Depths of Madness

__NOTOC__=== FEB 1 ===
Damn it! Our submarine is toast. Something’s wrong with the engines. Though not even the engineer, McClusky, seems to know what. I can’t make heads or tails of them, so I’ll have to take his word for it.
Anyway, as far as we can tell, they just broke beyond repair of their own volition. There’s no way for us to get back to the surface. We’re trapped inside this iron coffin, doomed to sink to the deepest depths of this endless sea.
Our scientist, Hartwell, thinks we should make the best of this. Nobody’s ever been to the bottom of this ocean. We might observe something interesting as we sink to our deaths.
I think Hartwell is being unreasonably chipper about this whole thing. But you know scientists – it’s normal for them to be abnormal.
I guess I might as well keep my head up too. I never expected to survive the war, anyhow. A slow death by oxygen deprivation can’t be that much worse than a bullet in the head.
So that’s that. As captain of this submarine, I can’t let my crew think I’m weak. I’ll have to keep a level head and be a shining example for my crew. That’s what I’m going to do.
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=== FEB 3 ===
I could never really appreciate how deep these oceans were until I was trapped in a sinking submarine.
Dark, too. There’s no light visible everywhere I look. Though we’ll have to seal off the portholes soon – the pressure just keeps getting higher and higher in this miserable sea.
Officer Daniels claims he saw something outside of the submarine. It was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in his life. She had sharp teeth and pale skin, but she was a ten, in his words.
Damn bastard even tried to open the door so he could be with her. We had to wrestle him away and put him in a straitjacket. He’s kicking and screaming in the brig as I’m writing this.
Poor jerk. The pressure must be getting to him already. Or maybe the lack of oxygen. I knew at least one of the men would go nuts, but I’d hoped they could hold out a little longer. Daniels had never been the sanest man aboard this ship. I guess he’d gone too long without a woman.
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=== FEB 7 ===
No news but bad news today. It just keeps getting darker and darker in this damned sea. And we’re still stuck in a broken submarine.
I’m beginning to wonder if Hartwell had something to do with this. Someone had to have sabotaged the engines, and who better than a scientist? Someone who knew how they worked.
But then again, McCluskey watches those things like a hawk. There’s no way in hell Hartwell could have gotten past him. Maybe they were in cahoots.
Or maybe it was just McCluskey. I don’t know why he would want to do that, though. Maybe he was nuts all along and we just didn’t realize it. But then again, if he wanted to kill us all, why take himself with us?
I guess I’ll never know. I don’t really see the point of finding out. You know what? I don’t think it was sabotage after all. These engines are old as hell, anyhow. They break all the time. There’s nothing else to report here.
Oh! And someone gouged out Daniels’ eyes. We found him dead in the brig this morning. Poor bastard. I guess maybe the pressure finally got to him.
But then again, his arms were still stuck in the straitjacket. So maybe it was murder. Heh! Maybe there’s a killer aboard this ship with us.
But at this point, I’m beyond caring, really.
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=== FEB 14 ===
Well… things started out desperate, and they sure as hell haven’t gotten any better.
The men are reporting there are ghosts aboard the ship. Of all the things. They keep claiming to see ominous silhouettes, or people who aren’t really there. The pressure and lack of oxygen must be getting to them.
Hartwell says this whole shitshow reminds her of a book she read. “Heart of Darkness”, she called it. Apparently, it’s about a river cruise where everyone goes insane. I have to agree with her. Just take out the boat and replace it with a goddamn submarine that’s thousands of feet underwater and has no hope for survival and it’s a dead ringer.
I’d go mad on a river cruise too. What is there to DO on one of those? I’ve never seen the point. All you do is ride a boat up and down a river. I’d lose my marbles too.
Look at me ramble! Maybe I already am crazy. But I don’t think you can blame me.
I’VE PRACTICALLY BEEN BURIED ALIVE, FOR FUCKS’ SAKE!
I think what I need to do is just go to sleep. That’s all we’ve been able to do these past two weeks, really – sleep. What a shame.
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=== FEB 17 ===
This is the end of us.
It all started when most of the crew got in an argument in the cafeteria. Jackson was going on about how he wanted to “go outside and see the pretty ladies”. Of course, Richards and everyone else was against that.
So Jackson picked up a knife and stabbed Richards in the face.
It all went to hell from there. Soon, everyone had a knife and was stabbing each other, and before I could blink, everyone was dead but me.
I wish this was just a sick joke. But it’s not. It actually happened. I don’t believe it either.
So that was the end of most of the crew. But I couldn’t find McClusky and Hartwell anywhere, so I went looking for them, and guess what?
They were dead. Both of them. They’d gone out with a bang. As in, they fucked each other and then killed themselves.
I found them naked in the engine room. Didn’t even have the decency to leave a suicide note. Those jerks. I didn’t know they had a thing going on. Maybe this was just a spur of the moment decision.
I guess it doesn’t matter. Sub’s almost out of oxygen anyhow. And it just keeps sinking deeper and deeper into this ocean. Like a turd. Heh heh.
I’m sitting in the control room as I’m writing this. I wonder what happened to the engines. Maybe they got cursed somehow by the abyss itself. Could they have been fixed?
It’s a bit late for that. Even if they miraculously started working right now, I could never reach the surface in time. We’re on one percent oxygen.
Wait. I can see something outside the submarine. It almost looks like… a blinding white light.
It can’t be real. But why not? I’m steering us towards it right away. I don’t know what it is, but I don’t really care. Hartwell was right about these oceans never having been explored. Who knows what I’m about to find.
=== END CAPTAIN’S LOG ===
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Addendum – The wreckage of the Poseidon was found two years later during a research expedition. This log, written by Captain Merida O’Brien, was scavenged from the wreck.
According to O’Brien’s log, the Poseidon suffered a catastrophic engine failure and sank to the bottom of the Calypso Ocean for more than two weeks.
Many of the crew went insane and killed each other. However, none of the bodies could be identified. The extreme pressure had crushed them all beyond recognition.
There is no explanation for the sirens the crew saw – perhaps they belong to an undetermined species of underwater humanoid that has yet to be witnessed. It was possibly a hallucination on their parts.
The ghosts were likely also a result of the crew’s minds suffering from oxygen deprivation.
However, the blinding light O’Brien saw has been explained. A new species of giant anglerfish has been discovered at the deepest depths of the Calypso Ocean. In fact, the Poseidon was found mangled by a specimen’s teeth. Though how an anglerfish large enough to destroy submarines can survive on this planet has yet to be explained.
The ocean is a deep, dark place. The rules we must abide by above the waves do not apply beneath them. Perhaps we shall never explore the entire ocean.
The war has yet to be concluded.
Category:Mental Illness
Category:Vehicles
Category:MalumLibrum958