1976: The Borealis Expedition [Chapter 4]

The silence was suffocating, a weight that pressed down on the crew as they huddled together in the frozen darkness. The Borealis had become a tomb, suspended in the depths of the subglacial lake, far from any hope of rescue. The lights had long since died, leaving them with nothing but the faint glow of the frost-covered emergency panels. The temperature continued to drop, and with it, the last vestiges of warmth and life seemed to seep away, leaching into the void that surrounded them.

Dr. Ilmar Guttorm stared into the blackness, his breath coming in shallow, ragged gasps. He could feel the frost creeping up his limbs, numbing his senses, slowing his thoughts. Each inhalation felt like it scraped against ice, his lungs burning with the effort. He tried to focus, to think of a way out, but his mind kept returning to the shadow—the immense, unknowable presence that had wrapped itself around the submarine, pulling them into the abyss.

"What do we do now?" a voice whispered, trembling with fear.

Ilmar didn’t respond. There was nothing to say. Every attempt to re-establish power had failed. The communication systems were dead. Even the most basic life support systems had been compromised. They were adrift in a sea of darkness, and the only sound was the faint creak of the submarine’s hull as it groaned under the immense pressure, as if the Borealis itself were giving in to despair.

Minutes stretched into hours, or perhaps it was days. Time had lost all meaning in this place. The crew spoke in hushed whispers, their voices barely audible over the growing cold. They shared stories, memories, anything to keep the encroaching terror at bay. But even those faded as the frost thickened, as the realization that there was no escape settled in like a death sentence.

And then, just as they were on the brink of despair, the pulse returned.

It was softer this time, almost gentle, but it was unmistakable. The crew tensed, their breath catching in their throats. The pulse resonated through the walls, through their bodies, a slow, rhythmic beat that seemed to sync with their own heartbeats. It was as if the structure—or whatever lay within it—was calling to them, drawing them deeper into its embrace.

Ilmar felt it too, a pull, a compulsion to move, to follow the pulse to its source. He stood on unsteady legs, the frost cracking beneath his feet, and took a step toward the nearest hatch. The others watched him with wide, fearful eyes, but none of them moved to stop him. Perhaps they felt it too, the inevitability of what was to come, the understanding that their fate was no longer their own.

With trembling hands, Ilmar reached for the hatch, his fingers numb and clumsy against the controls. He hesitated for only a moment, a fleeting thought of the world above, of the life he was leaving behind. But that life felt distant now, as insubstantial as the frost that clung to his skin. And then he pushed the hatch open.

A rush of frigid air swept into the compartment, carrying with it the scent of something ancient, something long buried beneath the ice. The pulse grew louder, more insistent, as if urging him forward. Ilmar stepped through the hatch, into the darkness beyond.

The others followed, one by one, drawn by the same inexorable force. They moved like sleepwalkers, their minds numb to the cold, to the fear, to the questions that had once consumed them. There was only the pulse, guiding them deeper into the structure, deeper into the unknown.

The corridor was narrow, lined with walls of smooth, metallic stone that seemed to absorb the light, leaving only shadows. The pulse quickened as they moved, a steady rhythm that filled the air, the walls, the very marrow of their bones. Ilmar could feel it now, not just in his ears, but in his chest, in his head, a low, thrumming vibration that drowned out all thought, all resistance.

They came to a vast chamber, its ceiling lost in the darkness above, its walls curving inward like the ribs of some ancient, slumbering beast. The pulse was deafening here, a cacophony that reverberated through the chamber, shaking the ground beneath their feet. And at the center of it all, something waited—a shape, indistinct in the gloom, but vast, towering, impossibly old.

Ilmar fell to his knees before it, overwhelmed by a wave of emotion that he couldn’t name, couldn’t comprehend. The others did the same, their eyes wide, their expressions blank. There was no fear now, no terror, only a strange, almost reverent calm. The cold that had once numbed their bodies now felt distant, irrelevant.

The shape moved, a slow, deliberate shift that sent ripples through the chamber. The pulse intensified, a drumming that filled their ears, their minds, until it was all they could hear, all they could feel. The walls began to close in, the ceiling dropping lower, the floor rising beneath them, but still, they did not move. They could not move. They were held in place by something far greater than themselves.

And then, as suddenly as it had begun, the pulse stopped.

The silence was absolute, a void that swallowed everything—the fear, the cold, the sense of self. Ilmar’s vision blurred, the edges of the chamber dissolving into darkness. He felt himself falling, sinking into the void, but there was no fear, no panic. Only acceptance. Only peace.

The last thing he saw before the darkness claimed him was the shape, looming above them, its form shifting, changing, as if it were both there and not there at the same time. And then even that was gone, swallowed by the black.

When the rescue team arrived at the coordinates, they found nothing but an empty expanse of ice. The drill site was gone, the hole sealed over as if it had never existed. There was no trace of the Borealis, no sign that it had ever been there. Only the ice, stretching out in all directions, unbroken, untouched.

The mission was declared a failure, the crew lost to the unforgiving depths of Nordvaal. The official report cited natural causes—an equipment malfunction, a catastrophic failure. But the rumors persisted, whispers of something else, something that had been disturbed, something that had awakened.

And somewhere, in the depths of the ice, the pulse began to beat once more.