Lewis stumbles down the Narwhal’s darkened hallways towards the bunk room. He’s been awake for far too long, trying to keep himself busy, telling himself that the ship needs his leadership now more than ever and that he has to push himself to the limit to keep everyone from falling apart. The reality is that there’s precious little for him to do besides watch over the routine the crew runs through to keep the nuclear submarine operating until help arrives. Lewis forces himself to keep going, not because he needs to, but because he’s afraid. He fears giving himself a break because if he does slow down, he might stop entirely. He feels the strong desire to sit and wallow, to succumb to despair and do nothing, to spiral into a deep depression. He’s terrified by the dreams that haunt him every time his head hits a pillow. He dare not stop moving because it’s only action that wards off the gloom, the utter despair plaguing each and every person aboard. He’s uncomfortable with such weakness.

Lewis was never weak. He was muscular and tall physically, bold and unflinching mentally. In all his years in the Navy, in all his time leading ship crews, he never felt what he feels now. And that is the scariest thing of all. To feel fear where none has ever been before. To find that the strength he once had is not enough to keep control anymore. To find the limit of his fortitude is almost worse than the nightmares testing it, and the monster who threatens to bring everything crashing down.

But everyone needs to sleep eventually. Try as one may to stay awake, sleep comes, willing or not and after hitting his head on a pole in the control room after falling asleep standing up, he’s finally been convinced by his crew to take a nap. Lewis, as captain, has his own quarters for resting in, but they’re lonely, and he doesn’t want to be alone. He tells himself and others that it’s to keep everyone close by, to ensure the safety of his crew and the civilians he’s got on his ship. He tells himself he’s not afraid of the dark, and of the noises Julia makes outside.

It’s pitch black, and though he has a flashlight on his person, he chooses not to use it to save battery. He knows the Narwhal well enough to make do without it and guides himself by touch and memory alone. His calloused hands run along the submarine’s steel walls, guiding him to the bunks.

But just as he’s about to turn in and find an open bed, Lewis glances past the room’s entrance and sees a small light peeking out from around the corner at the end of the hall. Someone’s taken the flashlight from the bunk room. And he almost ignores it, thinking someone has gotten up to use the bathroom and nothing more. He takes one step into the bunk room and his sleep-deprived brain perks up for a moment as he remembers that the bathroom is down the hall in the opposite direction, nearer to the mess hall. The only thing down at that end of the hallway is the door to the aft compartment. He stops and listens and hears hushed voices drifting down the corridor.

Lewis starts toward the light. As he approaches it flits away and vanishes, the voices quiet down.

“Secret meetin’?” Lewis asks as he turns the corner.

Jessica stands against the wall, along with two of his own sailors, an older woman with thin gray hair who had always gone by Rat, and a younger man with a shaved head and missing arm, Carter. They were his torpedo crew. Jessica holds the flashlight against her stomach, but, seeing they’ve been caught, she lets the light shine back on the floor.

“I-It’s nothing,” Jessica says. “I got lost is all, they brought me the flashlight.”

She darts off back down the hallway, leaving Lewis with his sailors, and he moves to block their own escape as the light in Jessica’s hands fades. Once the patter of her feet ends, he speaks to them in the darkness.

“So, wanna tell me what that was all ‘bout?”

Rat sighs. “She came to us a few minutes ago asking about torpedos.”

“She wanted to blow her up, the monster,” Carter adds.

“And what’d you say?” Lewis asks.

“The truth,” Carter replies, “that we don’t have torpedos even if we did wanna shoot the damned thing.”

“And what do you think?”

They’re silent for a moment, but Rat responds. “I don’t think a torpedo would do anything to her even if we had one.”

Lewis nods. “Right.” He lowers his voice to a whisper. “Keep on her, will ya? Suggestion like that, I’m worried all this is getting to her, makin’ her desperate.”

“Yes sir,” the sailors say in unison.

Lewis steps out of their way and lets them go. He listens to their feet on the floor, their hands brushing along the wall as they return to their post.

Pushing his exhaustion aside, Lewis thinks on what he’s just witnessed. Jessica was not a threat, at least not directly, but she showed him something that could become one in time. And this could prove to become a bigger problem even than the creature lurking outside. Jessica was showing it the most, but cracks were forming in the mental state of the people on board--including himself--and he didn’t like it. For a captain, the psychological health of his crew and everyone on his ship was paramount. In an emergency situation, his job is to see to everyone’s safety, and desperation, anxiety, and terror would threaten that. A desperate person, a person driven by their fear and raw instincts doesn’t think clearly, they’re willing to do things a rational person would see fault in. More than that, desperation can evolve, it can spread from person to person, amplifying into hysteria.

Lewis starts down the hall. He needs to talk to Bill before the cracks he’s witnessed in the actions of one person become an unstoppable earthquake that tears through the rest of his people. Everyone is vulnerable, weakened, fractured, and he can’t allow things to worsen by their own hands.

He turns into the bunk room and flips on his flashlight. The dull yellow glow lights up the room and Lewis can see Jessica already back in her bunk, face turned toward the wall. He ignores her and goes to Bill.

Bending over, Lewis puts a hand on Bill’s shoulder. He jolts awake right away, almost slamming his head on Charlie’s bunk above. Luckily he catches himself before he leaves himself with a concussion, but he still seems shaken and takes several long breaths as he pulls himself away from the nightmare.

“What is it?” Bill asks.

“Come with me,” Lewis grumbles.

Lewis turns and leaves the bunk room, he doesn’t turn around to wait for Bill. Sitting up slowly, Bill watches him leave, then gets up to follow. Rushing to catch up, Bill follows close behind and the two end up in the same place Jessica had been. Lewis flips off his flashlight once they're out of sight and earshot.

Plunged into darkness, Lewis clears his throat. “Just caught Jessica askin’ about launching a torpedo at Julia, figured you oughta know since she’s one of yours.”

Bill shakes his head. “What? What did you say? You’re not--”

Lewis chuckles, it’s weak but genuine, the first real laugh he’s had since the crash. “Ain’t got one onboard even if we wanted to use one.” The laughter fades from his voice, and he quiets down, taking on a grim mood. “But that’s not the point, I’m not concerned about her asking, and I’m concerned about why.”

“She’s afraid, weighing her options. I don’t blame her for wondering if we might be able to just blow her up and be done with it, as naive and ill-advised as it is.”

“Frantic’s the way I see it, Bill. Can’t have people losing their cool, taking stupid action. I understand we’re all scared, I’ll admit that to you--don’t go telling nobody I said that--but we can’t have people gettin’ worked up into a frenzy. It’ll only make things worse.”

“I see,” Bill shakes his head. “You’re worried about--”

“I’m worried about people losing it, Bill. Losing it and draggin’ everybody else down with ‘em. It only takes one for the damn house of cards to come crumbling on down.”

“None of us are exactly feeling strong right now, what can we do? Everything going on is practically designed to stress us out.”

“Yeah, we’re all suffering, but we need to hold it together. The only way we do that is together, so if there’s a weak link--”

“Now hold up, none of us are weak links, Lewis. We can’t--”

“Lemme finish, Bill. I ain’t about to drastic action, not yet. Something like that’s only gonna make keeping it together tougher for everyone else. I got a couple of my guys to keep an eye on the girl, just to make sure she ain’t...you know...losing it. And I’m gonna try to cast a wider net myself. With all the chaos, I’ve been neglecting to keep an eye on how we’re all doing mentally. But I’m gonna be on the lookout for strange behavior now, and I want you to do the same.”

“And if we do think someone’s really cracking under the pressure? What then?”

Lewis pauses, putting together the right words. “We do what we gotta do. Isolation.”

“Lock them up? Seriously?”

“Just until we get outta here, Bill. Just to keep it from spreading around.”

“Still.” Bill swallows, feeling a tickle at the back of his throat, and a cold bead of sweat running down his spine. “Don’t you think that’s a bit extreme?”

“This whole fucked up situation is extreme, but if people start goin’ crazy it’s gonna be Hell down here.”

“It’s already Hell down here--”

Lewis opens his mouth to reply, but Bill continues before he can.

“--but alright. Just in case, I’ll keep my eyes peeled. But only if someone really goes off the deep end, okay? I know you’re thinking about all of us, I know you’re trying to do what’s best for everyone, but we can’t start locking people in closets just because they’re crying or something.”

“You have my word.” Lewis flicks his flashlight back on. “Let’s try to get some sleep now.”

They walk back to the bunks together.

Bill thinks about what he’s just agreed to. Jessica’s question was definitely concerning. She was smart, smart enough to catch his attention for this mission, but in these conditions, she was starting to act less on her intellect and more on instinct. Her fear was taking hold and making her reckless. But scarier than knowing someone else was falling to the pressure was knowing he might follow her. Even as he lies in his bunk, he knows he’s thinking differently than he would normally. His sleep-deprived mind--addled with fear, stuck in a cramped, dark submarine--wasn’t letting him think clearly. He was on the razor’s edge, and so was everyone else. He prays it doesn’t come down to taking the action Lewis proposed, but he’s also totally aware of how bad things have gotten and how much worse than can still get before help arrives.