A steady beeping sound.
Faint voices.
The scent of antiseptic filled the air. The weight of exhaustion clung to Jake’s body, his limbs felt like lead. His ribs ached with every breath, a dull, relentless pain throbbing beneath layers of bandages. His mind swam in a haze, caught between reality and the fragments of a nightmare he wasn’t sure had ended.
Then, a voice.
“You’re finally awake, man.”
Jake turned his head slightly, his vision sharpening. Alex sat beside him, arms crossed, dark circles under his eyes. His ever-present Nintendo sat untouched on the table beside the hospital bed. The relief in his expression was clear, but so was something else—anger, concern.
“Where…?” Jake’s voice came out hoarse, his throat dry like sandpaper.
“Hospital in Mallorca,” Alex answered, shifting in his seat. “Some fishermen found you washed up on the beach. Broken rib, nasty cuts, dehydration—you looked like hell.”
Jake swallowed, his memory slowly piecing itself back together. The ship. The fight. The explosion. Voss. The last thing he remembered was the cold embrace of the ocean pulling him under.
His fingers twitched against the hospital sheets. “How long?”
“Two days.”
Jake exhaled slowly. Two days. It felt like a lifetime.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“You nearly died, Jake,” Alex continued, his voice edged with frustration. “What the hell were you thinking? Sneaking onto some secret ship? Fighting off god-knows-who? What part of ‘relaxing vacation’ turned into this?” He gestured at Jake’s bandaged form.
Jake let out a weak chuckle, though the movement sent a sharp pain through his ribs. “Guess I got a little carried away.”
Alex scoffed, shaking his head. “Carried away? You could have died. And for what?”
Jake hesitated. How could he explain? How could he make Alex understand the gravity of what he had seen, what he had stopped—or at least, thought he had stopped? The weight of everything pressed down on him. Synergy Biotech. The Leviathan. Voss. He had blown up the ship, erased the research. It was over… right?
Before he could answer, a flickering light from the hospital room’s television caught Jake’s attention. The screen displayed a breaking news banner in bold red letters. The reporter’s voice was tense, her expression strained as she stood on the deck of a research vessel.
“Unusual seismic activity has been detected deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean, sending tremors across multiple coastlines. Scientists are baffled by the sheer scale of these disturbances, which appear to originate from an unidentified source. Some experts fear this could indicate movement from a previously undiscovered geological formation—or something else entirely.”
Jake’s stomach twisted. A cold sweat broke out on his skin.
Alex followed his gaze and frowned. “Probably just some random tectonic shift. Why do you look like you’ve seen a ghost?”
Jake’s grip tightened on the sheets. This wasn’t random. He knew it.
The ship was destroyed. The research was wiped. Voss… Voss was gone.
So why did it feel like he had only delayed the inevitable?
The camera on the screen cut to a grainy sonar image—deep, dark waters. A shape lurked far below the surface. Massive. Unmoving. But alive.
A tremor rattled through Jake’s bones that had nothing to do with his injuries.
Alex sighed. “Dude, don’t even start with your crazy theories again.”
Jake didn’t respond. He just stared at the screen, the pulse of the sonar echoing in his ears.
Somewhere, in the depths of the ocean…
The Leviathan was still waiting.
THE END