Lewis assesses the room as soon as he’s regained his composure. Most of the crew remain planted in their seats, while Bill and Charlie seem to have recovered well. They’ve taken to leaning against the wall, looking more bewildered than injured. Piper is a bit worse off, her head is bleeding and she’s taken one of the crew seats while she gets it looked at.

“It’s fine, really,” Piper says, as the Chief of the Boat pads the wound. “Don’t you have better things to do...sir?”

“Name’s Harley, and the well being of people onboard is one of my jobs.”

Sirens of varying types wail through the submarine, each one signaling its own major problem with the boat until Lewis orders them shut off. As the room quiets down, he takes a deep breath, then goes into crisis mode.

“Alright, I can hear myself think now. Get me a damage report and send someone down to check on everyone. Probably more injured down there.”

Finishing Piper’s bandage, Harley jumps into action and gets the crew moving again.

“Engine room’s gone, sealed but flooded entirely. Minor leaks in the mess, torpedo room, auxiliary engine room. Electrics are running but the lights are out. Sonar’s down, and the forward ballast is flooded, probably smashed ‘em both when the nose hit the bottom.”

“Reactor?” Lewis asks.

“Readings are good, no leakage.”

Lewis nods. “Injuries?”

“Other than Piper, we’re all fine here.” Harvey picks up an intercom receiver and presses down on the side. “All stations report.”

A voice comes through right away. “Mess. Bit banged up, but we’re all here.”

“Bunks. Same on our end, quite the rude awakening.”

“Reactor. We’ve got one with a head injury, unconscious, but stable.”

“Maneuvering, most of the engine room’s here with us, but a couple of guys couldn’t make it through before the bulkheads sealed.”

“Shit,” Lewis says. “Is that everyone?”

Harvey nods. “Torpedo room and aux engine room were unmanned.”

“I’ll take the comms,” Lewis says, grabbing the receiver. “Glad to hear from those of you who made it. We’ll address those who didn’t later, right now we’re on damage control. We need engineers in the mess, torpedo room, and aux engine room for leaks. Also, Oman, if you’re able, check out the electrics, see if we can’t get the lights back on. We’ll brief once the situation is stabilized, until then, everybody else sit tight.”

He sets down the communicator and walks over to Charlie. She’s leaning against the back wall, near the exit, staring at the floor bewildered. She doesn’t even notice Lewis approaching until he puts his hand on her shoulder.

“Good call with sonar, kid,” he says. “Seems like it left us alone for now.”

Charlie nods, taking slow, deep breaths and trying to steady herself. “I’m gonna go downstairs, help where I can.”

“Go check on your people.” Lewis turns to Bill. “I’m gonna need you up here, you’re the real boss here.”

“I’m good, fine,” Bill replies.

Lewis turns back to Harley. “Send the distress call, the sooner we get it out there, the sooner we can get the fuck out of this mess.”

Downstairs, Charlie finds the rest of the researchers in the mess hall. They’ve come through relatively unharmed, but in the corner of one of the booths, Ernie embraces a crying Jessica.

“She okay?” Charlie asks.

“Yeah, not hurt, just rattled.”

“I think we all are.”

***

Hours pass with Lewis and Bill coordinating to keep the Narwhal and her occupants from falling apart. Crew and researchers gather in the mess hall once things have started to relax. People have calmed down, but all that’s done is given time for the adrenaline to wear off and for the true fear of their reality to start setting in. Lewis stands in front of everyone, unwavering; he projects authority and strength when he knows the people onboard need it the most. Even as doubts and anxieties try to push their way to the forefront of his mind, he refuses them, determined to be the rock that a captain needs to be for the people around him.

“Good to see so few of you were seriously injured. Unfortunately, four brave sailors weren’t so lucky. A moment of silence would be appropriate, but we ain’t got the luxury. Right now our most precious resource is time. Distress signal’s sent, now we gotta wait. We don’t know how long it’ll take for help to come, though, so we gotta be prepared for the worst. Now, so long as this old girl can hold out, air and water ain’t gonna be an issue; benefit of being trapped in a modern sub. Food’s the one thing the Narwhal can’t make for us though, so effective immediately, we’re gonna be rationing--strictly.”

Lewis finishes up his speech on the state of the ship, then pulls one of his crew aside to speak privately with him. Oman is the Narwhal’s electrical engineer. He’s younger than a lot of retirees on board, having been discharged from service early on account of a leg injury that left him with a limp. But with his hands just as precise as ever, Lewis brought him out civilian contracting to join his team.

“I notice the lights aren’t back up,” Lewis says. “What’s the problem?”

“I…” Oman begins but then shakes his head. “You’ll probably just wanna see for yourself, sir. Maybe bring one of these science-types too.”

Lewis raises an eyebrow but doesn’t ask any more questions. Bill is standing in the corner of the room with all of his little crew, they’re more shaken than Lewis’s team, especially Jessica, who hasn’t even spoken since the crash, but when he sees Lewis looking his way, he steps over.

“Field trip. Come with?” Lewis says.

Bill looks back to his team. None of them would have ever been in such a terrible situation if it wasn’t for him, and the responsibility weighs heavy on his shoulders. There’s regret plunging a deep, cold knife into his heart and he isn’t eager to waltz off and leave them when their fears are still so freshly instilled. But, stronger than most, Charlie catches his eye. She gestures for him to go. Strength and resolve on her face, she silently tells Bill that she can handle things for the moment.

“Sure,” Bill answers Lewis and the two exit the mess hall.

The Narwhal, already a cramped and cold place, is painted in a wholly new light now. There are puddles of water on the floor, dripping in from the crippled hull and sputtering from damaged piping. Sparks still fly from torn cable and wiring, providing brief flashes of light in the otherwise dark corridors. Oman leads the way, flashlight in hand. The dripping water, the creaking of the ship, and the irregular lighting have turned the Narwhal into a veritable haunted house. Separated from the rest of the crew, their voices growing distant as the group heads toward the ship’s rear, Bill feels a twinge of fear that certainly makes it feel like one. A loud clunk from somewhere makes him leap from his skin.

“Careful,” Lewis says, “touch the wrong wire--or something in contact with the wrong wire--and you’ll get fried.”

Bill nods and tries to keep his reflexes a bit more under control.

Just outside the reactor room is a narrow little door that leads into something resembling a closet. Like a closet, inside there are few things stored, mostly cleaning supplies, a mop and bucket, but the room is more important than that. There’s a big fuse box on the wall and it controls all the electrics for the forward compartment of the ship. They can’t all squeeze inside, so Oman just shines his flashlight in and lets Lewis and Bill take a look from the hallway.

The problem is right away apparent to them. The fuse box has large cables running out in every direction. One such cable runs along the wall opposite the door. This wall also represents the barrier between the inside of the submarine and sea and at the moment, it’s been punctured by an enormous, sharp tooth. A small amount of seawater sprays into the room around the edge of the hole, but for the moment the tooth is holding back most of the water. Jutting into the ship almost two feet, the tooth has pierced the cable in question.

“I take it, that's our lighting?” Lewis asks.

Oman nods.

“Can we fix it?”

“Doubt it. Cut clean through like that, saltwater squirting all over the place, we’re lucky it didn’t short the rest of the box.”

“Well, either way, we gotta get that outta there. No way it holds the pressure back for long. I’ll get someone down here soon.” Lewis looks at Bill. “Guessin’ you’re gonna want a closer look at the thing once we get it out?”

“It’s enormous.” Bill steps into the tiny room to get a closer look.

“Sea monster.” Lewis smirks. “We’ll see who calls us sailors superstitious now.”

“Watch yourself in there,” Oman says. “I shut the breaker to the lights, but you never know.”

Bill nods and steps back out, content enough to have seen it and willing to wait until it's removed to get up close and personal with their attacker, or at least a piece of it.

He and Lewis head back up to the control room while Oman continues working on other electrical damage. The moment of awe at seeing the monstrous tooth fades, and once again, Bill feels a leaden weight on his chest. Powerful guilt and anxiety well up within him. But Lewis catches on quickly, always keeping a finger on the pulse of those around him, and he stops before they get back to the mess hall.

“You know,” Lewis says, “we all signed up for this.”

Bill laughs. “Nobody signed up for this, man. I didn’t even sign up for this.”

“Exploring the unexplored ain’t never been a safe thing, Bill. The New World, the Challenger Deep, the fuckin’ Moon. There’s always risk.”

“But did everybody really expect this level of risk?”

“I did.”

“I don’t know if I did. And if I didn’t know, then wasn’t it misleading of me to bring all these other people here?”

“Ain’t nobody here that can’t think for themselves, Bill. Risk assessment is a basic animal instinct. We all judged the danger we thought possible to be worth the risk. Now maybe some of us were off the mark. Hell, we all were, nobody was ready for this risk, but it was obvious we weren’t coming down here for a pleasure cruise. So don’t start blaming yourself or some other horseshit. You’re down here for a reason, ain’t you?”

Bill furrows his brow. “Are you saying I should be working? Like, the mission? Now?”

“Well, maybe not right this moment. Things have gotta stabilize a bit, but after that, you should think about it.” Lewis leans in and whispers. “Once repairs are done, it's a waiting game, and we might be waiting a while. Idle hands are the Devil’s workshop, so give your people something to do to keep their minds off the abject shittiness of the present reality.”

Bill nods. “The distress call. What’s the chance we actually get outta here?”

Lewis sighs. “This stays between you and me. I’m sure some of my men are aware, but I don’t want the chaos that could break out if what I’m about to tell you was accepted as fact.” He clears his throat. “The logistics of a rescue here are gonna be a damned nightmare. They’ll get people down here eventually, I know that, but time ain’t on our side. Just getting a team mobilized is gonna ‘em a while. I don’t envy whatever government bastards are getting this job. Point is, even taking every precaution, every little step to keep us going, a million things could go wrong before help arrives. We could run out of food, or the water filter could stop working. The ship’s damage is extensive and patchwork repairs are only gonna get us so far; eventually, something’s gonna fail and she’s gonna crumple like a soda can. And that’s just the damage we know about, something else could fail at any moment and kill us before we’re even aware of the problem. And I don’t think I need to mention what happens if that thing comes back and has another run at us.”

Bill nods, taking a deep, shaken breath.

“Outlook is pretty shit, to say the least. But you and me are the leadership here, we stick together, put on a brave face. We do it because the people we’ve brought along need us to. They’re gonna look to us for strength and we damned better give it to ‘em, otherwise, we’re gonna have more problems to layer on top of this crippled boat. You’re a tough old dog, Bill. Let’s keep it together and maybe if we pray hard enough we’ll get outta here alive.”

Bolstered by his own pep talk, Lewis puts on a stern face, slaps Bill’s back, and walks, standing straight and tall, back to the mess hall.

As soon as they enter the room, Bill returns to his team. They’re quiet, different looks across their faces betray differing emotional states but all lead to the same discontented silence. Charlie takes Bill aside.

“How is everyone?” Bill asks. “Shaken, but, what else?”

“Scared, mostly. Jessica most of all. James and Max are trying to look tough, but we all feel the same thing,” Charlie replies.

Bill nods, understanding that he’s going to have to be the one to lift their spirits before they spiral into the void.

“Where’d Lewis take you off to?”

“There’s a tooth that broke right through the hull. Nothing of concern, they’re gonna pull it out and patch the hole, but it’s quite the sample. Love to look at it under some better lighting when we get the chance.”

“Is that really what we should be focused on?” Charlie asks.

Bill shrugs. “Not like we’ve got much else to do while we’re waiting. It’ll keep everyone’s minds off of things.”

“You’re probably right. But I think they’re gonna need a couple of days to recover before they can start working.”

“And you?”

“Yeah.”

Bill embraces Charlie. “Me too,” he says. “We’re gonna get out of this, I promise.”

Charlie nods into Bill’s shoulder, sniffling. “And hey,” she says, her voice a bit shaken. “We found her.”

The two separate and look at each other with half of a smile.

“Yeah.” Bill breaks eye contact and bites the inside of his cheek. His eyes search the floor for nothing.

“Maybe we should all try to get some sleep,” Charlie says.

“It is getting late.”

“And it’s been a long day.”

Bill and Charlie rouse their group and convince everybody to try and get some shuteye. The toll the accident has had on their bodies is great and though the idea of sleeping in such a dire situation makes it difficult at first, exhaustion takes hold soon enough and everyone falls asleep.

But their sleep, despite how tired they are, is not restful. All through the night, there isn’t a single soul sleeping on the Narwhal that finds it peacefully. Nightmares infiltrate their minds. Beds squeak and rumble as their inhabitants toss and turn, mumbling incoherent worries, terrors. Some wake with a jolt, finding only the pitch darkness of the sub to greet them. Their hearts pounding in their chests, eyes wide, they search their own thoughts for the remnants of their dreams and find only the fading impression of an indecipherable nightmare slipping out of their memory.