Chapter Text
1101 meters.
Martin was used to diving into the abyss.
He was used to the darkness, used to bumping into fish he couldn’t see- not that they did that anymore. He had entered the dead zone half an hour ago. Even if his flashlight could illuminate his surroundings, there was nothing here, only a dark, endless expanse of nothing.
1102 meters...
Martin was used to his mind playing tricks on him. Descending all the way to the sea floor took hours. It was normal that he felt an odd pressure in his chest. It was normal for his suit to make strange creaks that it didn´t before. It was normal for his flashlight to illuminate the scratches on the glass that could be cracks. It was fine that any breach in his suit would kill him. It was made by the Lukas family, it was fine. He could trust the suit. Gertrude had told him so. It was fine.
1103 meters......
He was used to the cold and the loneliness. It was fine, really. He liked being sent down here. He didn´t mind it. They couldn´t sent cameras down here anyway, because they would break due to the immense pressure. It made sense they would send Martin instead.
Martin tried to focus on the sound of his own breath bubbling back up to the surface.
His flashlight only illuminated little particles in the water and he turned it off, counted to twenty and turned it on again- illuminating the muddy ground below. Finally.
He landed softly at the edge of the crater, agitating the thick layer of debris. Down further, he could see the drop, a circular hole going into the ground. It had looked weird on their radar, as any ant hill likely would from above. He began to slowly descend into the crater, delighting at the avalanche of debris he created behind him. He slowed and stood above the dark pit. Shining his flashlight into it revealed pure darkness. It was hard to say how deep it would go.
He checked his equipment for the tenth time that day. On his belt, he had a small backup flashlight, a camera, a knife, and three metal capsules for samples.
He checked his oxygen.
Okay. His oxygen supply allow for around sixty minutes of exploration. In three hours, he´d be back on the boat with Sasha.
He was as ready as he’d ever be.
He jumped and started to descend down into the pit, stabbing his knife into a gap in the rock the moment he saw something interesting.
The rock walls were smooth and angular, why? He pulled out his camera and snapped a picture before wiggling his knife to try and get a sample. They almost looked as though they were hand carved- but that was impossible at this depth, and yet, as he descended deeper, they looked almost polished.
The angles created an octagon and slowly, the shape began to twist, the angles circling around him as the walls closed in tighter and tighter until Martin could stop his descend simply by holding his arms out. He could feel... some kind of vibration in the walls, and below... below he could see a tunnel, looking distinctly non-man-made, going even deeper down.
After another moment of hesitation, Martin balled up to see if he’d even fit into it.
He fit.
This was fine.
The blood was rushing to his head but that was fine, if he was just careful, he would be fine.
Missions like these were the only time that he was useful. He had done this before.
He took a deep breath, steeled his nerves, and began crawling into the tunnel.
There were little rounded bumps protruding all around him, like rounded stalagmites or fingers, angled forwards, pointing him in the direction he needed to go. They also made crawling backward very challenging and that was frightening, yes, but he had an hour to crawl back. He couldn´t wait out the hour. He couldn´t come back with so little. It would be fine.
His flashlight only illuminated particles in the water and the fingers. The tunnel had not gotten any tighter but Martin resisted letting go of the walls and letting himself drift straight down. What if it was endless? What if he never made it back out? It certainly felt endless. Perhaps he shouldn´t risk it. Martin tried to wiggle back up, finding it remarkably difficult. From this angle, he couldn´t even reach the wire on his back.
He- he might need an hour to get out of just this here, actually.
Martin tried to calm his breathing, activated his second light and dropped it. It fell slowly down, deep down, and hit the ground. Martin let out a sigh of relief. There WAS an end to this and somewhat soon. Before he could change his mind, he let himself drift down, down, until the walls widened and his hands touched the ground. He picked up the second flashlight and sighed deeply, turning back up to snap a picture of the tunnel he had just braved. Thank goodness that was over.
He looked around, finding himself in a wide corridor with a rounded ceiling. The walls were made of bricks, the stone crackling when he rubbed his fingers over them. He tried to snap a picture but found the image blurry. Shaking the camera did nothing. Was this his fault? Had he not taken care of the camera properly? Had the depth damaged it somehow? He shook his head. No matter. There was nothing he could do about it now. He moved through the corridor, finding stairs and- and at the top of the stairs, his light reflected off the surface of the water.
Martin hurried up the stairs, his helmet breaching the water.
Air! There was air down here! His hands shot up to his helmet but he hesitated. He wasn´t sure if it was okay to remove your helmet this far down under water. He wasn´t a real scientist, maybe it was fine but if it wasn´t… He kept it on.
The water stayed at his knees and he trudged through it. He stopped when his light bounced off of a metal pole. It was bent at the top like a straw and it wasn´t the only one- many poles, all equally spaced, were placed next to a dip in the floor. Shining his light into the water revealed… train tracks.
Martin looked back to the pole, shining his light up and seeing the glass light bulbs inside. He hurriedly walked further and saw a sign on one of the light poles and- and a map on the wall and he came to a stop in front of the large graffiti.
He recognized it.
He’d seen it every day on his way to work. He shone his light to the right and saw the seats overlooking the train tracks in the water below.
The graffiti, the seats, the signs, the map on the wall, the stairs leading up- this was the Erith train station, bathed in darkness and flooded, 1130 meters underground.
His legs wobbled and Martin collapsed into the water.
He closed his eyes, tried to calm his breathing, and checked his oxygen supply, finding it empty- WHAT?!
No, no, now it was back to normal. Had he hallucinated that? Martin tried to rub at his eyes, only to find the helmet in the way. His hands shaking, he turned off his oxygen supply and removed his helmet.
The air smelled humid but- but breathable. He splashed his face with water, rubbing his eyes, his hands shaking and his head spinning.
This was not fine.
He could feel the individual bricks in the ground. They felt real. He could see the graffiti. It looked identical. He pinched himself. He was awake.
What was happening?
For a long moment, he just looked at the thin yellow line warble in the water, marking where it was safe to stand. He took out his camera to snap a picture but everything looked distorted through the lens- everything but his hands. Everything but him.
It didn’t make any sense.
How- why...? Who was this train station for?
He quickly put his helmet back on and turned on the oxygen.
This wasn’t normal.
He picked up the wire behind him, the wire that was hooked to his back, and began to collect the rest on his way back OUT.
He went back down the stairs, the water making his suit creak and slowing down his movement. He didn´t take samples, didn´t take pictures. He would get yelled at for all that and for leaving early but that was fine because nothing was making sense anymore.
There was no tension in the wire as he pulled and when he pulled again, he felt that it had ripped. He went back through the corridor, gathering up the last of the wire, towards the small tunnel, finding a dead end.
The corridor led to a dead end.
He crouched to where the small tunnel had just been but the bricks were grimy and firm. Stabbing his knife into it did nothing, they wouldn’t budge. He got up and yelped when he breached the surface again, the water only knee deep. He turned around to face a yellow corridor.
The walls were lined with aged floral wallpaper, peeling where they marinated in the water. At the end of the corridor, there was a table with a light, a light coming from a lamp with a green lampshade.
Martin pressed his hands against his helmet.
The lamp was buzzing softly, its plug flowing off the table and going back under the knee-deep water.
“That’s- that’s not how anything works,” he whispered.
Gertrude had told him that “magic” was usually little more than lead poisoning or some kind of potent hallucinogen and that was scary, that was very very scary. The radar had indicated that this place was a maze- how was he supposed to find his way out, if he couldn’t trust his eyes? His hands darted to the right wall.
This was a maze. Maybe- maybe if he just hugged the right wall, it would lead him back and everything would be okay! Sasha and Tim would give him a big hug and take him to the nearest hospital and he’d never get sent down here ever again! Maybe they would even name a new flavour of super-lead after him!
He chuckled nervously. It would be fine!
He trudged through the water, pulling out his knife from his belt and dragging it along the right wall, leaving a mark just in case. He passed by the inexplicably lit table lamp and stopped. No. No, he couldn’t just let it go.
He touched it and the lampshade felt real.
The light bulb felt warm through his glove and the light shone through the gaps between his fingers realistically enough. The fabric lampshade got slightly darker when wet and when he carefully smashed the bulb into the wall, it went out just like a real light.
Martin pointed his flashlight at the broken remains.
It... Was it real? But it couldn’t be. Was the water just constantly being electrocuted? But if so, why wasn’t the wallpaper on fire? He pulled the small knife from his belt and cut into it, ripping it from the blank foundations of the wall.
It tore like wallpaper. It looked like it. Shining his flashlight through it- were those veins?
Yes. Yes, they were.
Martin quickly cut off a chunk and placed it inside one of his metal pods.
Perhaps... perhaps he was inside of something, something big- something alive... perhaps... oh, but wasn’t it more likely to find naturally growing wallpaper plants than to find a living building? None of this made sense either way... Gertrude would have a field day getting a statement from him after he was done here.
If he ever got out.
He continued to walk through the water, dragging the back of his knife into the wallpaper, pressing just enough to dent it.
“You’re not mad that I cut you, right?” he asked and the wall didn’t respond. He was going insane. “No, you’re not mad. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t know you were alive. I, uh, I did mean to cut a piece out of you, just now, that did happen but, um... but I can give it back if you want me to.”
The path diverged into three and Martin hugged the right wall, slowing as the floor started to tilt down, the water going up to his chest. Was this the right way?
He spotted a painting on the wall and it took an agonizing amount of time to move toward it. He’d been certain it was a painting of a person before but now that he was up close, it was just squiggled. Maybe the complete darkness was starting to get to him.
He continued down the path, jumping when he felt something spongy under his shoes. Diving under, it was a green carpet, with intricate geometrical patterns and he carefully cut a piece out of it but found no veins.
When he resurfaced, his flashlight showed darkness. The corridor he had been in before was gone and he yelped when he felt himself sinking. He looked back down and saw the same carpet from before, slowly falling into a pitch-black abyss.
“Oh my god,” he said, turning around to see that the corridor he had come from had turned into a little ledge, barely big enough to sit on, with three walls around it that ascended infinitely. He shone his light around the corner but found nothing. This ledge appeared to be an island, in the middle of endless dark water.
He was... he was hyperventilating.
Martin quickly pulled himself out of the water and sat on the ledge, backing himself into a corner and trying to figure things out.
If this was a hallucination... then- then it didn’t make any sense. He had been walking and then he cut a piece from the carpet- and his knife still had some fabric stuck to it to prove that he had- and then-
He chuckled.
„Oh, you pulled the rug out from under my feet, that’s hilarious,“ he mused and chuckled, his laughter echoing all around him, was he in a cave? He stopped laughing and yet the echo continued.
Was somebody laughing?
„Hello?“
His voice carried through the darkness and the laughter faded. Had he imagined it?
„Hello?“
No response.
„I just heard you!“
Nothing.
„Alright,“ he said, pulling his knees close to his chest. „Alright, the lead’s really, uh, really starting to mess with me but that’s fine. That’s totally fine.“
He took a moment to breathe.
“There’s still air,” he reasoned. “Even if I run out of time, there’s still air.”
But Sasha would leave eventually. She and Tim would not wait around for him forever and once they left, he didn’t know what would happen. But they might stay an extra hour.
He had to hurry.
Finding a way out was still his best option.
Which meant swimming in pitch-black water.