“Lower the sub.”
The overhead cranes began to whir, and the compact 1-man vessel touched the waves. A calm day for once, perfect for launch. Quite the machine, the Ignotus. It’s built for more pressure than any submarine before, the bleeding edge of modern technology on full display. They only barely managed to scrape together the funding for it, but it was necessary. What we had before just wasn’t enough to make this journey. Recent seafloor scans from NOAA revealed something odd in the Marianas Trench.
There’s a hole in the challenger deep.
I should elaborate, just saying that there’s a hole in the ocean floor doesn’t really help much. When I say there’s a hole, I mean that there’s an odd cave in the western pool of the Challenger Deep that sonar can’t seem to map out. It was opened up by recent seismic activity, and it’s just a gaping pit that’s been staring at us for weeks. For all we can tell, there’s nothing there at all. That’s why the Ignotus was built, to tackle whatever we might find down there.
“You ready, pilot?” A voice from the intercom asked me.
“You know it. Let’s get me in there.”
A few minutes later, I was cooped up in a small, cramped cavity and surrounded by little screens and buttons.
“It’s a straight shot down, just keep going until the radar shows the seafloor. Then, navigate down through the eastern pool and make it to the coordinates we’ve given you. You should be able to find it easily enough.”
“Got it. Send me down.”
The whirring of the cranes started up again, and I gripped the throttle. The latches holding the sub above the waves gave way, and the thunderous sound of the sub breaking the surface quickly faded away as I fell into the deep, endless blue.
The descent was uneventful. The sealife was scarce to begin with, and was completely gone with the light. The blue expanses turned black, and before long the only light came from the screens and dials within the chassis of the sub. The monotony blended time together, the hours felt like only minutes. To most, the endless black would be a source of fear or unease, but to me there was no greater comfort. The infinite dark feels like home to me.
I pressed a button down, and began speaking into the microphone.
“I’m nearing the challenger deep, the cave’s about 80 meters north of my current location.”
“Roger that, pilot. Enter the cave at will.”
I turned on my lights. There isn’t a whole lot down here, no megalodons or giant squid or anything pop culture would tell you that you’d find down here. It’s just rocks, sand, and the occasional comb jelly. Other than that, you just see nothingness, the same as the miles of dark seas above. It’s a rather boring place to be honest, but it is nice and dark. But with my lights on, I could now make out something else. In the rocks, at the base of the trench, was darkness. It wasn’t like the dark waters around it, which were simply an absence of light, this seemed even darker, if that was even possible. It was almost like it radiated darkness, the same way a bulb would radiate light. It was less than nothing, not even a cave, as that would imply that there’s an interior. This really was just a hole.
I crept forwards, inching closer to the hole.
“Entering the cave.”
“Good luck, pilot.”
As soon as I entered the hole, it seemed like my lights turned off, despite them still being on. The darkness consumed any light produced by the sub, even from the screens and buttons. I could no longer hear anything when I tried to communicate with command either, not even static. I’m completely alone in the darkness.
It’s just what I wanted.
I pushed onwards, deeper into the void.
I hated the dark when I was young. I hated staring into the dark, and hated when my imagination made something stare back at me. My mind would always run wild at night, and I could almost see the beasts my head would conjure up standing in the darkest corners of my room. It kept me up for hours, when all I could do was stare into that all-encompassing blackness. Even with nightlights, there would always be some dark crevice that would commandeer my mind for the night.
We lived in a poor area of town, and the city itself was in a region often hit by heavy storms. The torrents of rain and hurricane-force winds would cause power outages at least once every week for months on end. They could take days to fix, and in those days, the darkness was overwhelming. Only candlelight could keep it at bay, and only just barely. It seemed that no matter what, the darkness would always find a way to haunt me.
Father was barely ever home. His job paid poorly, and to make ends even come close to meeting, he had to work his life away for us. Most days held in store 12 hour shifts, if not more. Day after day, week after week. Neither parents had much family, and certainly none close enough to help out. Mom had to stay home with me, as we didn’t have the money to get a babysitter, and no one in this area of town was trustworthy enough to watch me. She was always there to comfort me when my fear of the dark took over, always there to act as the light to push the blackness back.
Until one day.
“Looks like the power’s out again…” The rain pounded against the windows and ceiling, and the wind felt like it could blow a wall down at any minute.
“I’ll go grab you some candles. You can come with me, if you want.”
I always did.
She lit the candle and placed it on the small table beside my old bed, giving me a little bit of light, hopefully enough to let me sleep. I climbed into bed, and she threw a blanket over me. I laid down, face half hidden under the covers and staring at the firelight. The way it danced around was mesmerizing, a little sprite of flame floating weightlessly around the wick.
And then it was gone.
All light in the room vanished completely. Even the faint moonlight shining through the clouds outside was entirely gone. I called out for my mom in fear, but I got no response. It felt like hours, though it was likely only minutes that my room was pitch black. Worst of all though, was that when the power came back, and the lights turned on, my mother had disappeared.
No one ever saw her again.
When is this cavern going to end?
I’ve kept going for a long while now, over an hour. I must be over 45,000 feet deep by this point, but still, nothing shows up. Just more water, and more darkness. I know it’s what I wanted, but still, the fact that absolutely nothing is down here at all is concerning, even for me. It doesn’t make much sense when I think about it, how does a cavern open up into absolute nothingness? Where are the rocks, the cave walls? Where is anything?
I got no answers. Just more of the same nothing. I kept diving, but nothing changed. I probably passed 50,000 feet a while ago, and still no sign of a bottom.
But then I noticed something shifting in the darkness.
“What in the…”
I slowed my descent, and soon came to a halt. I floated in front of the thing, and it was easy to make out the shape. Even without any illumination, it stood out against the sheer black around it. It’s long, long enough that I can’t see a beginning or an end to it, and rather thick as well, probably around 25-30 feet from top to bottom. I switched on the sub’s lights, but instead of simply illuminating the mass, it began to burn it wherever the light touched it. It pulled back into the darkness, the force of the movement throwing me backwards and away from it.
“What was that…”
The first sign of life in hours, and it’s burned by light. Fitting, for a place like this, I suppose.
As I descended further into the darkness, I began to see something… off. I looked out into the waters below me, and I saw lights. Tiny, flickering lights hung in the distance, just beyond my reach at all times. As I stared into the darkness, I felt a sense of familiarity in the lights. I stared at them for several minutes, trying to remember what they reminded me of. And then I realized. I hadn’t seen them in years, and now they appear for me again, at the bottom of the sea.
“Stars.”
Nothing was the same after she vanished. Father lost his anchor, lost what kept him on the ground. He worked more hours, and I was forced to be alone. Whenever he was home, he was downright catatonic from the alcohol and various drugs he took at every waking second. There was no comfort to be had in that home anymore, not with an unresponsive junkie sitting in the chair while I had to make do for myself. So, I left.
I wandered out in the city, and fended for myself against the world. Barely could scrape together enough to get me food some days, but I decided it was better than living with my father in that falling-apart house. I searched for her, for days and days on end, but I found nothing, no results. As weeks went by, I found myself hiding away more and more. Away from the illumination of the sun and the streetlights, in the darkness of the alleyways where no light could reach me. The darkness took her, so maybe I could find her within it.
I hid away, in the dark. Staying away from the light. I left the alleyways and covers, because no matter what, there would always be some light from the city. The streetlamps and headlights would always shine, chasing the darkness away. So, I walked away from the city and into the countryside. The lights of the city lit up the sky even from miles away, so I kept walking. When the day came, I hid in the woods, shaded by the trees, just to get a semblance of the darkness I craved. When Night came, I walked openly in the fields, basking in the darkness as anyone else would normally do in the light.
My father found his escape, and I found mine. While he fell down the depths of addiction with his drunken highs, I found my solace in the dark. But even under the night sky, I could never be in true darkness, as the stars would always keep shining on me. I hated it. I wanted them to go away, I wanted the stars to leave me alone, to let me be in my comforting darkness.
One day, as I was leaving my tent out in the wilderness, I looked up into the sky. It took me a minute to realize what was wrong, but… my wish had come true. The sky was pitch black, not a star in sight. Just like with my mother, the darkness had consumed the stars as well.
The sub stopped. The radar showed that the walls of the cavern had closed in on me, and stopped just ahead. I never even noticed them appear. The sub bobbed up and down slightly, as if it was floating on a surface. I scanned my surroundings again, and it showed a bottom to the cavern below me. A semicircular divot, at the bottom of a seemingly infinite, empty trench. But just at the end of the scanning range, there was another path. A small, branching cavern, too small for the sub to travel through. It didn’t have any drones or anything to remotely control, so it seemed like that was the end of it. I switched on the radio, and spoke.
“Mission control, come in. I found the bottom. Probably around… 55,000 feet or so.”
Complete silence. Not a peep came through, not even static.
“Mission control, come in. I found the bottom, but there’s a branching path too small to traverse with the sub. Should I ascend now, or try to get a visual?”
Silence again. I simply sat there for a second, waiting for a response. While I spaced out, a slow droning sound came through. It wasn’t static, more of a hum, so quiet at first that it blended into the mechanical whirring of the sub. I was pulled out of my trance by another sound, one that stood out from the droning, still coming from the radio, even though it had long since powered off. I waited for it to sound again, wondering what broke the monotony. I waited for a minute longer, listening intently to the deafening droning for anything different. The droning seemed to change, an undertone of something else creeping through it. It slowly became clearer, but still it was unable to be made out. Then the droning stopped, and the sound became clear.
“Step Outside.”
I shot up. I couldn’t say that it was a voice; more like an approximation of one. A conglomerate of sounds, just barely able to formulate something that sounded like words. But they were still words, and insane ones at that. Go outside? Outside is all water, at pressures that would-
I looked at the barometer. 14.6 PSI. 1 atmosphere. The pressure was exactly the same as at sea level. That… isn’t possible. I’m under upwards of 10 miles of water, there’s no way that all that pressure just vanished! But… it still reads 1 atmosphere. Somehow, there was next to no pressure down here at all. And from how I was slowly bobbing up and down, it’s almost like there was an air pocket down here. An air pocket, under 10 miles of ocean…
I knew it was dumb, that I shouldn’t do it. All common sense told me that there was just no way this is really what’s happening. But I’m no stranger to the impossible, not since my mom vanished so long ago,
I opened the hatch above me, and braced for the water pressure to crush me into a pulp. But it never happened. Only a small amount of water splashed in from the slow rocking of the sub, instead of the torrent I expected. I was met with cool air, a slight breeze stirring the air in the small cavern, coming from the tunnel I had seen before on the radar.
There’s actually an air pocket down here.
The sub floated on the surface, and a few feet away, there was a shoreline. A small rock outcrop, just hovering on the water. I jumped from the sub and onto the shore, landing on the solid rock, which, surprisingly enough, held my weight. The cavern was nearly pitch black, the only light coming from small, bioluminescent patches on the roof. Stalactites hung from the roof, slowly dripping water down onto the ground, building up on the stalagmites that stood on the rocks. I couldn’t make out the exact size of the cavern, even with my excellent vision, but I could see the small tunnel off of the side of the cave. I couldn’t find any other paths, so I moved forward towards the tunnel.
It’s even darker inside the tunnel. It’s barely big enough for me to walk through, and only seems to get more narrow the deeper you go. I walked inside, my arms scraping against the sides of the tunnel after less than a minute, the darkness becoming more and more blinding. Good. I had never found anywhere else that was this dark, so suffocatingly dark. It’s the entire reason that I came down here at all, to find the darkest place on earth. And it’s working. Mother… I can almost feel you here.
I was pulled out of my thoughts by rough, cold stone. I couldn’t see it coming, so I walked straight into a wall. I thought that I had found the end of the cavern, but a quick feel-around of the walls told me that I had just found a bend in the tunnel. I followed the narrow path forward, hands gliding on the walls as they closed in and snaked around.
The tunnel winded around seemingly forever. It split apart at times, but whatever path I followed, I never was able to find the split again when I doubled back. Whatever paths I chose, that was the one I had to follow. They all seemed to lead to the same place, so I kept going forward. Only the occasional patch of dim bioluminescence lit up the tunnel, but that’s not why I’m down here. So I avoided the paths with the light, and kept chasing the darkness. After hours of walking, tracing the cold walls with my fingers, the monotony finally gave way. I couldn’t feel the walls any more.
The cold, damp stone was gone. The cramped corridors disappeared, and I don’t even remember when. Now, there was just… nothing. Not a single thing. Just empty blackness, extending into forever. No sound, not even my footsteps, as the stone I walked on was gone. Not my breath, since the air was gone too. Just the void. The thing I had been searching for, for all these years. Dark.
But the dark was broken up.
I walked further into the black, but bright lights occasionally appeared. They were blinding, burning. It was only in the distance, and only the one. But it burned. It came closer, appearing next to my hands, the light searing my fingers when it came. I had to pull away, back into the safety of the dark. Away from the burning lights.
I drove across the interstate, the city appearing in the distance. It’s been a while since I last saw my father, probably months by now. I’ve heard through the grapevine that he’s recovering well, finally managing to kick his addiction to the curb after letting it dominate him for years. I don’t like the city, but if my father’s finally getting better, then I’m willing to bear it for a while.
I drove into the rehab center’s parking lot, stopping the car and walking out. It’s the dead of night, the only time I can bear being in such an urban area. I pushed open the door, and the receptionist greeted me. She gave me a welcoming smile, and spoke.
“Hello there, how may I help you today?”
“I’m here for Jerry Dorcha, he’s my father. It’s about time I stopped by again.”
“Very well. He’s in room 127, enjoy your visit.”
She handed me a room key, and I walked down the hallway. I made it to the room, unlocked the door, and stepped inside. My father’s face lit up as he saw me.
“Matthew! Been a while.”
“It has, hasn’t it? How’re you doing, old man?”
“Hey, I’m not old just yet. Still in my 50s.”
He hasn’t been this upbeat in… well, over a decade by now.
“Finally managed to find a rope and pull yourself out, I see? Better now than never, I guess.”
“Matthew…”
“Don’t worry, I’m not all that mad. Losing mom, whatever happened to her, wasn’t easy for any of us. I know you were willing to slave away just so her and I could have a semblance of a decent life, and that does mean something. She was everything to the both of us… and coping isn’t easy.”
“Doesn’t excuse much.”
“Please, it could’ve been a lot worse. It’s not like you beat me or anything.”
“But I left you alone. So alone that you left and fended for yourself on the streets, while I just popped more pills and forgot about it. Nothing can excuse that.”
His eyes were filled to the brim with tears and regret. He wishes he did more, that he didn’t leave me alone. But that’s in the past now. It happened, and I’ve long since gotten over it. I found my comfort.
“And I don’t really care. I’m just happy to see that you’re getting better.”
“…Where have you been?”
“Huh?”
“You disappear for months on end, only showing up every once in a while. No one sees you at all. You just… vanish. Where do you go?”
“Well… wherever I want. I wander, camping out in the countryside, in the forests. Nothing to hold me down. The darkness is comfortable, and the absence of the lights and loudness you find in cities is a welcome change.”
“You camp? For months on end?”
“Yeah. Just… anywhere I want to go. The less light, the better. Even the stars are gone from the sky now. Not sure where they went.”
“…Son… I’m not sure I like this… I don’t want you to fall down the same hole I did, and not be able to find a rope.”
“Well, I don’t think there is any hole for me to fall into. I’m just camping out in the wilds, what bad could come from that?”
He stared at the floor. No answer.
“Well, I’m getting pretty hungry. Been years since I’ve had a pizza. I’ll go out and get one, be back in a few.”
I drove off down the round, and thought to myself. What bad could come from chasing darkness? It isn’t the same. There’s no harm in it, just comfort.
I stepped out of the car, and walked to the sidewalk. Just outside of the shop, there was a newspaper stand. The headline caught my eye, and I read it.
Tunnel discovered at the bottom of the Marianas Trench; depth uncertain.
I read the rest of the paragraph. The only ones planning a mission was a small company, who currently didn’t have a pilot and was willing to train a new one. The training center was right in this city, only a few miles from me. A trip straight down to the darkest place on earth…
I think I can bear being in the city for a little longer.
The darkness is thick, suffocating. I mean that literally; I can actually feel the inky blackness as I push through it. It feels like muddy water, just barely enough texture to feel it at all. But as I keep going, it grows ever thicker. I couldn’t breathe, but I didn’t need to. No air, but no lungs to breathe it. Just the black. Just the dark.
I pushed on.
The black grew so thick that I could swim through it, and as I propelled myself through the silent, lightless waters, small lights appeared in the distance. The stars. They didn’t burn, but they hurt. They were lights, and I couldn’t bear the light any more. I let out a soundless scream, and pushed forwards with all my strength. The stars vanished. Consumed by the black.
I found another light, and I snuffed it out. Every light, I destroyed. Over and over, swimming through the water, I got rid of the light. All of the light. Until there was none left at all.
As I destroyed the light, I felt different. I felt… bigger. No, that’s not right… I felt boundless. I could no longer feel my arms, or my legs, or the rest of my body. Instead, I felt… everything. All of the darkness around me, I felt. I controlled. It was me. I am the dark. I succeeded.
I saw another light. Far off in the darkness, where even I couldn’t feel it. I came closer to it, and unlike all the other lights, I did not immediately destroy it. This time, I was drawn to it, like never before. I reached the source of the light, and it was… a door. Slightly open, light leaking out from inside. I pushed open the door, and darkness flooded the room. Inside was my old room, perfect down to every last detail. And on the bed, a young me was laying down under the covers, and next to him was…
My mother.
I found her. She was in the darkness the whole time. The lamps went out, and she looked away. As she turned around, her eyes widened, looking right at me. Her lips trembled, staring straight into my eyes.
“…Matthew?”
I looked at her, finally finding her after so long. I knelt down and wrapped my arms around her, and her breathing stopped, as she froze in place. The room faded away into the darkness, my younger self slipping away with it, leaving only myself and my mother, alone in the void. I looked down, and her form was coming undone as I held her, consumed by the darkness. She faded away, into the blackness that was my form, and I was alone again.
I found the darkness. I became the darkness. I found my mother. I destroyed my mother. I was the darkness all along, I was always there. I destroyed the light. I destroyed the lives of all of us. I was the end, and the beginning. All our pain is because of me, and my darkness. My reason to keep going, the thing I was always looking for, is gone now. And with it, my comfort is gone too. The darkness destroyed all, consumed all, and I can feel it consume me too. As I floated in the void, alone with my grief, I let the darkness consume me, and my mind faded into nothing.