Chapter 38 – Abyss Floor 10 – The Submerged Train Station [4,444m]

I opened my eyes, my vision blurry, my body damp and cold, the metallic tang of the Abyss heavy in the air. I took a breath, my lungs surprisingly clear, and pushed myself up, my hand brushing against something cold and smooth. Metal.

We were… at sea.

But not a sea I recognized. The water was still, perfectly still, not a single ripple disturbing its glassy surface, a faint light shimmering above, reflecting a distorted, alien sky. I crawled to the edge of… something… a platform? …and looked down.

Buildings, tilted, broken, half-submerged, lay beneath the surface, the remnants of a sunken city, a drowned world, its streets, its homes, its very existence… swallowed by the Abyss. A broken bridge, the top of a skyscraper, the twisted wreckage of vehicles… all slowly decaying, dissolving in the silent, still water.

I took a deep breath, the air cold, damp, yet… breathable. “…Where… are we…?”

“Noah!”

I turned to see Yuri pushing herself up, her face pale, her eyes wide with confusion.

“Yuri! You okay?” I reached out a hand, helping her to her feet.

She looked around, her gaze sweeping across the strange, still sea, the sunken city below, the distorted sky above. “Yeah… I think so. Is this… the tenth floor?”

“I… I think so,” I said, though I wasn’t sure. This was unlike any other layer of the Abyss we’d encountered. It felt less like a descent, and more like… a submersion. A world lost beneath the waves.

“Luna?” Yuri asked, looking around.

I spotted her at the edge of the platform, huddled, her small body trembling, her gaze fixed on… the water.

“…pretty…” she whispered, her voice barely audible.

I followed her gaze, the sunken ruins shimmering beneath the surface, the faint lights flickering in the distance, the distorted sky reflected in the still water, the whole scene… strangely beautiful, yet… unsettling.

“It is… beautiful,” Yuri murmured, her voice hushed with awe. “In a… strange sort of way.”

But I felt a prickle of unease, a sense of… something… watching us, waiting. This wasn’t just a ruined world; it was… something more. Something… alive. I caught a glimpse of movement in the depths, a massive shadow shifting, then vanishing, its presence… unsettling.

“Luna? You okay?” I knelt beside her, taking her small hand in mine.

She looked up at me, her golden eyes clouded, unfocused. “Okay… just… strange…”

“Strange how?”

She looked back at the water, her voice barely a whisper. “…like… a dream…”

I understood what she meant. The stillness, the silence, the… unreality… of this place. It felt… detached, as if time itself had stopped. But beneath the surface… something was stirring. Something… ancient. Something… powerful.

I turned my gaze towards the center of the platform, where a tall clock tower stood, its hands moving slowly, deliberately… backwards.

A clock tower? In a submerged train station? Is that… the theme of this floor?

Perhaps this place… I looked at the clock tower, its backwards-moving hands a chilling reminder of the Abyss’s power to distort time, reality itself.  …is a memory. A dream. A warning.

“…we need to move,” I said, my voice low, a sense of urgency gripping me. We couldn’t stay here. Not in this… stillness.

I helped Luna to her feet, and we started walking towards the clock tower, towards a set of stairs that led down, down, into the heart of the submerged station. Perhaps… there’s a way out. A way down to the next floor.

We walked slowly, carefully, the shallow water lapping against our ankles, the surface strangely undisturbed, not a single ripple, as if… frozen in time. The silence was unnerving, broken only by the sound of our footsteps, echoing faintly in the vast, empty space.

I scanned our surroundings, the station’s interior visible through the large, grimy windows. It was vast, empty, the dim lights casting long, eerie shadows, the whole scene bathed in a dim, underwater glow. This place… it was different from the other layers. Not just desolate, not just empty, but… expectant. As if… it had been waiting. Waiting for us.

We reached the center of the platform, a large, double door marking the entrance to the main waiting area. It looked heavy, imposing, a relic of a grander age. I pushed against it gently, and it swung open silently, smoothly, as if… inviting us in.

The waiting room was cavernous, its arched ceiling soaring high above us, the stone pillars weathered and worn, the chandeliers flickering dimly, their light barely penetrating the gloom. Rows of benches lined the walls, empty, waiting. I walked towards one, the air still, silent, the only sound the soft lapping of the water against the floor, the occasional drip from the ceiling, each drop echoing in the vast emptiness. I touched the surface of a bench, the wood smooth, cold, a faint impression, like a handprint, still visible on its surface. Someone sat here. Waited here. A long time ago.

“This place… it’s creepy,” Yuri whispered, her voice echoing faintly in the vast emptiness. She pointed to a large sign on the wall. “Look.”

A timetable, its metal frame tarnished with age, the panel within faded, the writing barely legible, yet the numbers… the numbers were clear, sharp, precise. Departure times. But the dates…

I stepped closer, my heart sinking. The dates were all… past. Hundreds of years ago. Some even… older. If this station were still operational, the timetable would have been updated. But it wasn’t. It was as if… time itself had stopped. Frozen. Preserved.

I held my breath, a chilling realization dawning. The time on this timetable… it had already passed. And yet… the station… it still felt… expectant. As if… the trains… could still arrive.

Is this place… frozen in time? Or simply… forgotten?

But it was waiting. Waiting for the trains, for the passengers, for the… departure.

“Noah! Over here!”

Luna was pointing to a section of wall near the benches, its surface covered in scratches, in crude drawings, in hastily scribbled words. Not an official notice, but something… personal. A message. A plea.

I traced my fingers along the rough surface, reading the words aloud.

“Will the train come? Or not? It will. It has to.”

“I wait. Even if time stops, I wait.”

“Some have left. Some have not returned.”

“There is another path, beneath the sea of the Abyss. But we cannot descend.”

“The train departed. But the destination… changed.”

The words were etched deep into the stone, as if… the writer had wanted them… to endure, to be… remembered. This wasn’t just graffiti; it was a… a testament. A cry for help. A warning.

Someone had waited here. Hoped. Despaired. Some had left, searching for another way. Some had… vanished.

This station… it wasn’t just a place of arrival. It was a place of… departure. But where did they go? And why?

I stared at the wall, the words echoing in my mind, the strange, unsettling energy of this place intensifying, the silence, the stillness, the waiting… it was all… connected.

The station. The stopped time. The waiting. The leaving.

I turned to Yuri, to Luna, their faces pale in the dim light, their eyes wide with a dawning understanding.

And now… we are the ones… waiting.