Ends of the Earth

Jeanie never truly got comfortable with the cold, deep-sea station, and it wasn’t as though the developers hadn’t tried. Though the lights in the facility mimicked the day night cycle above the water, turning golden in the early mornings and afternoons, brighter around midday, and completely dark at night, it could not distract her from the barren, oppressive, murk that embraced the facility, always visible through the facilities glass windows. It was unmistakably unsettling to her, being kilometers below the ocean’s surface, completely cut off from the outside. They were so far below, that no contact with the outside world was possible, not even an email.

They had come here to monitor a geo-thermal vent on the ocean’s floor, to learn more about the tectonic plates of the earth, as well as collect data about the sea life in the local habitat.

What she hated most, was the times when she was called to wear the bulky deep-sea diving suit, and go walking outside the facility on the oceans floor. There were lights set up, but nothing could significantly pierce the stifling, oppressive darkness of the deep sea. One time she had been walking to the vent to observe and take some readings, when a thick ocean current began to pull her out of the lit area into the abyss of pitch black that ringed their facility. She had been terrified, but somehow managed to claw her way back into the light, and eventually into the station. The readings could wait another day or two.

Today was Sunday however; time to relax and forget the troubles of work. They would probably gather around the television (which did not have access to any channels), and play on the gaming console together.

She got on well enough with the other members of the science team. David was reliable and dependable, and he always seemed to have a way of pulling her out of depression or anxiety with a few choice words. Sally was an introvert in every sense of the word, but she did not seem to have the same fears that she herself had. And Norton? He was a bit of a klutz – he’d already broken 2 beakers and one expensive water sampler by dropping them – but he had a good heart, and she found he was easy going enough to talk to about just about anything.

Walking down the hallway from the lounge area to her room, she ran into David. ‘Hey Jeanie. You going to join us to see who’s the best at that game?’.

‘Yeah, I’m up for it.’ She replied. ‘I just want to do my journal entry for the day first, to get it out of the way.’

The journal entries were done on a computer, and were required by all the team members. She sometimes wondered if it wasn’t just the ocean being studied, but them too. Were they recording how severe isolation affected people? People who were cut off from the world? She continued down the hall. On the way she saw Sally leaving her room, but she said nothing, not wanting to get involved in conversation till the journal entry was done.

Reaching her room, she used the fingerprint scanner to open the door, and went straight to the small desk with the computer. Here too, fingerprint readings were needed to unlock it. Once done, she opened the Journal app, and began recording her entry by speaking into the microphone.

‘Today is near the close of half a year of time spent down here below the ocean’s surface in Gamma station. I am still finding it hard to deal with the realities of living here. Maybe it’s an undiagnosed, emergent case of claustrophobia. At least I can say I’m grateful for the team members I share this space with. They make it all a little more bearable.

I am continuing to take samples of the sea water, as well as that interesting biological material growing near the vents. So far, I have not been able to identify any patterns in the data I’m collecting, but hopefully in time I will see more clearly.

Today is our day of rest and relaxation. It looks like the plan is to huddle around the television and play computer games. I am- ‘

The computer suddenly shut down, and the lights in the room slowly began to fade, until it was completely and absolutely dark. Her eyes had essentially become sightless. She began to panic. Her breathing became ragged, faster and faster, until she felt sharp pains of anxiety piercing her inside her head.

‘David? Norton? Sally? Are you guys in the dark too?’ There was no reply.

She remembered there was a torch in the middle of the wardrobe at the other side of the room, she would have to get it. Trying urgently to remain calm, she saw in her mind’s eye the layout of the room. Turning and leaving the chair, she shuffled forward with her arms outstretched, and eventually her shins collided with the bed. She was closer.

After moving around the bed, her outstretched hands touched the flat surface of the room’s walls. Should she follow it left, or right? Guessing left, it soon became clear that she had guessed correctly, feeling the heft of the wardrobe. After groping for the handle, she pulled open the door and rummaged around the space beneath the hangers, searching for the rubber torch. A wave of relief washed over her as her hand closed over it.

With the push of a button, at last there was light. Right away, she decided to search for the other team members, and to survey the scope of the blackout. Making her way to the rooms entrance and reaching the door, she then remembered there was no power. The door was electric, and without power it was now, essentially an inert, obstructing object. Feeling the dread of being locked in a steel box forever, she frantically began to shine the torch over and around the door. Mercifully, the door had an emergency manual opening handle. It had been a long time since their training on all of the functions of the station, but fortunately the mechanism was not too complicated. There was a red plastic handle on a brass cylinder, which she turned to the right, and then with all her strength she pulled the door open.

Entering the hallway, she broke out into a panicked run, desperately wondering how her colleagues were handling the situation. But they weren’t in the lounge. She stood there for a while, shining the torch around the room pathetically, as if they were hiding in a corner.

‘David? Norton? Sally?’ She called out.

There was no answer. And then suddenly she saw it. Congealed bloody footprints on the floor, leading out of the loungeroom down another hallway. She felt sick in her stomach, like she had swallowed a cup full of ice cubes. What on earth was going on? She imagined herself returning back to her room, locking it, and waiting for the power to come back online. But before she succumbed to the fear, she realized that her colleagues might be in trouble. Maybe an accident had happened in the sudden darkness. She decided to follow the foot prints.

Stepping down the glass windowed hallway, the torch continued to illuminate the footprints ahead of her. The trail seemed to go mostly straight, but eventually she saw the footprints take a sharp left, down the hallway that led towards the airlocks. The airlocks? What on earth could anyone have wanted to do there with the station like this? But she had to find someone. If she had to stay alone in this nightmare much longer, she might scream at the top of her lungs. So, she continued to follow the foot prints.

In time, she was standing in front of the door to the airlock. She looked in horror at a multiplicity of bloody handprints all over it. Turning the flashlight to the walls of the room she was in; she saw that 3 of the four deep-sea diving suits were gone. Had they somehow managed to put on the suits and leave the station? Her suit was still there in the niche in the wall.

It was then that she heard the faintest stirrings of sound. The suits had their own power systems, and they had radios built in to them. She rushed over to the suit and listened carefully.

She heard Norton’s voice coming through the speaker. ‘Hello? Anyone? Hello?’

In a rush, she began to operate the suits radio to reply. ‘Norton, hi. It’s me Jeanie. Tell me what is going on. Where are you?’

‘I’m outside the station, near the vent. David and Sally, I thought I’d find them out here. Their suits were gone. Jeanie are you still in there?’

‘Yes Norton, I’m in the station. Listen, I saw bloody footprints leading to the airlocks, and the door had hand prints all over it. Whose blood is that? What happened?’

‘Blood?’ Said Norton in surprise. ‘I didn’t see any blood. I heard David and Sally’s voices coming from down the hallway where the airlocks were when the power cut out, and when I got there, their suits were missing.

She looked at the door again, and was shocked to see that there was no longer any blood on it, or on the floor. She knew she hadn’t imagined it. The trail had lead her here. But buried deep within her consciousness, it came to her; was there anybody else to verify it? If a tree falls in the forest – if one woman witnesses something odd, who’s to say she witnessed anything at all?

Once again, she spoke through the radio to Norton. ‘How did you even get out there? The station’s got no power, none of the doors should be working.’

‘There’s a backup generator that I switched on. It power’s all the major doors in the facility. There should be some way to activate the emergency lights too, but I couldn’t figure it out.’

She spoke firmly. ‘Norton, if you can’t find them out there, then hurry up and come back here, I need your help.’

There was silence for a few moments, before Norton’s voice came once again through the radio, sounding strangely mesmerized. ‘Jeanie, I have to find them. Their out here. And I think I know where they went. I’ve got to follow them…’

‘Norton? Norton what are you doing? Norton?’

There was no further response. It was at this moment that her torch began to dim. She looked closely at it, exasperated by the failure of one thing after yet another. Eventually it waned to the faintest glimmer of light. She sat down on the cold floor of the station, and began to cry in wracking sobs. It seemed everyone had gone, leaving her here, alone in this sunken tomb. And how long could she last without power? The station needed to be heated to support life. Already it had gotten tangibly colder.

Suddenly, a noise roused her. Quick footsteps coming from further down the hallway.

‘Hello?’ She called out.

And then from the other end of the hallway, the same quick footsteps. She should be the only one in here, she thought to herself. Again, the truth of her isolated condition confronted her, and she could not be sure if the footsteps were even real. Did it matter? They were real to her. If you turn and are confronted with your worst fear, does it matter if it is an apparition, or flesh and blood? Feverishly, she began to put on the deep-sea suit. All she knew, was that she wanted to be with her teammates. Staying here alone – or perhaps not alone – was not possible, not for her. In about 2 minutes she was geared up for benthic walking, and with no desire to stay any longer, pushed the button for the airlock to open. Once inside, she pushed the button on the interior, and the door to the station shut, followed by the airlock filling with water, and the door to the outside opening.

The sea was a stygian black, and the water was like syrup, thick, always resisting her every movement. There was a trail of weak lights which directed the course of the diver towards the vent, an area which was better illuminated. She travailed slowly across the ocean floor, knowing all along that if she were out of her suit, she would be instantly crushed by the water pressure.

Once again, she tried the radio again. ‘Norton? David? Sally?’

Just silence. Continuing her slow pilgrimage, she eventually saw up ahead the glowing vent, but there were figures in front of it. As she slowly pushed through the enveloping, viscous water, she made out three of the facilities deep-sea diving suits, standing at the edge of the vent.

‘David, Norton, Sally? Is that you?’

The absence of a reply weighed on her, a great burden of fear and loneliness, and looking at them eerily lined up in formation, as though for some kind of unholy ceremony, took away any kind of comfort she might have felt upon seeing them.  There was something about the way they were all standing there, looking down. A strange feeling began to rise in her. What held them transfixed? Fighting the strain of walking through the dense ocean, she eventually found herself standing next to them. After moving to the front of them, their faces could be seen, illuminated from inside the suits, each one with their eyes closed.

Suddenly their voices came in unison through the radio, their eyes still closed. ‘Descend.’

The Chasm beckoned. She thought of her family, her would-be boyfriend, the friends she had made over the years, now all seemingly a million miles away. Her team were comparatively, just acquaintances. If they all walked into the precipice, would anyone notice? Would anyone care? Here they were, at the ends of the earth, truly alone. Would they be remembered? Would they be forgotten? And then she wondered, what was down there. Paradise? Hell? Maybe she had in fact died, the moment she left the shore. To be alone, abandoned, unaccounted for, how would she even know if she hadn’t already crossed over.

Her voice came, solemn and as cold as the furthest reaches of space, as she stood on the edge of the void. ‘Descend’.