Chapter 64 - The Depths of Lake Michigan
The corridor outside was a churning nightmare of floating debris and dead auxiliary lighting. Every step was a fight against the frigid current dragging us toward the lower decks. The water was already up to our chests, cold enough to numb the skin within seconds and slow the electrical conduction of our already fragile hearts.
*“Warning: Core body temperature dropping. Tether synchronization efficiency: 68%,”* my HUD chimed, flashing red in my peripheral vision.
“Marco! The main exit hatch is gone!” I yelled over the deafening roar of water. The ladder well that led to the surface platform had collapsed into a twisted knot of rebar and foaming whirlpools.
“The pressure bell!” Marco yelled back, coughing up water as he pointed toward a recessed hatchway painted in faded yellow hazard stripes. “Emergency decompression chamber! It has an independent buoyancy release!”
We swam the last ten feet, our legs kicking against the drag of our soaked clothes. Marco reached the circular hatch first, throwing his weight against the manual locking wheel. Rust and pressure fought him, but with a feral roar, he broke the seal.
I scrambled inside first, tumbling into the claustrophobic, steel-walled cylinder. Marco pulled himself in right behind me, but as he reached back to dog down the hatch, the ship took a violent, sickening roll to the starboard side.
The blast door slammed shut with bone-breaking force, catching Marco’s left leg in the frame.
He screamed, a sound of raw agony that cut through the roaring waters.
“Marco!”
I lunged forward, throwing my shoulder against the heavy steel door to relieve the pressure on his crushed leg, while grabbing the locking lever. Outside the viewport, the Leviathan’s main corridor buckled completely, black water swallowing everything in sight. If I opened the door even an inch more, the surge would rip him out into the abyss and drown us both.
“Pull me… in!” Marco gritted out, blood pooling from his torn trouser leg into the shallow water at our feet. “Laura, pull!”
I grabbed him under the arms, digging my boots into the grooved metal floor, and hauled backward with every ounce of adrenaline flooding my veins. With a sickening tear of fabric and muscle, his leg cleared the threshold. I threw my entire weight against the lever, spinning the dogging wheel until the heavy locking pins slammed into place.
A second later, a horrific grinding sound echoed through the sphere. The Leviathan broke in two.
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The decompression chamber tore free from its structural moorings, tumbling end over end into the silent, lightless freezing trench at the bottom of Lake Michigan.
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