One Comma in the Logbook
The last entry has a comma. There was no time for commas.
The ice groaned around us like a dying beast, a sound that vibrated through the soles of my boots and into my bones. Outside the reinforced porthole of the *Katabatic*, the Antarctic night was a monochrome void, punctuated only by the feeble glow of our emergency lights. Inside, the silence was heavier, thick with the unspoken words hanging between Dr. Aris Thorne and me. He sat hunched over the main console, his knuckles white on the edges of the cold metal, his eyes fixed on the blinking red light that indicated our main reactor was operating at thirty percent capacity. "We should have turned back two days ago, Lena," he said, his voice raspy with exhaustion. "You know that." I did. But the artifact, that impossible structure rising from the ice like a broken tooth, had called to us, a siren song of discovery that had drowned out all reason. Now, reason was screaming back at us. The storm had come out of nowhere, a whiteout that had swallowed our landmarks and any hope of navigation. Our comms were dead, our guidance system was a black box of static, and we were running out of time. The *Katabatic* was a good ship, but she wasn't designed to be a tomb. My gaze drifted to the logbook, lying open on the small table beside the emergency rations. It was a simple, leather-bound volume, but it was the official record of our expedition, our only proof that we had ever been here. I reached for it, my fingers numb, and flipped to the last page. The entry for today was brief, stark, and chilling. "Emergency protocols activated. All hands to prepare for evacuation. Artifact secured in containment unit." It was signed, my name, my handwriting. But there was something else. After the period, after my signature, there was a single, dark comma. A comma that shouldn't be there. A comma that made no sense. My blood ran cold as I stared at it, the ink seeming to bleed into the page. Aris noticed my sudden stillness. "What is it?" I didn't answer. I couldn't. My mind was racing, trying to reconcile what I was seeing with what I knew I had written. I had been the one to make that entry, just an hour ago, when the first tremors had shaken the ship. I had been in a hurry, my hands shaking, my mind focused on the task at hand. I would never have added a comma. There was no time for commas. Yet, there it was. A silent, dark witness to something I couldn't remember, something I couldn't explain. Aris leaned closer, his breath fogging the porthole as he peered at the page. His face went pale, his eyes widening in recognition. "Lena," he whispered, his voice barely audible over the groaning of the ice. "That's not your handwriting." I looked from the comma to Aris's terrified face, the ship's desperate groans filling the silence between us. The artifact, the storm, the failing reactor—it all paled in comparison to the horror that was now unfolding in that simple leather-bound book. Because if that comma wasn't mine, then whose was it? And what, exactly, had we brought back with us from the ice?