A year had passed since the Santos, a massive cruise ship, disappeared. No one knew what had happened. The ship had been in open water, near the stretch of ocean where the stars barely seemed to touch the sea. Families, friends, travelers—it didn't matter. The entire ship had vanished.
There were no distress signals, no bodies, no wreckage. The ship had simply disappeared into the vastness of the ocean, swallowed whole by the abyss. At first, there were whispers of pirates or storms, but the silence that followed soon erased those possibilities. The ship had vanished in the place where no one dared look, where the ocean felt too still, too quiet.
Then came the search.
A team was gathered, a mix of experts, scientists, and sailors, all brought together for a single goal: find the Santos and bring back whatever was left. They departed in a new ship, The Orion, sleek and swift, its hull designed for speed, as if that might protect them from the terrible mystery that surrounded the disappearance.
The waters around the area where the Santos had been last seen were unnaturally calm. There was no wind, no waves. It was as if the sea had simply gone still in anticipation. As they sailed deeper into the forgotten patch of the ocean, the temperature began to drop, even though it should have been warm.
"We're here," one of the scientists said, staring out into the expanse of blue-gray water. His voice held a strange emptiness, like he had already given up on finding the ship.
No one answered. The crew—what little remained—moved about quietly, as if they knew something was wrong. It was as if they could all sense it. The unease. The dread. The overwhelming feeling that they were venturing somewhere they weren't supposed to go.
Hours stretched into days. No signs. Nothing. Just the eerie, unbroken expanse of the sea. No shipwreck. No debris. The sea, still and silent, holding its secrets deep below the surface.
But on the third night, something changed.
The air felt heavier now. Colder. The sound of water splashing against the hull had stopped. No longer the normal, rhythmic sway of the ship—just the stillness. And then, the first scream.
It was an odd sound, distant at first, barely perceptible. A low, rumbling wail that seemed to rise from beneath the waves. It carried through the night air, a long, terrifying note.
At first, the others dismissed it. Perhaps it was some kind of animal. But as the hours passed, the sound grew louder. Angrier.
And then the ship began to feel wrong.
The deck creaked with strange noises—like a faint scraping of metal against rock, but louder, deeper. And there was something else, too, something colder than the night air.
"We're not alone," someone whispered. It was barely audible, lost in the rustle of the windless air.
Then, the sea began to move. The stillness broke, but it wasn't from waves. It was from something larger—something that thrashed beneath the surface. Something that couldn't be contained.
The water around The Orion bubbled, a swirling black mass that seemed to draw closer, as if the ocean itself had become a hungry, endless pit.
One of the crew, a young man named Ivan, was the first to go. The sound of his scream was a mix of shock and disbelief as the floor beneath him cracked open with a deafening snap. Before anyone could react, he was gone, swallowed whole by the sea. The others froze, staring into the inky blackness where Ivan had disappeared.
"What the hell was that?" someone gasped, stumbling back from the edge.
Then, the air seemed to pulse. The ship buckled under some unseen force. It was the beginning of something much worse.
There was no time to think. No time to plan. The sea moved with violent, overwhelming force, the water rising in great, dark masses, almost as if the ocean itself had become a predator, seeking its next meal. The Orion trembled, its steel frame groaning under the pressure.
One by one, they began to vanish.
First, it was the cook, a broad-shouldered man named Thomas. Then, it was the engineer, a quiet, thoughtful woman named Riley. Their screams, faint at first, quickly became lost in the tumult as the ship started to turn, as if drawn by some invisible hand into the depths of the water.
Every so often, something would appear just beneath the surface—a glimpse of something massive, its dark shape twisting and writhing beneath the ocean. Something that had been waiting for them. It was only when it rose, when it finally broke the surface of the water, that they saw what it was.
It was monstrous.
A great, terrifying mass, covered in wet, glistening skin. Its arms—its tentacles—rose from the ocean like ancient, forgotten pillars. Its eyes—if they could be called eyes—were black and empty, endless voids that seemed to stare at them with malicious intent.
"God help us," someone muttered, but the words barely broke the silence before it happened.
The sea came alive. It roared as if it were a living thing, pulling everything in its grasp into the deep. The last of the crew who were still on deck were swallowed, torn apart by the massive arms of the creature. It was beyond anything they had prepared for, beyond anything they could have imagined.
There was no escape. There never had been.
Ben, the lone survivor, stumbled toward the ship's bow, his heart pounding, his breath shallow. He saw the mass of the Kraken rise, towering over the boat, its tendrils wrapping around the hull, pulling with strength that could shatter mountains. There was no mercy in its eyes, only hunger.
The ship groaned under the strain, and Ben had a single thought, one that filled him with such a horrible, crushing realization that it paralyzed him. The Santos had come here first. It had been taken in the same way. And now, the Kraken had found them.
He ran, not knowing where to go, just desperate to put space between himself and the thing that had consumed them all. But the ship was too small. The Kraken was too powerful.
Ben reached the edge, his eyes scanning for something, anything, that could save him. There was nothing. Just the sea. And the thing beneath it.
He turned. The tentacle lashed out, faster than he could move, and grabbed him by the legs, pulling him toward the depths. Ben screamed, a broken sound of terror, as the dark waters enveloped him. His last thought, as the cold and dark filled his lungs, was that the ocean had always been waiting. And now, it had claimed him too.
But before the dark could swallow him whole, he felt the Kraken's cold tendrils tighten around him. It didn't kill him, not immediately. Instead, it dragged him, pulled him deeper into the void.
As the world went silent, only the slow, methodical crushing of his body remained. The ocean was patient. It would wait for what came next.