At 1,000 metres deep, thirty minutes into the exploration, Ben and I were relaxing on the cold, vibrating floor of the submarine. Outside the claustrophobic room we were stuck in for the next two to three hours, the North Atlantic had vanished, replaced by the ink-black void of the midnight zone. I could feel the immense weight of the ocean pressing against our titanium shell, a silent reminder that we were far beyond the reach of the sun.
Eventually, Ben broke the silence. I could tell he was restless; he was more at home when engineering the sub rather than now, when he was at the eerie quiet of the deep. “Skye, what’s the scientific name of the midnight zone?” he asked. “I know I’ve never been interested in this stuff, but I had no other way to start a conversation.”
I let out a quiet chuckle, looking at him through the dim red glow of the cabin lights. “Wow, Ben. I never would’ve thought you would ask a question about that.” “Yeah, yeah, just answer the question,” he mumbled, though I could see a small smirk on his face. “Bathypelagic zone… that’s what it’s called, you silly goose,” I replied. And just like that, we were back in silence, sinking further into the abyss.
At 2,000 metres, an hour in, I stood up to start taking photos of the surreal, bioluminescent creatures that drifted past our porthole as we sank deeper into the icy blue. The pressure was progressively getting higher; I could hear the hull groaning as it adjusted to the weight of the ocean.
“Skye… Skye… l-look quick,” Ben stuttered. I had never heard him sound so terrified. All of a sudden… BANG. The floorboards vibrated violently beneath my feet, nearly knocking me over. I lunged toward the glass to see what had hit us, but the endless abyss outside was empty. In a hurry, I flicked on the external floodlights. The beams cut through the gloom, revealing a sickening inward curve in the metal. We stared in silence. Something had dented our sub, and it was still out there in the dark.
I started seeing some debris… Titanic debris… I could tell we were getting closer and closer by the second. All of a sudden, I heard Ben let out a loud laugh.
“Skye, this is officially the funniest AND funnest exploration we’ve done so far” Ben said between laughs. Lots of them.
“Ben, what in the world could possibly be so funny at a time like this?” I turned to look at what he was talking about. “Ben… A pair of boots, really?”
Ben just laughed harder and replied, “It’s funny, isn’t it?”
I didn’t find it funny. To Ben, they were just shoes. But to me, they were a chilling remembrance of the people who once stood in them. Those boots hadn’t moved in a century, while we were just passing through.Those boots were a reminder that in a world filled with uncertainty and hatred, the ocean was the only thing that was stable, and never changes.
As we lowered deeper and deeper into the icy blue, the pressure of the void around us towered above. Finally, three thousand and eight hundred metres down in the freezing pitch-black waters of the Atlantic. I could see the giant piece of the decaying, metal ship wreck right there before my eyes, but I could sense something wasn’t right.
“Ben,” I began, “Stop.”
Right there, in the centre of the fragile glass that was supposed to be keeping a wall between us and the towering, sunless void, right in front of us, was a thin, shimmering line. It looked scarily delicate and beautiful, like a silver, glassy spiderweb.
Snap. It was the sound no one would ever want to hear this deep into a dark, icy giant. Ben’s laughter died down in the blink of an eye, replaced with a silence so heavy and deafening.
Then came the hiss.
A needle-thin spray of water erupted into the crack, turning into a freezing mist the second it hit the cabin air. It didn’t look like water; it looked like white smoke. The smell of ancient salt and rusted iron filled my nose. This was it. The ocean wasn’t just outside anymore—it was in here with us.
I looked at Ben, who was less than just a few minutes ago laughing his heart out, but now he looked small, terrified, tears slowly building up in his eyes. My usually annoyed eyes and self softened at the sight of him like this. I knew I had no time to think, just to act.
My mind was telling me to do one thing… I lunged for the lever, my hand hovering above it, and I paused. We were named after two mountains— tall, unmoving, proud— but as the freezing water reached my ankles, I realised that even the highest peak can be swallowed by a sea this large and heavy. I didn’t feel like an explorer anymore; I felt the fear of being just a story that the Atlantic was trying to finish.
Finally, I tightly gripped the lever; my grip was so tight that my knuckles turned white. With my other hand, I pulled the now crying Ben into a tight embrace.
“Hold on,” I choked out.
I closed my eyes and pulled.
