The Diver Who Kept Talking
Her radio kept transmitting for nine days. After.
The pressure was a familiar weight, a second skin that Mark had learned to wear like a second skin. Fifty meters down, the Caribbean unfolded around him in shades of impossible blue. Sunlight fractured through the surface above, creating a dancing ceiling of light that made the deep feel both sacred and surreal. He was here for the treasure, as always—a Spanish galleon that had succumbed to a hurricane in 1715, its cargo of gold and emeralds still supposedly intact in the hold. But today, the treasure hunt felt different. Today, the ocean felt watchful.
Mark checked his gauges. Air was good, depth was stable. He moved toward the dark shape emerging from the sandy seabed. The ship was more magnificent than the photos had suggested, a skeletal finger pointing accusingly at the surface. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drum solo in the profound silence. This was why he did it—not for the gold, but for the moments like this, when he brushed against history itself. He secured his line to the main mast and began his slow, careful sweep of the deck.
That's when he saw her. Not a ghost, not a trick of the light, but a woman. She was dressed in modern diving gear, but her movements were jerky, unnatural, as if she were a marionette with tangled strings. She was searching the deck with a desperate intensity, her hands clawing at the wood. And her eyes... they found his. They were wide with terror, her mouth forming a silent scream. Mark raised his hand, a gesture of peace, a question. Who are you? How did you get down here?
She pointed frantically behind him, toward the ship's open cargo hatch. Her eyes darted from his face to the darkness below, then back again, a silent, frantic plea. A cold dread, far deeper than the ocean around him, began to seep into Mark's bones. He turned, following her terrified gaze, his light beam cutting through the murky water to illuminate the gaping maw of the ship's belly. And then he heard it. A voice, crackling through his own radio, a voice he knew better than his own.