Sanitation shift. Low priority. Unarmed. Unwatched.
Two hours of scrubbing algae from service halls and checking for leaks that nobody cared enough to fix.
Another way to keep us busy. Distracted.
Another way to count down the days without noticing the walls growing closer.
Cass had warned me not to volunteer.
“Nothing good is hidden in the corners,” she said that morning, tracing lazy spirals into the condensation beading down the window by our bunk.
I thought she was just being paranoid.
Now I knew better.
It started with a misstep.
A wrong turn, maybe.
Or maybe the blue floor lights flickered at just the right time to send me walking down a service corridor I shouldn’t have noticed.
It bent at unnatural angles, the walls narrowing until my shoulders brushed each side. No signs. No piping labels. No security cameras tracking me.
The humming started there.
Faint.
Almost like tinnitus.
Except it wasn't in my ears — it was in my teeth. A vibration at the root, pulling forward like a magnet finding a nail.
The hallway ended in a wide arch.
Not a door.
An opening.
Beyond it: another observation room.
But not like the others.
This one had no benches. No educational plaques bolted to the walls with faded images of whales and conservation slogans. No railings to keep children from pressing sticky fingers to the glass.
Only the tank.
And it wasn’t listed on any of the maps I'd memorized from the cafeteria screens.
Not Tank 1A.
Not Tank 4B.
This was something else.
This was Tank Zero.
The tank stretched from floor to ceiling, a monolithic sheet of glass so wide it blurred into darkness at both ends.
Empty.
No coral.
No seaweed.
No fish.
Just dark water. And the humming.
The air in front of it buzzed, heavy with static, like the moments before a lightning strike.
I stepped closer, instinct prickling along my spine.
The water inside shifted — barely. As if stirred by a slow, sleeping breath.
I raised my hand, almost without thinking, and touched the glass.
It was cold.
But not in the dead, sterile way I'd expected.
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It was living cold.
Like touching something that dreamed of ice.
I leaned closer.
And saw—
Nothing.
No reflection.
Not even the green glow of the ceiling lights.
I looked down.
No hands. No body.
The glass didn’t show anything. Not me. Not the room behind me.
It showed only endless dark.
And somewhere, far below, a flicker of movement.
Too fast to catch.
Too deliberate to dismiss
A voice behind me shattered the silence.
“That’s where it began.”
I spun around so fast I nearly lost my footing.
A woman stood there.
Her gray uniform hung loosely off her frame, damp and rumpled like she hadn't changed it in days. Her hair was matted against her skull, and her eyes—
God, her eyes.
Wide. Red-veined. Shining with the kind of brittle clarity you only see in the truly broken.
She smiled at me.
Not like the Caretakers’ empty smiles.
Hers was real.
And it was terrified.
“What is this place?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
She laughed.
A sound like glass cracking under pressure.
“Tank Zero. The first door.”
I shook my head. "The first to what?"
“To them," she said, her voice dropping low, conspiratorial. "To the other side.”
I glanced back at the tank.
Still empty.
Still humming.
Still pulling.
"You shouldn't be here," she said, stepping closer, her fingers twitching like she wanted to grab me—or push me. "None of us should. They lied to you. To all of us. The Aquarium isn't a refuge."
She leaned in until her forehead almost touched mine.
"It’s a womb."
Footsteps echoed down the corridor.
Sharp. Mechanical.
The Caretakers.
The woman’s head snapped toward the sound, fear flashing like a spasm across her face.
"They’ll take you if they find you here," she hissed. "Just like they took the others."
She grabbed my hand, cold and shaking, and shoved something into it.
A keycard.
Cracked.
Worn.
With a symbol on it.
A spiral.
"Find the archives," she said. "Find Dr. Rhun. She knew."
The footsteps grew louder. Closer.
She released me and turned, running down the hall with a stumbling, awkward gait.
The last thing I saw was her gray uniform disappearing into the shadows.
Then silence.
I pocketed the keycard and backed away from Tank Zero, heart hammering.
The humming intensified, vibrating the floor beneath my feet.
The glass rippled.
Something was moving inside.
I turned and fled, not daring to look back.
The halls twisted around me like intestines.
No matter which way I turned, the walls seemed to breathe, exhaling cold mist in slow, rhythmic puffs.
I could hear whispers in the ventilation shafts.
Laughter.
Crying.
Once, I thought I heard my own voice calling from the next corridor, begging for help.
I didn't answer.
I finally stumbled back into a familiar wing — Maintenance Sector 2 — where the Caretakers shuffled past without acknowledging me.
I forced myself to walk slowly, casually, my hands tucked into the sleeves of my jumpsuit to hide the stolen card.
My bunk was empty when I returned.
Cass was gone.
The boy was gone.
Only the hum of the Aquarium remained.
Alive.
Waiting.
Watching.
I collapsed onto the mattress, chest heaving.
I closed my eyes, willing the spinning in my skull to stop.
Instead, I saw the tank again.
The darkness inside it.
The shape that moved.
The thing that had no reflection because it didn’t belong to this world.
I remembered the woman's words:
A womb.
Not a cage.
Not a prison.
A place meant to nurture something new.
Or something very, very old.
I dreamed of spirals.
Spirals inside skin.
Spirals inside lungs.
Twisting.
Unfolding.
Becoming.
The next morning, the boy returned.
He crawled up onto my bunk like a cat, staring down at me with wide, unblinking eyes.
"You touched it," he said.
It wasn’t a question.
I sat up slowly.
"You touched the glass," he said again, nodding, a thin trickle of saltwater leaking from his left nostril.
"How do you know?"
He smiled.
His teeth were too sharp now.
Because once you touch it, you can’t hide.
They see you.
Breakfast was a ritual by then.
Lines of us shuffling through the cafeteria.
Paste on trays. Silence. The steady hum of machinery that sounded too much like breathing.
I watched Cass from across the room.
She was different.
Paler. Thinner. Her skin glistened under the lights like she’d just climbed out of a pool.
Her eyes met mine.
And for a split second, they gleamed silver.
I looked away.
The Caretakers announced new assignments that day.
“Expansion Detail.”
A fancy name for construction shifts.
Building new wings.
Building downward.
Always downward.
They handed out uniforms and gear with mechanical efficiency.
When they called my name, a shiver ran down my spine.
I saw the others—blank-faced, slow-moving, obedient.
No one protested.
No one ever protested.
Not anymore.
That night, I found a note wedged under my pillow.
Handwritten.
Sloppy.
Wet.
One word:
Archives.
I held the cracked keycard tight in my hand and stared at the ceiling.
The humming was louder now.
Inside the walls.
Inside my chest.
A lullaby sung by the ocean’s forgotten children.
Tank Zero hadn’t been an accident.
It hadn’t been built as a refuge.
It was a mouth.
Still closed.
For now.
But it was starting to breathe.
And soon...
It would open.