It has been almost a month since we sent a camera down to the Challenger deep, a part of the wider Mariana trench. There’s not much money in deep-sea exploration, but it has always been a passion project for us. Thankfully, it seems to be that way for some wealthier individuals too, and we were finally able to secure funding for an extensive (and expensive) mapping of the deep-sea floor and the species that inhabit the waters there. The camera uses a combination of echolocation (to detect both land formations and moving targets, and their size) and a light to be able to capture them on film. The project proved to be a success, and during our first week we managed to see a frilled shark, a vampire squid and even a glass octopus. We took turns watching the footage, although most of the time one person watching quickly turned into four since none of us could stand the thought of missing something exceptional.
A little over a week ago, however, I was alone. It had been an uneventful few days since we were exploring the deepest part of the trench, and at over 10 kilometres deep there weren’t many creatures to encounter. The only reason we even bothered to spend so much time there was to map the land formations. Suddenly I was awakened from my thoughts by the beep of the monitor as it detected something moving. I looked up, and almost fell from my chair: what it was detecting was roughly the size of an apartment building. I shouted for my colleagues and took over the controls by hand, trying to steer the camera towards whatever was emitting the signal. It was moving away from us, so I decided to shoot my shot and turn the light on. Maybe we’d catch a glimpse. At first there was nothing, but then something flashed across the left corner of the screen.
“That’s a fucking fin. Or a tail,” Dan said in disbelief.
Natalie was squinting at the screen.
“Was it a whale?”
“Whatever it was,” I said, “it’s gone now.” The radar had gone silent.
“If it was a whale, this would be the discovery of the century,” Dan said. “That’s over 10 kilometres deep.”
John shook his head. “There’s no way that was a whale.”
“Well what do you suggest then, the fucking Loch Ness monster?”
“How stupid do you think I am, Nat?” John said with feigned annoyance. “I was obviously going to say Godzilla.”
Despite our imminent disbelief, we agreed that it was probably some kind of a whale, and that we should stay in that area to maybe confirm the sighting.
“Maybe there’s some fame to be gained from this after all,” Dan laughed. “A fucking whale. In the Mariana trench.”
…
Days went by and nothing happened. We almost started to feel like what we saw was just some shared hallucination borne from our boredom and desire to find something remarkable. But just when we were about to lose all hope and return to more shallow waters, it happened again. This time the enormous being was coming towards us at full speed, and right away as the light turned on, we saw something that froze us on our seats. It was an eye, followed by sharp, anglerfish-like teeth, and then something that might have been a fin but looked disturbingly much like a hand. After that everything went dark, and the camera stopped responding.
Dan broke the silence.
“I think it hit the camera with its tail,” he said.
“What the fuck was that,” Natalie said without taking her eyes off the black screen.
“It kind of looked like an anglerfish,” John said.
Dan shook his head in disbelief. “Yeah, a 30-meter-long anglerfish.”
I sat silent, pondering whether I should bring up what I think I saw even at the risk of sounding absolutely bat-shit crazy. Ultimately, I decided that the situation was crazy anyway, so I might as well just come clean.
“This is going to sound stupid,” I started. “But did you guys see a hand?”
Everyone was staring at me silently.
“Yeah,” John said in a quiet voice. Natalie nodded her head.
…
The next few days were spent on how we should bring up news of the camera breaking with Kaito, our funder. Our contract also stated that we should inform him of all the discoveries we make. I think we were all pretty shaken up, but we managed to keep our wits about us by focusing on the task at hand. The general consensus was that we had to tell him the truth. He might think we were losing our minds, but at least then there was a chance, however slim, that we could continue our exploration. It’s not like he would just buy us a new 10 000-dollar camera if we said we crashed it into a rock. The faithful day came, and with it Kaito to visit our research station. He seemed to sense something was off right away and demanded an explanation for the two days of missing updates. We explained to him what happened and everything we saw, fully expecting him to storm out or laugh at us. To our surprise, all he said was a simple “Where?”.
“10,6 kilometres from the surface,” I said.
“No, I mean exact coordinates. For both encounters,” he said in a grave yet weirdly excited tone.
We gave the coordinates to Kaito. He thanked us and started to leave. Before he made his way to the door, Dan stopped him to ask him if we could continue with our project.
“There’s no need,” Kaito said and disappeared off the door before any of us could protest.
…
We were defeated. After all this time we had nothing to show for our troubles, and no hope of starting over. Our equipment was laying at the bottom of the ocean with all our precious footage. Still, none of us wanted to go home, since that would mean admitting it was over. A week went by as we desperately tried to get the camera to work again. Then everything changed. Kaito called us and asked us to come meet him at his research station in Umatac, a village in Guam. We happily agreed, thinking that he had changed his mind about discontinuing our operation. We travelled there the same afternoon.
At the door we were greeted by Kaito’s assistant and four NDA:s. We didn’t think much of it since a research facility in the middle of nowhere probably wasn’t the most public place in the world. I acknowledge I’m breaking mine by telling you all of this, but what we saw there simply cannot be kept a secret. Once inside, we were greeted by Kaito and led along a corridor to a room that looked more like a hangar than a laboratory. At the other side of the hall there was a huge tank full of water. It took up most of the room, and it was impossible to say how far it stretched. And then I saw what was in it.
It was about the size of a blue whale, with a tail resembling a fish’s, except for jellyfish-like tentacles spreading out from it. Higher up the tail turned into something resembling a torso, with long, spindly hands protruding from it. They were covered with the same tentacles as the tail. The whole thing was almost completely see-through, and I could see its organs squirming inside. I forced myself to look at its face, and saw anglerfish-like mouth with needle-sharp, unevenly scattered teeth penetrating the ghostly flesh of its gums. The eyes were small, at least compared to its size, and completely white, staring at us emptily. A shiver ran across my back. I have never felt so small in my entire life as I did standing next to the towering creature. One single tooth was the same size as me, it could devour every single one of us without even noticing. That was what scared me the most: the idea that this thing could destroy us with no malice, no acknowledgement. We were to it like ants are to us: small, insignificant beings being trampled as we make our way through our everyday life.
“That´s a pressurized tank,” Kaito said while we stared at it in awe. “Take it out from there and it collapses on itself. Almost died during transport, the thing can’t survive in normal air-pressure.”
“What is it?” I asked without taking my eyes off the tank.
“It´s a mermaid,” Kaito said and laughed. “Or at least as close to that as we are going to get.”
Kaito explained to us that the whole reason he funded our expedition was to find this creature and capture it. He had always been obsessed with mermaids, sure that somewhere, deep beneath the surface of the sea, they truly existed. As it turns out, he was right. Questions flowed out of us like seawater from the mouth of someone saved from drowning. Kaito could tell us very little about the creature, only that it was around 130 years old, probably a predator based on its looks, and almost completely blind.
“It probably uses some kind of sound waves to see in the dark, maybe to communicate too. I’m planning on measuring those soon,” Kaito said.
He promised he could tell us more in a few weeks, since he would have finished most of the tests by then. He offered to let us stay at the station until then, as long as we promised not to disturb him. In fact, no one was to come inside the hall where Ningyo, as Kaito had named the creature, was held. We left and he locked himself in. Needless to say, none of us got much sleep that night, whether it was out of excitement, fear, or a combination of both.
That was two weeks ago, and today we are going back. I don’t know what we’re about to learn, but whatever it is, I believe it’s going to change the way we look at other life forms. I’m terrified to step inside that room, yet it’s the only thing that feels worthwhile in this life. I will update you as soon as I get back, hopefully with some new discoveries.