The life raft bucked violently beneath us, its orange fabric stained black with the Leviathan's tainted waters. Dr. Cho retched over the side, strings of iridescent biofilm stretching from her lips to the churning sea below like grotesque umbilical cords. Markus convulsed beside her, his Federation-issued neural implant sparking blue against the creeping corruption - tiny lightning bolts of resistance flashing across his darkening veins.
I floated nearby, my tail's usual radiant glow dimmed to near-invisibility. The heart pearl embedded in my chest pulsed like a second heartbeat, its warnings vibrating through my bones:
"They carry its song in their marrow now. You cannot save them."
The storm above us had taken on an unnatural quality - the rain fell upward in places, defying gravity as the Leviathan's presence warped reality itself. Markus suddenly seized my wrist with black-veined hands, his pupils swallowing the last flecks of hazel in his eyes.
"The twins—" he gasped, blood and saltwater frothing at his lips. "They weren't... modifying sonar to track you. They were—" A fresh spasm wracked his body, his spine arching at an impossible angle as something beneath his skin writhed. "They were calling it. The whole damn time."
CHIP's analysis flickered across my vision, the holographic display glitching with interference:
**[SURVIVOR STATUS UPDATE]**
• Dr. Cho: 58% infected (resisting via unknown immunity)
• Captain Rye: 89% infected (CHIP-N7 model delaying full conversion)
**[WARNING]**
• Leviathan bio-signature detected 2.1km below and closing
• Cognitive assimilation patterns detected
• It's learning their brainwave patterns
The raft lurched violently as something massive brushed against it from below. Cho's medical tablet slid across the flooding floor, its screen displaying a horrifying sonar readout - the Leviathan wasn't just approaching. It was unfolding, its biomass expanding like some nightmare origami as it rose toward us.
Markus fumbled with his sidearm, his corrupted fingers struggling with the safety. "Cho... the suppressant protocol," he rasped. The doctor's eyes widened in understanding, even as her own hands shook with the early tremors of infection.
"You know what it does to—"
"Do it!" Markus roared.
With trembling hands, Cho produced a vial of shimmering silver liquid from her medical kit. The contents swirled with tiny metallic particles that reacted violently to the black tide corruption already in Markus' bloodstream. As the needle plunged into his carotid, his scream tore through the storm.
His body went rigid, veins standing out like cables beneath his skin as the suppressant fought the corruption. For one terrible moment, his eyes cleared completely - the Markus I'd known staring out at me with desperate clarity.
"It's using the twins' knowledge," he choked out. "Their memories of the sub's systems. It'll—" His words dissolved into a wet cough, black spatter hitting the raft floor where it sizzled like acid. "The lab in the trench... the blue one... she's the key."
The ocean around us suddenly stilled. That unnatural calm was more terrifying than the storm.
Then the world exploded.
A column of water the width of a city block erupted beside us, revealing the Leviathan's true form - not just tentacles, but a grotesque fusion of mermaid skeletons and warship wreckage, its central maw lined with the still-screaming faces of digested crewmen. The twins' merged bodies twitched inside the creature's translucent gullet, their sonar modifications now pulsing in sickening sync with the beast.
**CHIP'S ALERT SCREAMED ACROSS MY VISION:**
*"Leviathan has assimilated their neural patterns! It knows all Federation escape protocols!"*
I lunged for Cho just as the first tentacle lashed down, my tail muscles screaming in protest as I yanked her beneath the waves. The cold saltwater burned my eyes as I turned back—just in time to see Markus standing defiantly on the disintegrating raft, firing his sidearm directly into the creature's massive eye.
The Leviathan's shriek liquefied the raft's remaining inflatable chambers. As Markus plunged into the ink-black water, his lips formed final, silent words I'd never forget:
*"Find the blue one."*
Then the tentacles wrapped around him in a grotesque parody of affection, his body dissolving into their biomass like sugar in tea, his CHIP implant flashing blue one final time before being absorbed.
We dove deeper, my tail leaving a desperate trail of glowing pink scales as the Leviathan gave chase. Cho's fingers dug into my shoulders as she mouthed a single word through the water:
*"Down."*
She pointed into the abyss below—where the ruins of Station Pharos waited in the crushing dark, its broken domes glowing faintly with the same blue light I'd seen in my visions. The heart pearl in my chest burned in response, its pulse accelerating as we descended toward whatever truths lay buried there.
Behind us, the Leviathan's song changed pitch - no longer hunting, but herding. Driving us exactly where it wanted us to go.