I don’t know how or why this computer works. It shouldn’t, not when nothing else does. My flashlight, my gps, my watch, even my compass just spins and spins. There are dozens of entries on this computer, mostly just short, plain text files in languages I’ve failed to recognize. From what I have read, the people that came before me were in similar situations. Many research teams have been sent to map and monitor this place, and no one knew what they were getting themselves into. I came here as one fourth of a team, and I am the last. Soon I’ll be gone too, leaving way for the next team, I suppose. I have nothing to do here but sit and think, so I will write. I’ll write what happened to me and my friends, and maybe it’ll bring some comfort to the next round of doomed scientists.
I’m a graduate student, and I thought I was so lucky to make it onto a research ship. Being a real scientist, making discoveries and going places no one had even seen before… it seemed to romantic, like a dream. We were supposed to be mapping a trench located a hundred knots north west of Svalbard. They warned me that the long nights were staggering, deeply terrifying for those not used to them. I did not believe them. The dark is nothing to be afraid of, I’m not a child. But now, I know I was wrong. I know they were wrong, too. The dark is profoundly old, it is everything. And it is beautiful.
The trench baffled the researchers that discovered it. They could not seem to locate the bottom. All they knew was that we had somehow over looked It in the past, and it easily rivaled the Mariana. Another ship was brought in, my ship, better equipped with diving experts, engineers, geologists, and a submarine. It was a small vessel, but all it needed to do was dive and take pictures. It was an easy mission. There was an engineer on board who made sure we didn’t rapidly decompress or combust, a geologist who took mineral samples on the way down, the captain who navigated, and me. I was to take photos and man the radio. We were deep, so deep that the sun couldn’t have windows or portholes. I was our only connection with the outside world. With anything that wasn’t the endless sea of black night.
We lowered into the trench. Comma were good, visuals were good. There were little signs of life, other than small, transparent fish, but that was to be expected in this climate and depth. The walls of the trench has risen several meters above us when we found ourselves at the mouth of a cave. The opening was huge. The sun could’ve done cartwheels in it without coming close the the walls. We saw no reason not to explore. My photos showed the walls of the cave. It was smooth, with only fine texture, and the opening was weirdly round. The geologist had said that there must have been a current long ago that smoothed the stone, though there was no sign of one now. I know darkness makes the eyes easy to trick, but looking at those photos… I could’ve sworn the grooves on the walls allowed like words.
Our last communication with the ship above us came in once we had made it a few meters into the cave. They asked the captain what we were doing. The captain told them nothing had changed, we were in the cave, moving foreword. They asked what our depth was, the captain told them. The ships positioning system had malfunctioned, it was showing their crew that we had been diving, straight down, at a rate the sub shouldn’t be capable of. Shortly after, comma began to break down and fail. We decided to turn back, give ourselves a change to regroup and check equipment, to be safe. We traveled for hours. The crew concluded we had somehow gotten lost in a side passage. I was quiet. I had mapped the entire route thoroughly, there were no alternate routes. We were in a cave that ended thirty meters ago. The crew decided to retrace our steps and turned back again. We went deeper into the cave. We eventually found an exit, our relief was profound. But when comm didn’t come back up, we becan to realize that everything was starting to fail around us. The depth reader never left 999 meters as we rose, my photos lost focus, and control panels stopped flashing and beeping. We wondered if the oxygen pumps would be the next to go.
Eventually, we breached the surface. There was no ship, and no radio. There was, however, an ice sheet some distance in front of us. We were navigating toward it when we saw a building. It looked like the type of modular shelters arctic researchers use. There were no lights, and it had been mostly buried in snow drift. We already knew it was abandoned by the time we made it to the door. The inside was clean, and it served at good shelter from the wind while we regrouped. There’s some food and less water. Everyone was full of panic. We were truly stranded, and absolutely hopeless. There was nothing we could do but wait for rescue. There were a few lanterns in the base that worked, but they only made the outside world feel darker. Now, it felt like night. A night that would not end until we were far, far away. By that point, I think we all knew Day would never come.
We eventually slept. We woke up at some point in the night to find the engineer missing. We yelled for him, looked everywhere. The weather had cleared and we could see some distance. We saw nothing. The horizon started at our feet and never ended. It was a continuous black that hugged the white landscape, and nothing else. We were alone, maybe we were already dead. The geologist was the next to go. She had found a hunting knife in one of the supply bags we found in the shelter. We put her body outside. It was gone a few hours later.
another day passed, I think. Maybe two. The captain had tried everything, we both had. Now, he did nothing but stare at the wall. He had figured it out, he told me. This was a test. God was testing us. We never made it out of the submarine. This was our last trial before we made it to heaven. Everything was alright. I wouldn’t stop him from walking outside. By the time I got the the door behind him, he was gone. There were no footprints, not sign that he was ever here. I looked up to where the horizon ended. They were just standing there, unmoving. Hundreds of dark figures standing in the snow. I slammed the door and wished it had a lock. The barricade I made is still there, though I know it’s futile. It took me hours to find the courage to move the curtains and look outside. An inch from the outside glass was my mother’s face, smiling at me. Behind her, my team stood with mirrored expressions. “Come outside” they said “There will be no more cold” I backed away from the window. “There will be no more hunger” I could hear their voices through the walls. “Join us” I closed the curtain. It was silent.
My mother has been dead for eight years. I think the captain was wrong. I am trapped in a frozen, barren hell. I see there is no escape, and I see that I have to chose how I will leave this world, whatever world this is. If you’re reading this, I’m so sorry that this has happened to you. I hope it’s not too late for you, but I’m sure you know it already is.