Beyond the Abyss

A marine biophysicist travels to the depths of the ocean and resurfaces in another world

Katy Madgwick is a writer, educator and freelance journalist. She has had short fiction pieces published by Fusion Fragment, Ellipsis Zine, Reflex Fiction, and Wretched Creations, amongst others, and is a published non-fiction author. She was selected for the 2021 WriteMentor summer mentoring programme, and is currently querying a young adult novel. She teaches creative writing workshops on the power of discovery writing. She also writes about pro cycling. Katy lives in northeast England with two small humans, one larger one, and an unruly spaniel. Find her on Twitter @nightspunwriter.

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It came as no surprise to Dr Titania Gray that the colossal squid came from another dimension. You had only to come eye to obsidian saucer eye with one to know that it was not of this world. 

But, despite her theory, she had not expected to end up in that other dimension herself.

Now, here she was, floating atop a green-grey lagoon in a submarine pod, nearing the edge of a red-coasted landmass, watching narrow giraffe-like creatures higher than the Statue of Liberty pick their way across the rust-coloured sand under rapidly darkening skies. 

She’d known the mission was a long shot, yet she’d needed to make waves. To prove herself. She recalled the faces of the various members of the numerous funding boards to whom Titania had outlined her thesis, expressions ranging from bemused to shocked to awed. Marine biophysics was an emerging subject area and funding was up for grabs. But damn, she’d had to work for it. Eventually, she’d worn them down. How much of their reluctant agreement was based on a desire to see her fail spectacularly, she could only imagine. Most, probably. 

She could have recited her proposal in her sleep. In fact, she had, according to Benjamin, her long-suffering ex-boyfriend who’d left in the end for a mathematician named Eleanor. A more straightforward prospect, apparently. Titania had had to repeat the pitch to at least seven different press outlets as the media converged on the most outlandish thesis ever to secure funding: ‘The Midnight Zone as a Portal to Alternative Dimensions’ by Dr Titania Gray, BSc (Hons), MRes, PhD.

‘Anthropology shows us that human instincts, evolved over millions of years, are difficult to ignore. Arachnophobia – which currently afflicts a staggering 4-6% of the worldwide population – has been proven to originate from such instincts. Identical reactions have been observed in subjects viewing images of creatures deriving from the deep ocean – the so-called Midnight Zone.’ 

The depths massed with gelatinous, colossal squid as Titania surfaced in her pod. Could squid be said to frolic? It sure as hell looked that way. Here, they were serene, mellifluous beings, feather-light and moving with a weightless, imperial dignity. Far more at home than the fragile bags eking out a lonely existence in the freezing depths of the Mariana Trench. 

‘I know how you feel,’ she murmured, her hand pressed against the glass viewing window. The lone American in a crowd of European academics, her visa only as good as the next round of funding, Titania was used to a constant nagging sensation of trying to slip into a place she didn’t belong. The irony captured her features in a stupid grin for a moment as she pictured the faces of those staid, grey dinosaurs as they’d gawped at the conclusion of her audacious proposal speech:

‘Whilst the evolution of some ancestors of modern spiders has been dated back toat least the carboniferous period, new evidence of spiders deriving from beyond Earth prior to this has remarkably been discovered by Rogers and Jacobssen at ETH Zurich. 

‘I will attempt to prove that, given all life on Earth derived from the ocean, it is impossible to discount the deep sea as a potential locus of dimensional slip. By recommissioning the smallest deep-sea vessel available, I intend to prove my hypothesis beyond any reasonable doubt.’

All the collective silences had simmered with cold, sharp blends of resentment, derision and outright revulsion. She had endured them all.

The ocean’s pressure was lower here, Titania registered, eyeing the numerous gauges in the pod with cool detachment. The swinging arms on the dials danced to a lighter tune, a G-force less oppressive than that of their homeland. Bobbing on the surface, Titania almost fancied she might float up, away from the sea’s foaming surface like a bubble. It matched the rising surge of vindication. She had been right all along. Even the darkest nights of doubting her own sanity had been worth it, for this.

The tide skipped briskly around the sphere and rolled her gently to the shore where she washed up, blind under the now-total blanket of night, and waited out the hours until dawn, nudged by lapping waves. The dark sea cradled the pod and Titania allowed herself to be gently lulled to sleep, closing her eyes and dreaming of slipping down into round, black pools, and slithering out into a glowing sea where many-tentacled creatures danced the rumba in time with the haunted bleeps of the echo sounder, countless fathoms pressing and pulsing down on her as she was birthed into a new world.

Dawn bled through Titania’s eyelids, a skein of orange light spidering outward from the mist-shrouded horizon. How could she have arrived in another dimension and fallen asleep? She checked the systems. Oxygen was steady but wouldn’t last more than 24 hours. She hesitated, weighing the risks of leaving the pod to collect samples; evidence to take back with her.

Titania opened the hatch. The alien atmosphere coated her skin like hot, wet felt. She sipped at the air, her pulse juddering in her wrist. A lightness at her temples indicated a high oxygen content. That explains the supersize creatures. Or perhaps it was the weight of expectation lifting from her like she’d shucked off a heavy cloak; she couldn’t be sure.

Stepping onto the surface of another world did not affect Titania in the way she had expected. She stooped to run her fingers over the red pebbles that collected at the shoreline, their chill sheen a salve for her turbulent thoughts. Myopic beasts with matted, ochre coats roamed aimlessly along the shore, waving their heads as they sought the subtle shifts that Titania’s presence wrought on the atmosphere. Minor, unfamiliar sounds, perhaps, or a scent of otherworldliness.

Breathing hot vapour, Titania was grateful for the oxygen-rich air, as she could only swallow small lungfuls at a time. The atmosphere coalesced into droplets on her face, and she swiped at the trickling rivulets that picked competing paths to her chin. Drips landed on her bare toes. 

Time was a suggestion here, rather than a command. Dawn dragged sluggishly, and nothing had anywhere to be anytime soon. Titania slowed and took stock. No lumbering predators came at her from behind the rocky outcrops that resembled dunes further up the shore. All appeared peaceful. She might survive here despite the variations, for a while at least. She’d survived in far more hostile climates back on Earth. Second year at Cambridge was a real humdinger, she thought, remembering the cold shoulders, the bullying. What did that matter now?

Titania plucked a strange, brown shoot from between the jumble of rocks and raised it to her nose. Woody sap mingled with a faint whiff of iron; the scent was comforting in its familiarity. The giraffe-like creatures moved in herds, awkward as giant tripods yet somehow serene in their progress.

Titania’s ears released bubbles as she acclimatised to the air pressure and for every layer that cleared, new sounds filled her ears; soft lowing of the grazing animals, the familiar, rhythmic lapping of the cresting waves. And something deeper: a low, resonant rumble that registered in her gut before she heard it. What was that? Seismic activity? Some vast, unspeakable beast that she couldn’t begin to imagine, lurking in this strange world’s interior?

Reining in rising panic, Titania hovered near her gently bobbing pod and considered climbing back inside. Inky black waves caressed the shore, lifting at the edges like a soft blanket, hinting at the seductive mysteries that lay beneath their surface. The ocean was a safe place, beckoning her home.

Shaking off the jitters, Titania scoured the coastline for signs she could remain, for a few hours, maybe days. Collect samples, write reports. Moving away from the ocean was a leap of faith; the alien sea shone with phosphorescent microbes in the dawn light, gently inviting her to return. It brought to mind a rich primordial soup, and the potential this world still had ahead of it. Standing between ocean and land, Titania could not help but wonder: could she exist here?

The thought of soup made Titania’s stomach growl and she picked up speed. She tracked the herds as they grazed, knowing that before long they would seek water. Sure enough, the herd congregated around a shallow lake. The water stank of rusted iron, and clustering patches of insidious black mold colonised its edges. Stagnant. Titania had a few water purification tablets in her emergency care package, although probably not enough to last her until they were writing about her in the nationals: ‘Mississippi native missing on deep sea mission.’ Because of course, they’d say she’d gone missing. Presumed dead. They would not report her success; they could not. Because without proof, she’d simply be seen as a crackpot. The quintessential mad scientist. 

She collected sand, a few small pebbles, scraps of flora and some fluff from the coat of one of the shaggy creatures that had snagged on a thorny bush. She scooped a sample of the water into a vial she had stashed in her pocket, along with a larger container full, in case it was viable, and hurried back to the shore, the subconscious tether of body to vessel tugging like an umbilical cord. 

Back inside her vessel she tested the water: strongly alkaline, but the tablets might work. Her thoughts turned to communication. Could she contact home, from here? Her systems could transmit data and receive written messages from the lowest point of the ocean floor, but would it work from another dimension? The physics boggled Titania’s mind as she grappled with the concepts and for a moment she longed to be back under the sea, gazing at the graceful squid as they oozed about their business.

She had half-composed a message to her supervisor, who was tracking her mission aboard the support vessel miles above on another planet, when she had a change of heart, and began typing out a new message:

Dad, I want you to know that I’m OK. If you get this, know that I have made the most unbelievable discovery and proven one of science’s strangest mysteries.

Wow, seriously?

If this was the last message she ever sent home, was this really what she wanted to say? She shook off the morbid thought and started over.

Dad: I’m in another dimension! Can you believe it?

Why was this so hard? 

It wasn’t as though her Dad would be hanging at the end of the telephone. He’d be back home in Mississippi, working; same old, same old. He’d get home and turn on the TV hoping to hear about the mission. He’d change the channel eventually, watch war documentaries on the History channel, three bottles of beer and a full bag of chips, then to bed before 10.00. He’d try again the next day; if he got home in time for the news. He’d never think to contact the university; Mom had been the practical one. 

Titania powered up the pod. She could survive, perhaps even for a little while, in this strange, alien world. But the pull of the deep sea was what had drawn her here, and the passage home was what drew her back.

Submerging into an extra-terrestrial ocean felt much the same as submerging into the Pacific. It got darker. Except here, the colour shifted from tangerine fluorescence at the surface, to ruby-tinted evening shortly after, as the floating mass of brownish seaweed overhead crowded out the gloomy daylight. The silence was omnipresent, and soothed Titania’s racing mind; she was home.

Sinking languidly into the dark, plum wine of the otherworldly depths, Titania puzzled over the unexpected pang that twisted down inside her. The urge to return to the land gnawed insistently: the curious pull of scientific discovery lay both above and below the surface. Yet, ultimately, she could not prove her theory unless she returned home. She thought of the colossal squid: they had made it through, so why shouldn’t she? The question that niggled at the back of her mind like an itch she couldn’t scratch though: was it a one-way ticket? Or a multi-directional thoroughfare, teeming with possible outcomes? 

As the vessel descended, the influence of the distant red star lessened and Titania found herself shrouded in darkness once more. She glanced at her comm screen. Nothing. Hardly surprising. Another glance at the systems data. Oxygen remaining: eight hours. Her heart sped in response, and she fought to control her breathing, trying not to think about the dimension shift. The mechanics were a mystery; understanding would come later. For now, she would hit the bottom, and hope for the best. 

With the vessel’s exterior lights slicing through the darkness, Titania caught flipbook flashes of the natives: strange pink jellies; black fish with dangling appendages that looked like Halloween spider costumes; and a squad of the majestic squid, parading in cotillions, their giant tentacles billowing in time with the thud of Titania’s heart.

Eight hours. She’d crest the Pacific a hero, her place in scientific folklore guaranteed. Her future secure. Or she’d climb out of her pod back onto the red sand, to find her way with the lazy tripods and the shaggy blind beasts, for the short days until her supplies ran dry.

The pod brushed the seabed and rolled to a silent halt, and her wait began. Moments passed and once again, Titania came eye to eye with the alien creature who had inspired her in the first place. She’d always known, from somewhere deep down in her gut, that it belonged elsewhere. The squid slowed beside the viewing window and seemed to consider Titania. Eye to gargantuan inky eye. Appraising. Dr Titania Gray knew instinctively, and now conclusively, that the colossal squid were not of Earth. Now, she faced the real possibility that she no longer would be, either.

With a nod of recognition at the squid, Titania prepared to resurface the pod. 

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