"I know," he whispered. "I’m terrified. But I’d rather be terrified down here with you than safe up there without you."
Jonah slid down the wall to sit beside her, his shoulder pressing firmly against hers. It was a grounding touch—anchoring. "Comms are down. But they know. They’re probably panicking up there." He looked out at the void beyond the glass. "We’re too deep for a rescue sub to reach us in time if the scrubbers fail. It’s just physics, Elara."
Elara turned back to the glass. Outside, in the crushing dark, a bioluminescent jelly fish drifted by, pulsing with soft, blue light. She cracked her knuckles and began to type. The ocean wanted them, but she wasn't ready to let go of the surface—not when there was finally something worth surfacing for.
She smiled, the first genuine smile since the alarms started. "Let me guess. Dinner that isn't a ration bar?"
Elara let out a shaky breath. "I’m scared, Jonah."
The rhythmic thrum of the station’s heart—the massive water-circulation pumps—had changed. It was a subtle shift, a new tempo introduced by the Update. To anyone else, it was just the background noise of survival, but to Elara, it sounded like a heartbeat skipping a beat.