There’s a kind of silence underwater you won’t find anywhere else.

  Not real silence.

  Something thicker. Heavier.

  Like the ocean itself is holding its breath with you.

  I used to hate that part—

  The moment the noise cuts out,

  when air becomes a currency,

  and your heartbeat is the loudest thing in the world.

  But tonight…

  I went looking for it.

  The platform was empty.

  The other divers had already gone home. Their suits hung drying in the wind, their lamps shut off.

  I stood alone, staring at the horizon.

  The sky had turned a dirty shade of blue—

  the kind that warns you the world’s not doing so great.

  The wind had picked up. The rusted panels behind me creaked and clattered.

  And in front of me…

  nothing.

  Just the sea.

  Endless. Still. Waiting.

  And somewhere far out there, invisible but undeniably present—

  the forbidden zone.

  They used to say that place was a hub for old-tech extraction.

  Before everything drowned.

  Before water became more valuable than gold.

  Now, they just say one thing:

  Nobody comes back.

  That’s why no one dives there anymore.

  Not even the S ranks divers.

  And yet…

  that’s exactly where my father went.

  He never resurfaced.

  I checked my belt.

  Two small lights.

  A backup oxygen capsule.

  A rusted harpoon I barely knew how to use.

  My heart was pounding like a war drum.

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  I took one last breath—

  And dove.

  The water swallowed me whole.

  Cold. Heavy. Silent.

  The surface light vanished within seconds.

  Around me: muddy blue haze, flickers of shadow, particles drifting like dust in a forgotten attic.

  My lamp barely pierced the dark.

  I descended fast.

  Too fast.

  My ears screamed. My skull throbbed.

  And then I saw it.

  A shape.

  Half-buried between the crumbled remains of a sunken structure.

  Small, but glowing—

  Artificial.

  I swam closer.

  It was a fragment.

  About the size of a stone, clear but threaded with glowing lines.

  Like veins made of code.

  It looked like it had been waiting for me.

  I reached for it.

  But right then—

  my capsule snapped loose.

  A jolt.

  A hiss.

  And water crashed into my lungs.

  I panicked.

  Clawed at nothing.

  Swallowed wrong. Coughed into the abyss.

  My chest was on fire.

  My limbs flailed helplessly.

  I was drowning.

  But just as the world began to blur,

  I heard a woman's voice.

  Calm.

  Clear.

  "System initialization."

  Something appeared in front of my eyes.

  Or maybe inside my mind.

  A floating window—

  translucent, blue-tinted, ringed with unfamiliar symbols.

  Suspended mid-water.

  [ Welcome, test subject: KAI ]

  I didn’t understand.

  Couldn’t breathe.

  Could barely think.

  But the thing kept updating, line by line.

  [ Subject remodeling in progress... ]

  Then came the pain.

  Not normal pain.

  My skeleton vibrated.

  My muscles twitched violently.

  Bones cracked from the inside.

  My ribcage opened.

  Collapsed.

  Opened again.

  As if my body was being rewritten—

  line by line.

  I wanted to scream.

  But I was still underwater.

  My heart raced.

  My brain buckled—

  And everything went dark...