Into The Depths

Chapter 2: Getting to Know Leviathan

The sun rose over the empty ocean, a mirror reflecting the new day's promise of discovery. As Leviathan's glimmer faded into shadow, so too did the questions lingering in Petrova's mind drift toward rest. Yet behind closed lids, her thoughts turned once more to the mysteries waiting below.

When she emerged on deck some hours later, sun-warmed swells danced beneath a cerulean sky. Moore stood at the rail amidships, binoculars exploring the vast seascape as gulls wheeled and cried above. "Morning, Anya," he greeted without glancing back. "Sleep well?"

"Surprisingly, yes." She joined him, breathing deep the salt-tinged air. "Any sign of our friend out there?"

Moore shook his head. "Leviathan seems to prefer deeper haunts." He lowered the glasses, bright eyes finding hers. "I spoke with the board while you slept. Funding for another expedition was greenlit on one condition - we establish an underwater observatory to properly study this new discovery.”

A smile broke across Petrova’s face. “That’s wonderful news! With extended observation, who knows what we may learn of Leviathan’s realm.”

Over the next few days, the crew worked tirelessly outfitting a remote platform two miles below with habitat modules, lab equipment and cameras linked to surface receivers by fiber optic cable. On the seventh morning, all was prepared for deployment.

Petrova leaned over the sonar readout, tuning the frequencies minutely as Moore operated the crane from the bridge. "A little to port...steady...drop!" The observatory splashdown raised scarcely a ripple, sinking silently into the murk.

Fixing a camera's viewfinder, she was rewarded with glimpses of abyssal life fluttering and flowing among rocky spires and chimneys encrusted with bizarre fauna. Small bioluminescent jellyfish drifted past in ethereal blooms. Further on, a forest of tubeworms swayed with their unseen hydrothermal currents.

A flicker startled her into gasping - a massive sleek body gliding between two crags. Not a shark, but an oarfish, elongated and graceful despite its thirty-foot length. Her heart soared at the first live sighting on their new instruments. This, surely, was but an enticing prelude.

Days blended into weeks of patient observation. Nearly every dive granted new marine mysteries to study, document and puzzle over. Strange crustaceans scuttled amid sponges like jewels spilling from some undersea hoard. Anteater-like fishes probed sea-floor sediments, plucking unseen morsels as narks patrolled overhead.

But for all life's flourishing, no sign of Leviathan presented itself to the watching lenses. Had they disturbed some territory by their presence? Or did the great beast simply possess a stealth outmatching any technology?

One silt-choked morning, Petrova noticed strange gouges scouring the sediments around the observatory. "Current shift," she murmured to Moore beside her. "Something's stirring things up down there."

A shadow passed between the silt clouds, vast and sinuous. Leviathan itself cruised past the cameras, effortlessly riding the shifting deep-sea flows. They paused, breaths held. But the beast passed on, leaving only mysteries in its wake. Another glimpse, yet questions only multiplied. What territorial claims did it patrol? How long might its kind have reigned beneath the waves, evolved and elegant predators of the midnight depths?

Over ensuing nights entwined with daybreaks, the secrets of Leviathan's domain gradually took shape through countless such observations. Its hunting grounds appeared vast yet with discernable borders respected by all lesser predators. Schools of bioluminescent fish darted in elegant synchrony, luminous waves rushing before the beast as if in worship or warning. Minute suckerfish clung tenaciously to its sides, gleaning scraps from feedings yet quickly discarded unharmed once done.

An ecosystem took form around the enigmatic Leviathan, intricate yet balanced. Its role as an apex guardian of the lightless realm grew clearer with each discovery. Petrova found herself hoping their watching eyes would become but another factor in this domain's equilibrium, bearing witness to mysteries preserved since antiquity. Yet within both the rolling swells above and strange deep currents below, signs arose that forces beyond any one creature's power had begun to stir and shift the ancient balances.