There are no days or nights anymore. There are only the steel walls that surround me. No matter where I go, I am trapped inside this forsaken submarine. I fear I may never escape.
Sometimes I sleep, hunched over the sonar, but I resist sleep as long as possible. When my eyes close, it brings dreams and dreams bring the screams of my men. Their need. Their hunger.
I haven’t left the control room in so long that my muscles ache, unmoving in such a tight space. My stomach no longer growls, its pain has become normal once again. It has been some time since the dining area ran out of food, some time since the only working lights in the submarine became the controls.
The pulse of the sonar has become one with my pulse, a constant, a steady marker of time passing. Time that goes on forever, as expansive and unforgiving as the ocean. I can feel the pressure pressing inward all around me, the sea gurgling as it kneads the metal that keeps me here. Like the submarine is merely a toy. The sea lets me move forward still, satisfied knowing I’m at its mercy.
With each inch the submarine moves, its metal reverberates. I feel the tremors in my bones, feel my skull vibrate. Each groan echoes in my brain, louder and louder and louder, over and over and over. The metal is speaking to me. It begs for my guidance, it pleads for its life. It never ends.
Snowflakes land on the sonar and melt against its glass. The controls have begun to frost over. My breath is visible.
Snow falls around me furiously, covering the arctic floor. They’re not coming for us — one of my men shouts at the other — They sent us here to die! The other guy continues working on the radio, while the rest of us build a camp. We have to try.
The sonar’s green light is comforting. I have longed to see green again. Its constant flicker warms my vision.
I have grown accustomed to the shifting of items as the ocean pulls this vessel along its depths, but above the sonar’s pings, above the metal’s fearful screams, I hear a trickle. A drip, another, two more, from the sleeping quarters.
My feet are unsteady. The rest of the submarine is pitch black; I have to use the wall as a guide until my eyes somewhat adjust. I’ve had enough of darkness. A small, cold puddle of water pools at my feet.
I am frightened. My feet haven’t stopped shivering, surely, I will lose a few toes. The fire went out, someone notes, but the meat is already cooked. We’ll be cold, but not hungry. Those words, my own. The snow is red, my stomach is satiated.
My throat is hoarse, salty, as water pours down. The hatch was hit, the trickle becoming a stream. I can just make out the scratches on the seal. Weakened at the start then, set up to implode.
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