Prologue: Part I, Bound by Mist
Prologue: Part I, Bound by Mist
The waters of the Atlantic Ocean shimmered under the ghostly glow of a crescent moon, the USS Perseverance cuts a sleek, confident path through the gentle swells. The battleship’s hull gleamed like a predator’s tooth, its engines hummed a deep, resonant tone that vibrated through the deck.
Lieutenant S. Donner stood at the bow, her sharp gaze sweeping the horizon where a strange fog had begun to roll in. The thick fog hadn’t been mentioned in that day’s weather forecast, and it gave her a queasy feeling in her gut. It wasn’t just unexpected—it carried a gooey weight, a clinging stickiness that seemed to soak through her clothes and felt disgusting on her skin.
“Lieutenant Donner,” the voice of the junior officer crackled over the comms in her earpiece. “Sensors are picking up... something. Stationary, six nautical miles ahead. No heat signature, but definitely metallic. Orders?”
Her lips thinned into a grim line. For a split second, she hesitated. But uncertainty had no place in command, so she shoved it down and resolutely took control. “Stay sharp. Take us to Yellow Condition and alert the Captain and the XO. I’m on my way.” She turned, her boots clicked against the steel deck, but her instincts prickled—a sensation she couldn’t ignore. Something about this fog, thick and clinging like oil, felt wrong. It didn’t feel natural.
Before she could head back inside, a figure emerged from the haze behind her.
“Lieutenant Donner,” Ensign Chen greeted, his voice smooth as velvet. He moved with an eerie grace that seemed almost too perfect, too deliberate, his uniform was impeccable despite the damp night air.
There was something unnervingly handsome and mysterious about him, and though he was junior to her in rank, he carried himself with the poise of someone used to commanding everyone around him.
Donner stopped short, narrowing her eyes at him. “Ensign. You’re off shift. Why are you topside?”
Chen offered a small, unreadable smile, the kind that always set her teeth on edge. “Couldn’t sleep. Thought I’d get some fresh air.” His dark eyes flicked to the creeping fog. He freezed momentarily and his expression tightened almost imperceptibly. “But this... this is not fresh, more like something ancient and putrefied,” he said, scrunching up his face at the faint smell of rot and decay that drifted in with the thick fog.
She folded her arms and, with command in her voice, said, “You don’t have clearance to be here during Yellow Condition. Get below deck.”
“Of course, Lieutenant,” he said, inclining his head. But instead of moving, he took a step closer to the railing, his gaze fixed on the mist as if he could see something within it. “There’s something out there, isn’t there?”
A shiver ran down her spine, making her want to snap back at him, to remind him who was in charge, but before she could, the fog erupted.
A thunderous roar split the air, followed by a wave of freezing cold that swept across the deck. Donner instinctively reached for the sidearm she still carried after their run-in with the drug smugglers a few days ago.
Suddenly, the unnatural mist coalesced into a shape. The shape that emerged defied all reason—a writhing, monstrous shadow-dragon of gleaming metal, its tendrils twisted with a fluidity that no machine should possess. Its surface shimmered as though alive, the sound of its claws scraped the hull like screams dragged from a steel throat.
“Battle stations, Red Alert!” she barked into her comms. The ship’s alarms began to wail, their sharp tones cutting through the chaos.
She turned to shout again at Chen—to go below deck, now!—only to find him standing tall, unnervingly calm in the face of the monstrosity. For a heartbeat, she thought she saw his eyes flash silver—not with fear, but with something far older and more primal.
“Ensign!” she shouted, yanking at his sleeve. “Move!”
Chen didn’t budge. Instead, he took a deliberate, stealthy step toward the railing, his voice low and steady. “Lieutenant, get our crew to safety.”
His words carried a strange weight, one that made her freeze despite every instinct screaming at her to drag him below deck. And then, he whispered, “Here we go again.” and before her stunned eyes, Chen leapt over the railing and into the fog.
The alarms blared louder, and the shadow in the mist surged forward. Donner turned, barking orders to the crew, but her mind refused to let go of the image of Chen—his calm, infuriatingly unreadable face, his ridiculous leap into the fog.
Donner’s mind was racing. What kind of man jumped into the unknown like that? If the shadow didn’t kill him, she just might—for terrifying her like this.
She clenched her jaw, her fear twisted into a knot of fury. Chen’s secrets, whatever they were, weren’t worth his life, and she’d be damned if she would let him take them to his grave. She couldn’t shake the thought of him out there, alone in the freezing dark Atlantic Ocean. If he was still alive—and that was a big if—she’d make sure he knew exactly how reckless he’d been.
But for now, she had a ship to save, and a feeling in her gut told her that whatever was coming, it was not something she could easily explain.
