The heart of the world trembled, and the ocean did not flinch.
It waited.
October 17th, 1970. 03:42 AM. A torrential storm raged over the North Sea, where six European powers - Germany, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, and the United Kingdom had clandestinely agreed to a joint operation. Waves crashed against the rugged coast of Bergen (Norway), where final deployment procedures were underway.
Naval charts marked the operational waters as lying beyond standard maritime routes, in proximity to a landmass known only as 'Dorgon Island' speck absent from civilian maps and deliberately avoided by commercial traffic. Lightning split the sky, briefly revealing the black steel hull of a submarine waiting in the harbor, motionless, as if aware that once it departed, the sea would not permit a return.
No declarations were made. No public records signed.
Only a single order passed through encrypted channels across the world:
Proceed!
Beneath the turbulent waves lay a void that defied measurement. Instruments contradicted themselves. Models collapsed.
Physics itself seemed hesitant at this depth, bending the laws around something unnamed, something unseen.
Still, the decision stood.
Because in an age ruled by energy, even the impossible became negotiable.
The abyss was not darkness. Darkness implied absence.
This was something else—depth without bottom, pressure without limit, a region where light never penetrated and sound arrived only to vanish.
Maps marked numbers.
Sailors marked fear.
Scientists marked question marks that grew with each scan.
Months earlier, a deep-sea survey array had detected an anomaly far below the sea floor: not metal, not rock, not void. Signals bent, instruments faltered, and every approach caused data to vanish.
Every attempt to define it failed.
Every attempt to ignore it failed faster.
In a secured war room far inland, six clocks ticked in unison.
Around a steel table stood men who had learned that hesitation delayed only responsibility. At the center rested a single file, unmarked except for a classification so high it rendered the contents unofficial.
The name inside was spoken only once.
Black Eden.
No one asked why it had been discovered now.
No one asked what it truly was.
They asked only one question:
Can we reach it?
The answer was uncertain.
The follow-up question was not.
The submarine ECLIPSE slipped under storm-lashed floodlights at Bergen harbor. Its hull absorbed light, designed for endurance—steel layered to withstand forces no human could survive.
Technicians moved quickly. Quietly.
Final checks performed without ceremony.
There would be no rescue window.
No recovery operation.
This was not a mission meant to succeed.
It was a mission meant to be completed.
Inside the command deck, red lights glowed against condensation-slick walls. The air smelled of metal and recycled oxygen. Men assumed positions with practiced precision.
At the front stood Commander Edward Johnathan Vale.
Decorated. Experienced. Unremarkable in every way that mattered.
Chosen not for hope, but for obedience.
Vale studied the depth gauge as if it were already obsolete.
"No one comes back from the Abyss."
Not a warning. A constant.
A baseline assumption.
Vale nodded silently.
Ballast tanks flooded.
The Eclipse descended into the storm-churned North Sea.
Lightning fractured the waves—then vanished entirely.
Above, the ocean roared.
Below, it swallowed.
Pressure crept in slowly, then with intent. The hull groaned—metal adjusting to forces it was built to endure, but never to welcome.
Sonar pulses expanded and returned warped, as if the water itself distorted them.
Numbers flickered. Stabilized. Flickered again.
"Sir," the sonar officer said, "the echoes aren't… behaving normally."
Vale didn't turn.
"Log it."
Depth markers rolled past safe thresholds without pause.
Three thousand meters.
Five thousand.
The lights revealed only drifting particulate, like ash.
Movement. Direction. None.
Down was a concept, not certainty.
The deeper they went, the more the instruments disagreed.
Temperature readings contradicted each other.
Density spiked, then vanished.
Communication channels filled with static.
An engineer whispered, not to anyone in particular:
"That shouldn't be possible."
Commander Vale finally looked at the crew.
"Neither is this mission."
No one argued, But "Internally, a massacre of thoughts was taking place within each mind."
The depth gauge slowed.
Then stopped.
A subtle vibration passed through the hull.
Not impact. Not turbulence.
Something acknowledging their presence.
Sonar emitted another pulse.
This time, it did not return.
It answered.
Silence filled the command deck.
Breathing became audible.
Vale tightened his grip on the rail.
"Hold course."
The Eclipse continued downward beyond charts, beyond calculation, beyond any return.
Above, the world remained unaware.
Below, the abyss waited— in waters long charted under a name few dared to speak....