Some storms are not born in the sky. They rise when something beneath the world finally realizes it has been seen.
The silence that followed Operation Black Eden was not peace.
It was containment.
Above the point of descent, the sea began to change.
What started as rain turned violent within minutes. Wind direction collapsed inward, spiraling toward the exact coordinates where the Eclipse had vanished. Lightning struck the water repeatedly, not scattered, not random but focused, hammering the same stretch of ocean again and again.
Thunder followed in perfect intervals.
Onshore command posts lost visibility as waves breached the barriers. Tents tore free. Floodlights failed one by one. Officers shouted evacuation orders as instruments overloaded and communication arrays sparked under pressure.
"This storm isn't moving," someone said over the noise.
"It's forming."
Vehicles raced through flooded roads. Ministers were pulled from observation decks and rushed into armored convoys. The harbor lights died as the power grid failed. Even as they withdrew, the sea continued to boil—water rising unnaturally, as if something below were drawing the sky downward.
Then—
A flash tore through the horizon.
White. Absolute. Blinding.
The ocean erupted. A shock wave rolled across the coast, flattening structures and hurling debris into the night. For a brief, terrifying second, the storm went silent.
And then the rain returned—heavier.
By morning, nothing remained at the site of launch but shattered coastline and open water. The storm dissolved as suddenly as it had formed, leaving behind no wreckage, no signal, no explanation.
The abyss had closed.
Three days later, six nations spoke with one voice.
Flags were lowered.
Names were released.
Men were declared dead.
Across Germany, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, and the United Kingdom, ceremonies were held. Families were handed folded flags. Medals were posthumously awarded. Speeches were given about sacrifice, duty, and service to peace.
Flowers were thrown into the sea.
The mission was never mentioned by name.
It was remembered as a tragedy.
It was repurposed as patriotism.
Some reporters asked questions.
Fishermen had reported hearing explosions miles away. Coastal stations had logged seismic disturbances. Weather analysts noticed sudden, localized atmospheric collapse over the North Sea.
The answers came quickly.
From the United States Of America.
NASA issued a statement citing a rare convergence of underwater tectonic activity and atmospheric instability, resulting in sudden weather escalation. Satellite anomalies were blamed on sensor overload. Oceanic blasts were categorized as natural pressure releases.
Official. Clean. Final.
Most accepted it.
Scientists did not.
Privately, research teams reviewed the data again.
Radiation traces appeared where none should exist. Magnetic readings spiked and vanished. Old records of lost ships resurfaced—vessels that had disappeared decades earlier, all within a loosely defined zone near an unmarked sector of the sea.
Patterns began to form.
Quietly, discreetly, away from government buildings and press rooms, an unofficial task was assembled. No flags. No announcements. No public funding.
The work moved to an unrecognized industrial sector near Seattle, Washington D.C.—a place chosen not for its importance, but for its obscurity.
And there, a name surfaced.
Grey Industries.
One of the wealthiest yet least visible firms of the era. No headlines. No speeches. Just contracts, research, and silence.
Jordan Grey, its founder and CEO, was shown the files.
Lost crews.
Inconsistent radiation.
A storm that behaved like a response.
And one final detail.
References to a landmass—appearing briefly in old maritime logs, never confirmed, never officially mapped.
A name surfaced more than once.
"Dorgon Island"
Within days, a new crew was assembled,
Smaller. Faster. Smarter.
— not recruited, but selected.
Each member had already worked in classified environments where explanations were optional and survival was not guaranteed.
They were not told what lay beneath the sea.
Only that the previous silence had not been empty.
They carried advanced survey devices capable of transmitting compressed data back to Grey Industries within minutes. No waiting. No delays. If something happened, the truth would move faster than the cover-up.
Their approach would be indirect.
They would enter from the west, loop eastward, avoiding the six nations that surrounded the abyss. No identification. No traceable signatures.
Unrecognized.
Unprotected.
As the vessel neared the operational waters, instruments began behaving strangely.
Depth meters fluctuated.
Radiation sensors whispered instead of spiking.
Time stamps refused to align.
The island remained unseen, but its presence was felt.
Dorgon Island sat just beyond their charts—close enough to matter, distant enough to be ignored.
Until it wasn't.
The first transmission never arrived.
In a secured observation room inside Grey Industries, a dozen people stood watching the same countdown timer expire in silence. Jordan Grey stood at the center of the room, hands clasped behind his back. Around him were senior scientists, communications engineers, and three silent representatives from the United States government—present, but officially nonexistent.
No error alerts sounded.
No signal loss warnings appeared.
The system behaved as if nothing had been sent at all.
Then the second transmission came through.
Not as data.
As sound.
A low-frequency pressure wave rolled through the room as the speakers activated on their own. It wasn't loud—but it wasn't quiet either. It pressed against the chest, vibrated the bones behind the ears. Several monitors flickered, their displays warping slightly, as if reacting to the audio itself.
One scientist staggered back.
"This isn't from the crew," he said, voice tight.
"There's no encoding."
The sound began to change.
It folded in on itself—layered, rhythmic, almost deliberate. Not speech. Not noise. Something in between. A pattern that made the air feel dense, heavy, occupied.
Someone reached for the mute control.
Jordan Grey raised a hand.
The room held its breath.
On a secondary screen, internal feeds from the vessel flickered briefly before collapsing into static. A distorted voice cut through—one of the crew, breathing hard, struggling to speak.
"Sir… the instruments aren't wrong."
The voice hesitated, strained—then dropped to a whisper, distorted and uneven.
"Something here knows we're listening."
A sharp electronic shriek tore through the channel.
—BEEP—
The feed cut dead, completely snapped out.
The sound from the speakers stopped instantly.
Silence slammed into the room.
Then, without any input command, a single line of text appeared across every active screen.
Not transmitted.
Not logged.
Just present.
POSITION CONFIRMED.
No one spoke.