Leviathan

"It's been three weeks, Kaia. He's gone."

Kaia Maclean shuddered to hear those words, even though she knew in her heart they were true. Her father, Seamus, was part of a team of oceanographers that explored the Titanic in order to preserve its remains. Their latest mission was three weeks ago. What was planned to be a success quickly turned into a tragedy when the submersible lost signal with the mother ship. The last sound she ever heard from her father's voice were his screams for help. Then, deafening silence.

Kaia was on board when it happened. Her mother passed away when she was three years old, and now she was totally an orphan. Her father was her life, and now, he is gone. The only evidence of the attack was the submersible that carried her father to the ocean floor. It came back up in one piece, but the 9-inch thick windows were completely gone. The Coastguard searched the ocean floor, but they could not find any evidence of human life. For Kaia, there was no closure.

At thirteen years old, Kaia had nowhere to go. Her grandparents were dead and there were no other living relatives to take her in. She was alone. As the crew closed their mission, they headed back to port. Dozens of sailors walked off of the ship, and behind them, there was Kaia, all alone. Among those in the crowd waiting for their family members to exit the ship was Nancy Merril, the captain’s wife. Captain Merril was in charge of the mission that ended Seamus Maclean’s life. The guild consumed him to the point of depression. Nancy watched the little girl walk off of the ship with her head down. 

“Excuse me, Miss. Are you Kaia Maclean?”

Kaia looked up. “Y-yes ma’am, that’s me.”

Nancy looked up at her husband. She knew what had happened. 

“Where are you going to go, dear?”

“I don’t know ma’am. I haven’t got anybody to take care of me.” Kaia said.

Nancy glanced at her husband again, and he knew what that glance meant.

“Well, my darlin’, you are going to stay with us!” 

Kaia looked surprised. “Oh ma’am, I don’t want to be a bother.”

“It’s not a bother at all, dear. We’d love to have you!”

Off they went. Captain Merril didn’t say a word. 

A  few weeks later, the judge granted the captain and his wife guardianship of Kaia, and she became their daughter. Their house was huge, unlike anything Kaia had ever seen. Kaia and her father had lived in a small beach house that smelled of ocean water and fish on the shores of Halifax, but that little house could fit inside of the house she was living in now.  It was magnificent, like the Titanic itself. In the living room, there hung a massive painting of the failed ocean liner. Her bedroom was plastered with flakes of gold in the wallpaper. She was living the dream, but she was still empty. 

One evening, while the three of them were sharing dinner, Kaia asked a question she had been too afraid to ask for years.

“Father, may I go with you to see the Titanic on your next voyage?”

The captain dropped his fork.

“Kaia, you know what happened to your father down there. I don’t want to take that risk with you. You can go on the ship with me, but not to the Titanic.” 

Nancy gently touched his arm, as if to get his attention. She began to speak.

“My dear, it is very admirable of you to want to go see such a piece of history, but I would think it might not be as glamorous as you think, especially since that’s how your father died.”  

Kaia, fighting back tears, replied. 

“No ma’am, it wasn’t the voyage that killed my father, it was something else. I will one day find out what it was and slay it to avenge my father.”

There was complete silence. 

Years passed and Kaia blossomed into a young woman. But deep in her heart, she still desired to find out what really happened that day her father died. She still had nightmares, even as an 18 year old girl. She would never forget that day. Upon graduating highschool, she was accepted into a university to study oceanography, just like her father. 

One day in class, her professor began talking about animals living in the depths of the ocean. 

“As most of you know, the vast majority of our ocean is left undiscovered by mankind. Because of this, there are many sea creatures that are lurking in the depths of the ocean that we have never heard of. But there is one that we have heard of, and there have been recent sightings of it. The Leviathan.” 

The Leviathan was a sea creature that existed in Biblical times, but has never been seen since then. It was believed that they were all extinct now, but with the recent sightings off the coast of New York, the question came up again after 4,000 years: what happened to Leviathan? Kaia went home after class and began doing research for herself. She turned to the Bible to read about this sea creature. “In that day, the Lord will punish with his sword— his fierce, great and powerful sword— Leviathan the gliding serpent, Leviathan the coiling serpent; he will slay the monster of the sea.”

-Isaiah 27:1

Slay the monster of the sea. That is exactly what he was. Could he really still be alive? Suddenly, she put it all together, “Leviathan killed my father.”

The next day, she was going to do it. She was going to dive to the Titanic. She boarded the ship, without the captain knowing, and she loaded herself into a submersible. She slowly descended to the ocean floor. The glimmering sunlight slowly faded away in darkness. No more sun. It was her first time in a submersible, and she was nervous as she kept her eyes fixed on the 9-inch thick window, praying that it wouldn’t break. After an hour and a half, she reached the bow of the Titanic.

“There it is, the Titanic.” She thought to herself. Its iconic bow was coming out of the shadows. 

So far, so good. No sign of danger anywhere. All of a sudden, the lights on the submersible went off. It was all black, no light anywhere. Suddenly, she felt something hit against the submersible. She tried to look out the window, but she couldn’t see anything. Crash!

She lost control of the submersible. Something was pulling it into the ocean floor. If she were to run into the Titanic, it would break the windows. She felt her heart racing and her chest was hurting. “This is how my father died. Oh, God please save me!”

Within seconds, the lights came back on. They shone into the face of a dragon-like creature. It was Leviathan. It was not finished with her, and he was angry. Her only hope of survival was to reach the surface quickly, but the submersible could only go so fast. No one knew about her mission. There was no one on the surface to call. She was stuck. 

She slowly began to make her way to the surface. As she reached 1500 feet, she began to hear a cracking sound. “The window! It’s going to burst!” All of a sudden, a giant tail busted through the first window, shattering it to pieces. The creature turned around and attempted to jam its snout into the frame. It was too big, but as it began to swim away Kaia unbuckled her seat belt and jammed the buckle into its eye. It made him angry. He began to bite at the submersible. He bit it in two. At 1,000 feet, Kaia began to feel the water pressure in her lungs. Her head felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. She had to get to the surface. She could barely see the sunlight. 

Finally, with the last ounces of hope draining from her body, she darted towards the surface. Leviathan followed her. She would have to kill him, but how? He had his mouth open ready to devour her. “I’m so close.” clawed her leg, and she let out a scream. Water entered her mouth. She wasn’t going to make it. 

As she began to give up, she heard a sound. “A whale call.” Suddenly, an Orca whale rammed into the side of the creature, pushing it towards the bottom of the ocean. Kaia made her way to the surface. She was safe at last. 

When she reached the ship, the captain was waiting. She told him everything. 

“I avenged my father, with the help of a whale.”