I glide through the silent void, the water heavy around me. Darkness presses in from all sides, comforting, familiar. My arms ripple outward, feeling the currents, tasting the sea. A pulse, a thrum that echoes deep in my being, guides me. I am drawn toward it, though I do not know why. I only know that I must.

The glow appears, faint at first, like a distant star glimmering through the ocean’s eternal night. It grows as I approach, pulsing with the rhythm of something alive—yet alien. My arms curl inward in hesitation, my body shrinking into the safety of myself, but the thrum in my mind is too strong. It commands me forward.

There, among the rocks that jut like jagged teeth, I see them. Creatures unlike any I have ever known, not of the fluid and soft-fleshed kind, but rigid, brittle, caged in something—unnatural. They do not sway with the currents, do not flow with the tides. They move—but not like us. They walk on limbs, as though the water does not hold them. How can they do this?

I watch from a crevice, my skin shifting to match the coral beside me. They do not see me, these beasts with the cages. I taste the water they disturb with their awkward movements. It is wrong. They are wrong. Something inside them is… broken.

I watch as one of them falls, its legs folding in a strange, disjointed way. The others gather around it, making low sounds that vibrate through the water. I move closer, cautiously unfurling an arm to probe the boundary of my hiding place.

And then, I see it.

The one that fell is not like the others anymore. The soft outer layer that holds its form—its skin—has been torn, revealing something beneath. Something hard, sharp. I recoil. There, inside the creature, where flesh should flow and shift, is a structure—a thing, white and jagged. A bloody coral grows inside this person.

I blink, confused. I do not understand. There should be nothing inside but fluid and muscle, yet this—this is a prison, a fortress of bone and death. How can they live with such a thing inside them? My arms twitch with unease.

I dare to touch the fallen one, just a gentle brush, a taste. The surface is smooth, cold, lifeless. The thrum inside my mind grows louder, a warning, but I cannot pull away. The hard, white thing—the skeleton, the word comes to me from the thrum—stares back at me, empty sockets where eyes should be, mocking my ignorance.

These creatures are not alive, not in the way I am. They are something else. Something ancient and wrong. The coral that grows inside them is not natural, not of the sea. It speaks of things beyond the depths, things I cannot comprehend.

I retreat, faster now, my arms spiraling through the water in panic. The thrum chases me, growing louder, sharper. I can feel it clawing at the edges of my mind, filling me with visions of towering structures of bone and stone, of beings that defy the natural order. Creatures with skeletons.

I do not belong here.

I dive deeper, into the safety of the blackness below, but I can still feel it—the thrum of the bone-caged creatures. They walk where they should not. They live where nothing should live. And they are coming.

The deep will not be safe for much longer.