook her head. “I’m still not convinced this is an elaborate hoax from Heng and we’re currently spinning in circles in some repurposed movie set.”

 

Alice eyed the large windows, spanning almost the entire wall of the ship. A school of orange-and-yellow fish skittered through the water outside, knocking past seaweed and sea anemones carelessly in their wake. Alice thought they looked plenty real.

​

“You wanna come have a look at the controls, kid?” The navigator asked, a whipcrack of a question through the jello-like tension in the room. He was wearing a pair of glasses, the lens looking at least an inch thick. “Could be useful having another pair of eyes here.” 

           

She looked at the stormy expression on the captain’s face and shook her head. “Maybe another time.” 

 

Alice wants to cry. The blinking LEDs and buttons are as unfamiliar as the sea outside. Enough so she almost considers taking the last diving suit and abandoning the ship entirely. 

 

The idea is easily disregarded. The sea had become untraversable long ago. 

 

She opens the drawers. Roots for it, carefully, methodically, ignoring the pressing dread inside her chest. There must be an instruction manual here somewhere. What if the ship malfunctioned? What if the navigator was otherwise preoccupied? 

 

“Don’t worry about helping Barry.” The girl from before patted Alice’s shoulder. “He’s great at his job. Been doing it for fifty years.” She winked, sliding Alice seven cards. “I’m Claudia. It’s nice to meet you.” 

​

“Oh! Um, Alice.” Alice shuffled her cards and found four reverses, all the same colour.

​

 “Alice Kang? You’re in Chen’s class, right?”

 

“Yeah! Sorry, do you also go to…?”

 

“Yep. Don’t worry about it, I’m a senior, so we only would have crossed paths once or twice. I had Chen for Maritime Archaeology too. She grades super harsh, so make sure not to piss her off.” Claudia grinned. “Although, you are on a research expedition, so she must like you.”

 

“Mmhmm, I guess so. I’m her TA.”

​

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s weird to have a research expedition without any researchers, right?” Owens interrupted. Owens is a medic they hired from… somewhere. He probably wasn’t part of the university Alice and apparently Claudia both go to, because Alice doesn’t think she’s ever seen him before.

​

Claudia shrugged. Laid down a card. “Mal says the equipment they have here is state of the art. Maybe they can’t fit more than seven people on a submarine? They didn’t want to risk overcrowding or something. Underwater travel is still very new, after all.”

 

Alice could feel Owen’s eyes on her. She stubbornly refused to think about why the university would allow a sophomore student onto the submarine while refusing experienced researchers. She stubbornly avoid his gaze. She reached out and drew another red reverse from the deck instead.

 

The weight of the ocean bears down on her. It is unnervingly quiet. The engine churns silently. The water outside hovers, still. The entire ocean waiting, holding its breath… for what? For her? Alice’s hand twitches, like she’s a bow strung too tight. There is dripping coming from somewhere in the ship. Tap, tap, tap, like a metronome. It echoes through the metal sarcophagus, louder, faster, heavier, until it’s reverberating through her skull, and the walls are pressing in, the metal ship being crushed by invisible hands like a tin can and--

​

The string snaps. 

​

She pushes a cluster of buttons at random. Then a lever. Sweeps her arm across the whole board, pressing every button one after the other. She waits for the ship to move. To shift. To squeak. To even baulk at her misuse. Nothing. The buttons continue to blink innocently at her. Red lights. Red like an anglerfish. 

 

Alice screams. 

​

The engine shuddered and stopped after two weeks. Alice helped Claudia suit up. Claudia’s multicoloured, with streaks in her hair shining pink and purple. Alice thought she was wonderful. 

 

“I’ll bring back a rock for you.” Claudia winked. “A pretty one.”  Alice just laughed and opened the hatch that led out to the open sea. 

 

It didn’t go wrong. Not at first. Not when Claudia came back and gave Alice a rock, a pretty one, that sparkled when it reflected against the dull submarine lighting. Not when she took off the suit, closed the hatch, looped an arm around Alice’s and complained about the faulty engine assigned to them. 

 

Not until the knock against the hatch. 

 

“Is Claudia still outside?” the captain asked. “I thought I heard the hatch open.” 

 

“I’m right here,” Claudia called. The ship is silent. The knock came again. Bang bang bang, in succession, against the outside hatch. 

 

“Is it just a fish?” Alice felt stupid the moment the question left her mouth. Claudia looked at her, but not with contempt, and shrugged.

 

The knock came a third time. Bang bang bang. 

 

“Is there someone out there?” the captain asked. 

 

“There’s no one out there,” Claudia snapped. “I’m the only one that went out. I’m right here.” 

 

“I’m checking the window,” Barry said from another room. Claudia and Alice waited. A moment of silence. Then a moment more. 

​

“Barry? Barry what the hell, what did you see-” 

​

Claudia never finished that sentence, because the banging began again. Closer, this time, like it was coming from inside the ship, and it didn’t stop. Over and over again, something rammed into the wall with all its force. 

​

Dread was an ugly monster clawing up Alice’s throat. She opened her mouth to say something. 

She never got to. That is when the screaming began. 

​

The average human dies after three months of starvation. The trip is only supposed to be for two months. You are going to survive. 

​

What was Barry doing if the buttons did nothing? What was his purpose? Did he spend all his days fruitlessly pressing buttons until the moment he started throwing his head against the wall? 

 

Stand in a circle in horror. Panic and shout and fight until you scream at them all to shut up. Put the body in a sack. Drag it to the hatch. Open the outer door. Watch it drift past the windows. Watch the windows.

 

“Why did he do that?” Claudia asked. “What happened to him?” 

           

Owens shrugged helplessly. “He just looked out the window. That’s all he did, I promise. Looked out the window to see what all the banging was about then he just lost it.” 

           

The crew was silent. Alice’s hands felt bloody. 

           

“It could have been claustrophobia,” Owens said cautiously. “Humans are known to go mad under bad conditions. And these are pretty bad conditions.” He knocked his knuckles against the wall. The metallic sound echoed through the ship, making everyone flinch. He lowered his hand. “Sorry.” 

           

“Or it could have been something else.” Mal was the second engineer. “Barry seemed sound of mind and body to me. Something is wrong.” 

           

The captain frowned at Mal. “It’s probably claustrophobia,” she decided. “There’s a reason you don’t stick humans in a metal coffin for eight weeks. But that just means we have to be more careful. No more starting fights with other crew—”

           

“He deserved it!” Claudia snapped.

           

“No more-” the captain glared at Claudia. “-starting fights-“ Charles. “-with other crew members! For any reason.” The captain took a deep breath. “Look. This is… something none of you should have ever had to go through, but if any of us freak out now, it’s just going to make everything worse. We only have a few weeks left on the trip. If everyone can hold it together, and not panic, and not rock the boat, everything will be fine. I promise.”

           

Alice covers up the windows. Takes the sheets from everyone else’s beds and hangs them up. Keeps her eyes squeezed shut while doing so. 

           

She closes the control room door behind her. Sinks to the floor and feels the water drip onto her head. She shouldn’t go back in there.

           

“What do you think happened?” 

           

Charles looked at her. “You heard the captain. Terrible living conditions. Claustrophobia.” 

           

“You and I both know that's not it.” Alice knew her eyes looked wild. “Barry was fine. He has been fine. Something happened to him, something made him snap, and if we don’t try to find it it’s going to make us snap too.” 

           

“Stop it. You sound psychotic. The captain told us not to panic, so I’m not going to--”

           

Alice glared at him. “Shut up, you know that’s not—"

           

“—It’s just paranoia. You’re imagining things that don’t exist and aren’t there.” Charles folded up the towel he was using into a neat square. “Careful. Keep thinking like that and you might end up being the one bashing your brains out against the window.” 

           

Alice’s hands shook. “That’s not funny.” 

           

“I’m not trying to be funny. I’m looking out for you. You have to think about this rationally, Alice. If you let creepiness get to you you’re going to snap and lose your mind, and we can’t do that again, okay?” Charles took a deep breath. “For your information, I don’t know why Barry snapped. But I know it’s not anything supernatural like Mal was implying.” He looked at her pointedly. “And you shouldn’t think so either.”

 

The control room calls to her. It’s the heart of the ship. It thumps along with the dripping water, and Alice presses herself against the door sometimes just to feel its beating. 

           

It had been another month. They waited for the ship to hit the ocean floor. They waited for the city to come into view from the windows. It never happened. Instead, the ocean grew dark. Darker than it should have been and earlier than it should have been. Alice could see her reflection clearly in the windows.  

 

One day, the ship was knocked sharply to the right. The captain screamed for Barry to right their course. The ship stayed silent. Only the metal screeched in reply.  

           

Claudia went out again. She promised Alice another rock with a hollow glint in her eyes. 

           

“If I end up cracking my head open, it’ll be more oxygen for the rest of you, right?” she joked.

           

Alice pressed her lips into a thin line.

           

Claudia patted her shoulder in apology. “Don’t worry. I’ve gone out before and come back fine, right? No reason to think otherwise.”  

           

Claudia does come back. She comes back gargling, choking, her mouthpiece out of her mouth, dripping in blood. “It’s not water anymore! It’s not water, it’s not water, oh my god-” 

           

Later, after another body floated out into the pitch-dark sea, after both hatches closed, Alice looked in the escape trunk. The entire thing was covered in blood. 

 

She likes watching the clock. She likes watching the hand tick. The clock is the only thing that changes in the ship now. 

 

The leak starts dripping red. She patches it up with a roll of duct tape. Doesn’t think much of it. Doesn’t think much at all, really, until she turns on the tap and watches the sink turn red and bloody. 

 

She doesn’t drink water anymore. 

 

When Alice first boarded the ship, she ate lunch with Mal, and he told her that their ship was lucky. “Seven people,” he said. “That’s a good number.” Alice knew that it was all folklore. But Mal had a presence about him, a storyteller’s wisdom that allowed Alice to at least pretend it was true.

 

But then their seven-person crew shrank down to six, then five, then four. Alice was cleaning windows with Charles when he ripped out his throat with a window wiper screaming “I know, I know, I know–”, hands reaching up towards the sky like there was something up there that would save him, God--a spirit--his mother. Alice pressed her own fingers against his throat until they were tie-dye stained red and Owen had to pry them away. 

 

Charles knows. Alice opened the outer hatch, fingers still red. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t understand. 

 

Mal saw the dwindling numbers and something in his eyes cracked. The thing about storytellers is that they need the suspension of disbelief to survive. The only thing suspended here was the submarine, chugging onwards into an unknown fate.

 

Alice thinks of Barry bludgeoning his brains out against the window. She thinks of Claudia’s glazed-over eyes when her thrashing sent her head colliding with the sharp end of a table. She thinks of Charles and the wiper he jammed into his throat. She takes a shard of glass and thinks, for a brief moment. She doesn’t. But she still keeps the glass shard in the cabinet. Not yet. She’s not too far gone yet. 

​

“They’ve sent us down here to die.” 

 

Alice paused. “Excuse me?” 

 

The captain is sprawled on her top bunk. The bottom bunk is empty. A blanket, never properly folded, lies on top. The captain nurses a bottle, one that Alice is sure she’s not supposed to have. 

 

“They sent us down with the ship on autopilot, one navigator, and a city they’re not sure exists.” The captain’s lips curled into a smile. “Don’t you see? They know we’re not going to find anything. They know what kind of creatures are down here. They have sent us down here to dispose of us. They have sent us down to die.”

 

Alice’s hands shook. “Why? Why would they do that?” 

 

“I’m not sure yet. Perhaps we know something they don’t. Perhaps they’re frightened of us. Or perhaps we’re just disposable. Confronted with the allure of knowledge and the worth of human life, they chose the former.” 

 

“I don’t know anything.” Alice’s voice shook. “I never wanted this. I’m just coffee-Alice, oh-please-get-something-for-me-Alice… I don’t even know why they let me on this thing!” 

 

“Perhaps it’s something we don’t know we know.” The captain laughed, except it sounded like a sob. “It wouldn’t make a difference anyway. We won’t be able to tell. They made sure of that.” 

 

Alice padded away to find Mal. She thought of the deep ocean, sunken cities, and the joy she felt when she first got that acceptance email. She can’t find a shred of that joy now. I’m in the ocean, she thinks, I am a part of the ocean. The beauty that she admired seemed like something she would find in another world. 

 

She had always known that she was going to die. She never imagined it was going to be over a summer internship.  She closed the door on the captain and fell asleep outside, listening to the manic laughter that occasionally drifted out of the room. 

 

When Alice came back the next morning to find an empty bed, blankets neatly folded, and an open door, she wasn’t even surprised. 

 

The cabinets are empty. The fridge is empty. The ship is bare, without even a rat. Alice feels hollow. She is always starving. She wishes she saved the bodies so she’d have something to eat. She can’t get the taste of iron out of her mouth. She holds the glass above her arm for a moment but throws it away when the first drop of blood appears. 

 

Sometimes, her crewmates speak to her from the windows. “Let us in,” they croon. “Open the hatch. We’re so cold out here.”

 

“We’re in this together,” Charles says, the bloody smile on his lips matching the one on his neck. “Interns supporting interns, right?” 

 

“One is for sorrow,” Mal reminds her. “Let’s make two for mirth.” 

 

The pipes are full of the same blood as the ocean outside. Perhaps the curse is spreading. She thinks of the ship like a miniature planet, with its own gravitational pull. The corpses of the crew spinning through the darkness. Perhaps they never left. Perhaps they are still here.

 

Alice presses a hand to the covered windows. Resists the urge to rip off the sheets. She leaves and tries and fails not to come back. 

 

Owens was kind and soft and shaped like a friend. Owens brings Alice tea, when she hears the voices outside of the wall, when she turns around to tell Claudia something and finds nothing but empty air.

Owens frowned when Alice told him and Mal about the captain’s theories. “She thinks they sent us down to die.” 

 

Mal hummed. “She may be right. Or perhaps the ocean just demands to be fed." 

 

Owens frowned harder. “What are you talking about?” 

 

“The ocean is vast and it is hungry,” Mal said mildly. “Perhaps the researchers did intend for us to come back. Perhaps the ocean was just a little bit hungrier than they expected.” 

 

“Don’t scare the kid, Mal,” Owens snapped. “The ocean is not hungry. It does not mean us harm. It’s a large body of water that just so happens to be dangerous. This is all just bad luck and bad organisation. We’ve been missing for far too long – they’ll be coming to search for us, I’m sure of it.” 

 

Mal and Alice exchanged a look. A look that said, “Of course you would say that. You silly man. You know nothing of the world we’re in.” 

 

Alice hears someone pounding at the door again. “Leave me alone!” she screams. The pounding continues. “It’s not Claudia, I know it’s not Claudia, she’s right here, she said she’s right here-” 

The pounding does not stop. She throws a wrench at the windows. She shrieks, and no one hears. 

 

“The ocean means us no harm.” 

 

Alice frowned. “I told you I believe you already, okay? Stop nagging me about it.”

 

“The ocean does not care for us,” Owens insisted. There is something wild in his eyes. “We are one with it. We are the ocean.” 

 

“Snap out of it.” Alice tapped him gently on the forehead. “Did you look out the window?” 

 

“Don’t you understand? This is how it’s meant to be.” 

 

“You did, didn’t you?” Alice’s eyes widened. “Mal! Get over here, Mal!” 

 

“You can’t take this away from me!” Owens grabbed at Alice’s shoulders, wide eyes staring into hers. “You can join me. What else would you do? What other option is there?”

 

Mal’s footsteps were thundering through the ship. Owen looked at her, disappointed. Alice opened her mouth to say something, but before she could Owens threw her to the side, bolting for the hatch. Alice rolls into a corner. The metal floor slips beneath her fingers. 

 

“Owens!” Alice got up quickly, but not quick enough. She collided with the closing door with an audible thump. “Owens!” she pounded on the door. “Owens, open the door!” 

 

The hatch stayed closed. She screamed again. No one hears. 

 

The sheet slipped off the window. Alice just wanted to readjust it. That’s what she tells herself. Alice had become very good at lying. 

 

And if she just so happens to look out the window. Well, that can’t be helped, can it? 

 

The sea is still blood-dark. Still without a hint of light. But there’s something there. She looks harder, and it’s like a kaleidoscope, if all the colours were black. The darkness writhed, almost, like a can of worms, like a bathtub full of larvae. Blackness upon blackness falling into blackness.

 

But, wait. Because if she focuses harder, past the fuzz and the darkness and the swimming spots of colour, it’s like the writhing blackness is moving away. For a moment, Alice thinks what she’s seeing is a school of fish, gathered and clumped together into an odd shape, moving away from her, and yet—no. No, that’s not it, fish aren’t that big from that far away. Perhaps eels? Or sharks? But they’re moving so oddly, and the shape isn’t right—

 

Alice looks closer, until her nose is pressed against the glass, because how can she not? Because what is this, this strange thing? Time passes, or rather, time falls away, as she squints and tries to decipher the strange thing dangling from the side of the larger thing, until the thing moves so far away she can’t even make out what the dangling thing is anymore in the darkness, so she squints, and looks harder, and harder, until—

 

Alice feels her heart catch in her throat. It was a limb, she realises, a limb attached to a body attached to another limb. It’s a hand, that’s what the large abstract thing is, a hand made out of a writhing mass of bodies, standing out hazily from the blank blackness of the sea. A hand so large it was incomprehensible up close.

 

The sheet falls back into place. She has not breathed since she saw the hand, but her breaths now come in rasping gasps. She does not understand. And yet she is beginning to. Any moment now. She is a dead woman walking. 

 

“Alice,” Mal whispered. “Alice, wake up.” 

​

Mal was backlit by the dim light. Alice squinted, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. “What?” 

“I’ve figured it out,” Mal said. His eyes were twinkling, and Alice felt a flicker of hope light up in her chest. 

 

“Figured out what?” 

 

“Everything. What it all means.” He beckoned for her to follow. “It’s all okay. The captain was right. Everything is going to be okay.” 

 

They entered the control room. Alice sucked in a breath and squeezed her eyes shut. “Mal, what the hell?” 

 

The windows were uncovered. The sheets had been taken off and the windows were uncovered. 

 

“Don’t you see, Alice?” Mal was saying. “The ocean means no harm. Owens was right. Everything is going to be okay.” 

 

“You’re insane.” It was like someone poured a bucket of water over the hope in her chest, drenching it immediately. “You’re insane, you’re insane, go away-” 

 

Someone was coming for her. She was going to live. There was a pounding in her ears. There was a pounding in her ship. Seven, six, five, four, three, two. Then there was one. 

 

Alice removes the sheets. 

​

It has been more than three months. She knows, now, that no one is coming. She knows that nobody will save her. She knows this, yet she has not truly understood. But Charles and Owens and Mal did. And maybe, if, like them, she looked out, really looked, and held no ridiculous expectations – of coming back, of looking away– she, too, would understand.

 

She opens her eyes. 

 

Eyes. So many eyes. Or perhaps one eye. A big blue-green-brown-grey eye, staring right back at her. And in that eye is an earth, and in that earth is an ocean, and in that ocean is her. And in that, there is another eye. The world is a fractal echoing endlessly. 

 

She understands now. They were all right. The captain, Charles, Owens, Mal. All of them. She has been sent down to die, but only in the sense they are all sent somewhere to die. There is no one coming to save her, because why would they? There is nothing to save her from. She is made up of 70% water. 10% of her weight is blood. The ocean is the beginning and the end and she is an ocean, she is this ocean.

 

There is no danger. There has not been any danger at all. And if she opens the hatch – the outside door, first, then the inner one – that’s all right too. It all makes sense. And if the sickly, metallic liquid floods in, as she breathes it all in, as she is no longer able to differentiate the blood outside of her body and the blood within, well. That is because she is blood, isn’t she? And if the pressure cracks into her skull, crunching up bone and leaving her eyes soft bloody tissue dripping down her cheeks in ropy smears… well, that’s the most natural thing in the world. 

 

The metal screeches as she opens the doors.