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This was the end of things. There would be no calling for the tow ship through a radio that had lost connection, no navigating the higher ground with unresponsive controls, no patching up a steadily leaking hull with the solely scientific tools at their disposal. Maybe if Doctor Elizabeth Porter was facing these inevitabilities alone, she could have met her own oblivion with her chin held high and her upper lip stiff. But the sobbing 19-year-old in her lap put a distinct dent in her plans for stoic bravery.
“I didn’t even want to come down here!” Tiff cried, clutching at the pants of Elizabeth’s uniform.
Elizabeth declined to spout out the reasoning that had made her drag them on this expedition, that they had been the best person to serve as her assistant, that they were the only one amongst the C.O.I.’s dwindling population with enough laboratory knowledge and skills to take on such an important mission. Instead, she focused on using her final free limb to brush Tiff’s short hair away from their face. “We’ll be alright,” she whispered, not even the first word able to leave her lips without cracking. “Whatever happens, we’ll be alright.”
Tiff only wailed in response.
The cracks in the SM-8 were small enough to not let in a flood of AT-5’s ocean, after three days of being stranded at its lowest depth, a two-foot layer of blood had congealed along the subfloor of the submersible, the last inch or so bubbling up above the grating.
Contact with the blood had been inevitable, lord knew Tiff had swallowed enough of it, and now there was no way to avoid its effects. As soon as Tiff had laid their head in Elizabeth’s lap, Elizabeth more than willing to provide any small amount of comfort she could, their disintegrating cheek had fused with Elizabeth’s ragged pants and exposed skin. It didn’t take long for Elizabeth’s criss-crossed to do the same to themselves, her hand overtop Tiff’s fist unable to be pried loose.
A fat drop of scarlet blood fell from the ceiling, landing squarely on Tiff’s exposed cheek and irritating the boils sprung up all along the flesh, causing them to scream out both in pain and terror.
Elizabeth could only shush her assistant, silently weeping as she stroked Tiff’s hair, unable to feel the soft contact.
Bzt. Bzt. Bzt.
Elizabeth and Tiff both froze at the slow but steady buzz of the proximity radar. It had been silent for so long, Elizabeth had figured it was broken along with everything else on this godforsaken ship, but there was no mistaking that particular sound.
“L-liza?” Tiff stammered, trying and failing to rise from their and Elizabeth’s amalgamation as the buzzed warning increased its pace. “Wh-what’s happening?!”
Bzt, bzt, bzt, bzt bzt bzt bzt bzt bzt bzt
Elizabeth didn’t bother answering the question, certain Tiff already knew the answer. They’d both bore witness to what lay in wait at the bottom of AT-5, what had no doubt come to claim its prey.
Bztbztbztbztbztbztbzt
“Liza?”
“Shhhh,” Elizabeth hushed, tilting her head towards the ceiling. “I told you it would be alright.”
Reaching up her hand while the whispers of everyone she’d ever loved and lost filled her head, Elizabeth beckoned, “Come on, then. Save us.”
On cue, the monster of the moon tore the hull in two. Elizabeth rushed to meet its teeth, oblivious to her assistant’s screams as the two of them melded into foreign flesh.
Tiff was lost almost immediately to the mass of consciousness, but Elizabeth, she took hold of the forefront of the creature’s mind, commanding the ship as the new, terribly confused captain, determined to swim whatever AT-5 counted as its seven seas until she and her crew found some new poor soul to shanghai.