The Submarine Jouney

"A team of researchers in a submarine is caught in a deadly sea storm. The instruments on board go haywire. They submerge deep into the ocean in search of calm waters until the storm passes. When it does, the sub surfaces but the instruments are still not functioning properly. They can’t get a fix on their location and cannot find land, which should be nearby. Then the researchers realize there are two moons in the sky and the constellations are completely unfamiliar.'




“Sir!” One of the pesky scientists broke my attention from the view of the ocean before us.

“What is it, Kasey?” I replied with a scowl. He looked at me for a moment. Damn, must be the other one.

“It’s Stanley, sir, James Stanley.” He shook his head before he continued, “our equipment is picking up a pretty bad storm heading out way. I suggest we descend to the ocean floor to avoid it.”

“What do you think this is, a space ship? The hull would never hold out against that sort of pressure.” The young man had the decency to look abashed, it didn’t stop him though.

“Sir, we need to descend to avoid the worst of it, maximum depth.” I frowned at him until he finally made the right choice and stopped talking. I set the submarine to descend to slightly above maximum depth. We were still about 2km from the ocean floor, but hopefully deep enough to avoid this storm that was coming.

Without warning, the scientific equipment began bleeping and whizzing as the two scientists rushed in frantic circles trying to stop it. What had I got myself into? For such intelligent people, my two passengers had no brains. They didn’t understand the restrictions of the submarine, how to manoeuvre it, how deep it could go. And worst yet, this Stanley boy kept thinking he was in charge. I frowned to myself and wondered how long it would take them to turn off the infuriating noises.

I flicked my display to show the storm’s location and path, it’d be above us in roughly an hour. I silently prayed to the Gods that we would be deep enough. I flicked the screen to show me an image of our surroundings. It was empty, not a single thing showed up around us, though it should have been able to detect the ocean floor from 2km.


“Sir?” Kasey’s quiet voice broke me from my puzzled musing.

“What is it Kasey?” I sighed, a wave of tiredness washed over me.

“The storm is accelerating, it should hit us within the next-” He broke off as the sub surged forward as though struck from behind. Frowning I turned back to my display, nothing showed up. The sub rocked again, tossed beneath the surface of the ocean.

“The storm must’ve hit us.” Kasey was crouched on the floor next to me, holding on tightly to the arm of my chair.

“Strap in, and make sure Stanley does the same.” I heard something crash behind me and turned to see Stanley standing there, panic written on his face. Maybe he would finally listen.

The storm passed quickly, but not without tossing the sub around like a rag doll. I looked behind me at my passengers, both were white-faced and wide-eyed. They looked relatively unscathed, there wasn’t anything loose in the sub that could have caused injury so it was purely shock that was affecting them. I had to get them to the surface, I didn’t want to deal with the legal issues from the dying of shock down here, even if it was unavoidable.

“We’re heading to the surface,” I announced to the silence. I flicked through the displays on the screen frowning. They must have been malfunctioning still; I couldn’t get a fix on anything. I tapped the screen irritably but the static that was showing wouldn’t clear. I shifted the sub into manual drive mode and began ascending slowly. We were a long way down and it would take us the better part of an hour to reach the surface. I scanned the ocean outside, looking for any obstacles that might cause problems but saw nothing, not even fish. I shook my head, I was probably making a big deal over nothing.

The water began to lighten as we neared the surface. It seemed normal at first, but as we came closer to the surface we saw the light that was penetrating the water above us was an eerie blue in colour, not the usual orange of the sun or pale white of the moon. A bad feel began to settle in me as I cautiously broke the surface. I looked around through the window but could see nothing but ocean as far as the horizon. That was odd, we had been only a few km from the coast when we went down. I opened the lid of the sub and clambered out. I couldn’t even see the boat we had come from. It wasn’t until I looked up that it all became clear.

The dread I had begun feeling inside intensified as I looked to the sky and saw there were now 2 moons. I searched the stars for a familiar constellation, but found nothing. The sky was foreign to me, and I suspected the ocean was as well. I climbed back into the sub to deliver the news to my shell-shocked companions.