The research pod's metal sang beneath Kane's feet, a dirge of corroded steel that vibrated through his boot soles and up into his jaw until he tasted copper pennies and old blood. Tears mixed with the arctic water dripping down his face - not from fear, but from the sheer absurdity of his situation.

"Ninety-nine years," he whispered, watching his breath crystallize in the frigid air. "I signed up for a three-month study, and instead I get to play tag with Moby Dick's evil cousin."

Through the competing lights—stark industrial floods fighting crimson emergency strips—Kane watched the Leviathan arrange its grotesque bulk. Ninety-nine years of evolution in these pressurized depths had twisted the creature far beyond its whale origins. Its flesh rippled like oil on water, transparent in places to reveal horrors that should have remained hidden.

"You're one ugly son of a bitch," Kane muttered, his voice shaking as much from cold as terror. "Bet you were a lot prettier before SubTech got their hands on you."

The chamber yawned vast and dark around him, but even its cathedral-like expanse felt cramped against the Leviathan's thirty meters of corrupted flesh. Between Kane and salvation stretched an olympic pool's length of water so cold it burned—sixty meters of liquid nitrogen darkness that he'd have to cross to reach the half-corroded sign that promised hope: "Advanced Weapons Division."

"Of course," he choked out a laugh that held more desperation than humor. "The only way out is through you. Because why would anything in this nightmare be easy?" His voice cracked on the last word, raw emotion bleeding through.

Through patches of glass-clear tissue, faces pressed against the Leviathan's skin like drowning photographers caught behind ice. Their expressions cycled between ecstasy and horror, mouths working in silent screams. "I'm sorry," Kane whispered to those trapped faces. "I'm so damn sorry this happened to you."

His fingers tightened on Pierce's pistol as tears froze on his cheeks. "Aria, if you can hear me in there... I could really use some help. Hell, I'd even take one of your unnecessarily detailed analyses right about now."

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The Sirens took up positions among the chamber's support columns, their bodies more throat than flesh. "A whale and his backup singers," Kane quipped, hysteria creeping into his voice. "Should've brought my dancing shoes instead of this goddamn gun."

Lurkers slipped through the shadows with predatory grace. "And the whole gang's here! Great. Fan-fucking-tastic." His laughter held an edge of madness now. "You know what I was doing ninety-nine years ago today? Filing quarterly reports. QUARTERLY REPORTS!"

The freezing water had already numbed every inch of exposed skin. Even his enhanced metabolism couldn't fight temperatures that would kill a normal human in minutes. "Can't feel my toes," he said conversationally to the approaching horror. "Can't feel my fingers. But I can feel you in my head, you bastard. All those lives you took, all those minds you ate..."

The Leviathan struck without warning. Kane threw himself sideways off the research pod, screaming as arctic water closed over his head. "FUCK! COLD COLD COLD!"

Through the strobing hell of red and white, he watched his last safe harbor crumple in the Leviathan's maw. "That was rude!" he shouted through chattering teeth, his words leaving his lips in frozen bubbles. "We were having a moment here!"

A Lurker darted past his left side. "Not now, fish stick!" He kicked hard, twisting away. "Can't you see I'm having a crisis?"

The Leviathan's massive eye turned to track his movement, its pupil contracting in the harsh flood lights. Inside its transparent skull, the massive brain pulsed with stolen thoughts. Kane felt tears mixing with the freezing water on his face.

"You know what?" His voice cracked with equal parts terror and determination. "I didn't survive the end of the world, wake up ninety-nine years later, and absorb some poor bastard's combat skills just to become whale food. You hear me?"

The pistol's markings pulsed ever weaker against his numb palm. Sixty meters of arctic water stretched ahead, past horrors that had spent a century learning to hunt in these sunless depths. Kane looked at the weapon, then at the distant door, and finally at the monstrosity between him and survival.

"Well," he snarled, watching his breath turn to ice crystals in front of his face, "let's see if those stolen minds taught you how to catch someone who's really, really tired of this shit."

Time to swim. Time to discover if his enhanced body could move fast enough to survive in this killing zone where even light itself seemed to drown in the depths. Time to find out if determination alone could overcome a century of evolved horror.

"SubTech," Kane whispered the company name like a curse as he tensed for his desperate swim, "you are getting one hell of a negative review when this is over."