The elevator doors clanged shut behind me, sealing out the last echo of the Seafoam Vessel—its ghostly silhouette still burned into my eyes. The hum of the sub-basement was louder here, vibrating through the metal flooring like a pulse. The corridor ahead stretched into a dim tunnel of shelves.
And then I noticed something I hadn't seen before.
A faint draft. Cold. Almost… breathing.
The overhead lights flickered once, twice—and then stabilized.
I stepped forward.
Folders lined both sides, each stamped with the archive's insignia, each unmarked by dust or age. They looked as if someone had placed them there seconds ago. My footsteps echoed sharply, swallowed a moment later by a heavy, unnatural silence.
Then I saw movement.
Someone—or something—sat hunched at a tall desk at the far end of the aisle. Their back was to me, their shoulders wrapped in a dark cloak that draped all the way to the floor. Long, thin fingers slowly turned the page of a thick black ledger.
I froze.The figure did not breathe.
"Excuse me…" My voice cracked.
The fingers stilled.
Very slowly, the hooded figure raised its head—but only slightly, as if acknowledging my presence without granting me the privilege of seeing its face.
"You read beyond the files," it said.
The voice wasn't a voice at all. It was a dry ripple of whispers, layered on top of each other like torn pages rustling in a storm.
"W-what is this place?" I asked.
"The wrong question."The figure straightened."Because the answer is already following you."
The shelves around me shuddered. Several folders tumbled out on their own, scattering across the floor like fleeing birds. A cold ripple swept across the ground, as though something enormous had stirred beneath the metal grate.
I stepped back. "I didn't mean to open anything. I was trying to underst—"
"Meaning does not absolve you."The figure finally turned.
Where a face should've been, there was a shifting mass of ink—black liquid swirling like a whirlpool, shapes pressing against it from within. Shadows of hands. Eyes. Mouths that opened silently.
My heartbeat hammered against my ribs.
"You have awakened the Deep File," the Archivist whispered. "Every truth you uncover will demand a price."
A folder slid across the floor toward my feet, stopping inches from my boots. It sprang open.
Inside, one sentence was scrawled in jagged red ink:
THE SEA REMEMBERS EVERYTHING YOU TELL IT.
A low, distant roar thundered from beneath the archive—wet, vast, rising.
Panic jolted through me. I turned to run.
But the Archivist's whisper followed, slithering along the shelves:
"Go, if you wish. Chapter Eleven is the descent… and you are already drowning."