I work in commercial fishing. I’m going to lie to the police tomorrow about why I blew up my own boat.

Commercial longline fishing is a miserable way to make a living. You live in a state of constant, grinding exhaustion. The boat smells permanently of rotting bait, and frozen brine. You work twenty-hour shifts, pulling miles of heavy monofilament line out of the freezing water, unhooking the catch, rebaiting the hooks, and stacking them back in the holds. It breaks your back and ruins your hands.

I was the new guy. The crew consisted of just three of us: the captain, an older, heavily scarred deckhand who had been fishing for thirty years, and me. We were working a very deep, isolated stretch of the ocean.

We had been out for ten days, and our luck was terrible. The holds were mostly empty, and we had caught a few small swordfish and some low-grade tuna, but nowhere near enough to cover the cost of the fuel and the bait, let alone make a profit. The tension on the boat was thick. The captain was pacing the deck, chain-smoking, glaring at the dark water. The older deckhand worked in grim silence. I kept my head down, scrubbing the deck and organizing the gear, trying to avoid their anger.

On the eleventh day, the hydraulic winch started to whine.

We were hauling the primary line. The winch groaned, the heavy metal gears grinding in a way I had not heard before. The thick nylon line was pulled taut, snapping straight down into the black water. The tension was massive. The boat actually listed slightly to the starboard side.

The captain threw his cigarette over the rail and ran to the control panel. He eased the hydraulics, trying to prevent the line from snapping under the strain. The older deckhand grabbed a heavy steel gaffing hook and leaned over the rail, staring down into the water.

It took forty-five minutes to bring the catch to the surface.

When it finally broke the water, the sheer size of it made me take a step back. It was a bluefin tuna, but it was impossibly large. It had to weigh over a thousand pounds. The dark blue scales reflected the harsh deck lights.

The captain let out a raw laugh. This single fish would pay for the entire trip. It would cover the fuel, pay the crew, and put the boat back in the black. The older deckhand sunk his gaff into the thick flesh near the gills, and we engaged the heavy lifting crane to hoist the massive animal over the rail and onto the metal deck.

It hit the steel floor with a heavy thud.

I stood back, catching my breath, and looked closely at the fish.

It was deformed. The proportions were entirely wrong. The head was normal, but the torso of the fish was grotesquely swollen. The belly bulged outward, stretching the white scales on its underside until they looked ready to tear.

Covering the flanks of the tuna were dozens of deep, circular scars. They looked vaguely like the bites left by cookie-cutter sharks, but they were far too large and far too deep. Some of the scars looked healed, covered in white, fibrous tissue. Others looked fresh, leaking dark fluid onto the deck.

“Look at the gut on that thing,”

the captain said, pulling a long, heavy filleting knife from the sheath on his belt.

“Must have been gorging itself on a bait ball. Get the hoses ready, kid. We need to bleed it and pack it in ice before the meat spoils.”

I grabbed the heavy rubber washdown hose and turned the valve. Freezing seawater sprayed out, washing the blood toward the scuppers.

The older deckhand knelt near the tail, holding the fish steady. The captain straddled the massive belly. He positioned the point of his knife near the ventral fin, preparing to open the fish and remove the internal organs.

“It smells wrong,”

I said quietly.

The odor rolling off the fish was overpowering. It smelled like stagnant, ancient mud, or like a swamp left to rot in the sun.

The captain ignored me. He gripped the handle of the knife with both hands and drove the blade down into the swollen white belly.

The skin did not slice cleanly. It gave way with a loud, wet popping sound.

The belly of the massive tuna burst open.

And to our shock, There were no internal organs. There was no roe, no stomach, no heart. The entire internal cavity of the thousand-pound fish had been completely hollowed out.

Packed tightly inside the hollowed-out ribcage was a translucent, pulsating mass.

It looked like a massive, thick jelly. It was a pale, milky white, heavily veined with dark, pulsing purple lines. The mass shifted and rolled inside the fish, expanding rapidly as it was exposed to the open air. The smell of stagnant mud intensified, making my eyes water.

I froze. I dropped the hose.

The captain stared down into the cavity, his knife hanging loosely in his hand. He leaned forward slightly, squinting against the harsh deck lights.

The mass ruptured.

Whip-like, thick, slimy appendages shot out of the translucent jelly. They moved with a speed that defied logic.

The appendages completely ignored me. They targeted the two men leaning over the fish.

Two thick, muscular tentacles lashed out and wrapped directly around the captain’s face. They slapped against his skin with a heavy thwack, sealing over his mouth, his nose, and his eyes. Another set of appendages shot toward the older deckhand, wrapping around the back of his head and burying themselves into his neck.

The men did not have time to scream. They dropped to the metal deck instantly.

The captain fell backward, his arms going rigid, his hands clawing uselessly at the thick, wet muscle sealing his face. The deckhand collapsed forward, his forehead hitting the steel rail.

I could not move. My boots felt bolted to the deck, and my breathing stopped completely. I watched the translucent mass inside the tuna continue to pulse, pumping thick, dark fluid through the appendages directly into the heads of my crewmates.

The struggle lasted less than ten seconds.

The captain’s hands fell away from his face, dropping limply to his sides. The deckhand stopped twitching.

I stood ten feet away, clutching the rail behind me, waiting for the things to let go, waiting for the men to die.

They did not die.

In perfect unison, the captain and the older deckhand slowly pushed themselves up off the deck.

Their movements were weird and not human. They moved like marionettes being hoisted by heavy strings. They stood up straight, their arms hanging completely loose at their sides.

The thick appendages were still firmly attached to their heads, trailing back to the pulsing mass inside the ruined fish.

The two men slowly turned their heads to face me.

The captain’s jaw dropped. The hinges of his jaw bone popped and dislocated. His mouth stretched open in a wide, impossible gape. The deckhand’s jaw did the exact same thing, tearing the skin at the corners of his mouth.

A voice came out of them.

It was a single, overlapping sound. It spoke through both of their unhinged mouths simultaneously, echoing across the silent deck. It sounded like thick mud being sucked through a narrow pipe.

“The deep is empty.”

The voice vibrated in my teeth

“We have consumed the dark. The trenches are barren, and no sentient life left below.”

I pressed my back hard against the metal railing, my hands shaking violently. I wanted to run, but there was nowhere to run. We were miles from the coast, isolated on a small floating platform in the middle of a black ocean.

The heads of the two men twitched slightly, adjusting their angle to keep their dead eyes fixed on me.

“We require the shallows,”

the voice continued.

“We require the feeding grounds where the warm meat gathers. You know the way.”

The mass inside the tuna pulsed, glowing slightly under the harsh deck lights.

“You will steer this vessel to the closest port,”

the voice spoke through the ruined mouths of my crew. “You will bring us to the shore. If you perform this task, your biology will be spared, and you will be permitted to leave the vessel before the feeding begins.”

I listened in silence

“Do you comprehend the task?”

It demanded.

I looked at the captain. The skin around his neck was already turning a pale, sickly grey. The veins under his jaw were bulging, pulsing with the dark fluid from the tentacles.

I swallowed hard. =

“Yes,”

I whispered.

“Proceed,”

the voice replied.

The captain and the deckhand turned away from me. They walked slowly, toward the center of the deck and stood perfectly still, their arms hanging limp, the thick wet tethers connecting them to the massive fish.

I moved. I forced my legs to work, and walked slowly around the edge of the deck, keeping as much distance as possible between myself and the pulsing mass. I climbed the metal stairs to the wheelhouse.

I stepped into the cabin and pulled the heavy door shut. My hands were trembling so badly I could barely turn the latch to lock it. I sank into the captain’s chair, staring out the reinforced glass window down at the deck.

I pushed the throttle forward. The diesel engine rumbled deep in the hull, then turned the heavy metal wheel, adjusting our heading based on the GPS navigation system. I set the autopilot for the nearest deep-water port on the mainland.

The journey would take roughly fourteen hours.

I sat in the locked wheelhouse, watching the deck.

For the first few hours, the men just stood there. The ocean rolled around us, the boat pitching and swaying in the swells, but the captain and the deckhand remained perfectly anchored, staring blankly ahead.

Then, the digestion process began.

I watched through the glass, horrified and completely helpless, as the captain’s uniform began to hang loosely on his frame. His body mass was shrinking.

The skin on his face, previously tanned and weather-beaten, turned a putrid, ash-grey. As the hours passed, the structural integrity of his flesh began to fail. The skin around his cheekbones split, leaking a thick, clear fluid. Large patches of grey skin sloughed off his neck and hands, sliding wetly down his clothes and pooling on the metal deck.

The older deckhand fared no better. His shoulders collapsed inward. The bones in his arms seemed to dissolve, leaving his limbs hanging like deflated rubber tubes. The thick tentacles attached to their heads pulsed constantly, pumping the liquefied remains of the men back into the central mass inside the tuna.

They were still standing. They were still breathing. But they were being hollowed out, just like the fish.

I sat in the dark cabin, the green glow of the radar screen illuminating my face.

I looked at the navigation chart. The blinking icon representing our vessel was slowly creeping toward the coastline. I looked at the population data for the port city we were heading toward. Hundreds of thousands of people.

If I brought this boat to the docks, that thing would spread. If it could hollow out a thousand-pound bluefin and instantly subjugate two grown men, then I don’t know what It can do to an entire city.

I checked the time. We were about three hours away from the coast. The sky was still pitch black.

I formed a plan. It was the only logical outcome.

I unlatched the heavy cabin door very slowly. I kept my eyes on the deck. The entity seemed dormant, focused entirely on digesting the two men. The captain was mostly a grey, sloughing skeleton inside a heavy weather coat.

I slipped out of the wheelhouse and moved quietly down the metal stairs, completely avoiding the main deck. I walked along the narrow side passage toward the aft hatch. This hatch led directly down into the engine room.

I turned the heavy metal wheel on the hatch cover, wincing at the slight squeak of the hinges. I lowered myself down the steep metal ladder into the belly of the boat.

The engine room was incredibly loud and overwhelmingly hot. The massive marine diesel engine was churning, pushing the heavy boat through the water. The smell of oil and fuel was thick in the air.

I moved to the primary fuel lines. Commercial fishing vessels carry thousands of gallons of diesel in their holding tanks. The fuel lines run from the tanks through a series of heavy-duty safety valves before entering the engine block.

I found a heavy iron wrench sitting on a workbench.

I approached the primary fuel manifold. I did not close the valves. Instead, I placed the wrench over the heavy brass fittings that connected the main feed line to the engine intake. I gripped the wrench and pulled with all my strength.

The brass fitting groaned. I pulled harder, stripping the threads entirely.

The metal gave way. The thick, high-pressure fuel line disconnected from the intake.

A massive, pressurized stream of fuel sprayed out into the engine room.

The fuel hit the hot metal plates of the deck and immediately began to pool. The smell was instantly suffocating. I dropped the wrench and moved to the secondary feed line, tearing that one loose as well. Hundreds of gallons were rapidly flooding the lower deck, sloshing against the bulkheads with the roll of the boat.

The engine, starved of fuel, began to sputter. The heavy churning turned into a violent, shaking cough.

I did not have much time. The change in the engine noise, the sudden loss of speed, would alert the It.

I scrambled back up the metal ladder, my boots slipping slightly on the diesel that had coated my soles. I pushed through the aft hatch and closed it, leaving it unlatched.

I ran to the storage locker near the stern, then grabbed a bright orange emergency suit. These suits are designed to keep a person alive in freezing water for a few days. I pulled it on over my clothes, zipping it up to my neck.

I moved to the railing and located the emergency life raft canister. I unbuckled the heavy straps holding the white fiberglass barrel to the rail, then shoved the canister over the side. It hit the water and instantly deployed, inflating into a small, bright orange raft.

The boat’s engine finally died completely.

The vessel lurched as it lost its forward momentum, settling into the trough of the waves. The sudden, absolute silence was heavier than the noise of the engine.

I pulled a red emergency flare from the box on the bulkhead, then gripped the plastic cap.

A wet, heavy dragging sound came from the main deck.

I turned my head.

The captain and the deckhand were moving. They were dragging their ruined, grey, sloughing bodies across the deck toward the aft passage. The thick tentacles trailed behind them, pulling the massive, pulsing jelly completely out of the hollowed tuna.

The thing knew the boat had stopped. It knew the shore had not been reached.

The captain’s jaw hung completely open, resting against his chest.

“You were granted life,”

the voice echoed from their ruined throats.

“You will be consumed.”

They moved faster than their degraded bodies should have allowed. They rounded the corner of the wheelhouse, heading straight for the aft passage where I was standing.

I stood next to the open hatch leading down to the engine room.

I struck the cap against the top of the flare.

The chemical compound ignited instantly, spitting a blinding, brilliant red light and a shower of hot sparks into the dark air. The flare burned with an intense, hissing heat.

The two hallow men lunged toward me, their arms outstretched, and the pale tentacles were pulsing rapidly.

I tossed the burning red flare directly down the open aft hatch into the flooded engine room.

I did not wait to watch it hit the fuel.

I turned, vaulted over the metal railing, and threw myself into the freezing, dark ocean.

I hit the water hard, the survival suit keeping me buoyant. I immediately started swimming frantically toward the inflated raft drifting a few yards away.

I reached the rubber edge of the raft and hauled my upper body over the side.

The ocean lit up behind me.

The explosion was a massive boom that vibrated through the water and punched all the air out of my lungs.

I pulled myself fully into the raft and looked back.

The fishing vessel was gone, replaced entirely by a towering column of fire. The diesel fuel had ignited instantly, blowing the aft deck completely off the hull. The heat rolled across the water, hitting my face like an open oven door.

Through the roar of the flames, I heard a sound that I will never forget.

It was a high-pitched screech, vibrating with absolute, ancient fury. The sound cut through the noise of the explosion, piercing the night air as the pulsing mass and its hijacked hosts were incinerated in the blast.

The hull of the boat fractured. The burning wreckage rapidly took on water. Within ten minutes, the burning metal slid beneath the surface, hissing and boiling as the black ocean swallowed it whole.

I sat in the small orange raft, surrounded by total darkness, bobbing on the swells.

I drifted for three days.

I drank the small packets of emergency water and stared at the horizon. I did not sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the grey skin sliding off the captain’s face, and heard the wet voice vibrating in my teeth.

On the morning of the fourth day, a commercial trawler spotted my raft.

They pulled me aboard. I was severely dehydrated and exhausted. They wrapped me in blankets and sat me in their galley. The captain of the trawler asked me what happened.

I looked at my hands, gripping a mug of hot tea. I looked at the men around me, working on a boat, pulling lines from the deep.

“Engine fire,”

I whispered, staring blankly at the metal table.

“We hit a rogue wave, the fuel line snapped, and it caught a spark. It went up fast. The other two… they didn’t make it to the raft in time, and the boat just sank.”

They patted my shoulder. They radioed the Coast Guard. They brought me back to the mainland.

I am in my apartment now. The doors are locked. The windows are closed. I can hear the traffic outside, the normal sounds of a populated city.

Tomorrow, I will go to the precinct, to give my official statement. I will repeat the lie about the engine fire and the rogue wave, and the case will be closed as a tragedy at sea.

But I am leaving this record here.

There are spaces on this planet where light has never reached. There are deep, cold trenches where evolution stopped millions of years ago, leaving only hunger. We drag our hooks across the bottom, trying to pull up profit, dragging things up into the light that were never meant to leave the dark.

If you work on a boat. If you pull longlines from the deep water… please do not bring it to the shallows.