The Caretakers smiled.

  That was the worst part. The way their mouths curved up mechanically, as if someone had pulled strings behind their skin to approximate a grin. Their teeth were too white, too straight. Their lips didn’t twitch, didn’t move when they talked. Just held that waxy, permanent shape.

  “Welcome, Intake Group Delta-3,” one of them said, voice crisp and pleasant through an unseen speaker embedded in its collar. “You are safe. You are necessary. You are transitioning.”

  The word transitioning made my jaw clench. I didn’t know what it meant, not yet—but I didn’t like the way it filled the room. Like oil slipping into your ears.

  The room smelled like antiseptic and recycled air. A row of metal benches lined the perimeter, bolted to the floor. I sat at the far end, next to a woman with short blonde hair and dead eyes. She blinked slowly, but I got the feeling it wasn’t out of tiredness.

  She was waiting for something. Or listening. To something I couldn’t hear.

  There were eight of us total in Delta-3. The room was too quiet for that many people.

  “Please stand,” said another Caretaker. This one was taller. The glowing red strip down the center of its visor pulsed once. “Your orientation is complete. Now begins your adjustment cycle. You will be housed, fed, and observed. You will be given work rotations soon. Until then, integrate. Socialize. Restore your calm.”

  No one moved.

  No one even looked at the Caretakers.

  We had all heard that voice before. In dreams. In announcements. In the walls.

  Now it was standing in front of us.

  I stood.

  Not out of bravery. Just instinct. That little part of your brain that still wants a gold star and a teacher’s nod. The part that wants to be good.

  A few others stood too.

  The blonde woman didn’t.

  One of the Caretakers approached her.

  “No,” she said softly, not even looking up.

  The Caretaker didn’t move. Just stared.

  After a long moment, she stood up. Her lips pressed into a thin line. Her body stiff. Her fists clenched.

  But she didn’t look scared. Just… resigned.

  Like she'd lost this argument before.

  We followed the flickering blue floor line again. Through a new corridor this time, curving downward, the walls fogged with moisture.

  As we walked, I tried to study the others.

  There was the blonde, quiet and pale. I’d learn later her name was Cass. She wouldn’t tell me that herself, though—I’d hear it when a Caretaker called her name during meal rotation. She’d barely look at me after that.

  Next was a young man, maybe twenty at most. His shirt was too big for him, and he kept muttering under his breath in a language I didn’t understand. His hands shook, and he carried a plush toy shaped like a squid. The eyes were scratched out.

  Behind him was an old man with a cane he didn’t seem to need. His coat had patches from universities I’d never heard of. He didn’t speak at all. He kept looking at the ceiling, like something above him was whispering.

  Two women—twins, maybe—held hands and moved in perfect sync. Their steps matched. Their eyes never blinked at the same time.

  And one kid. Couldn’t have been more than ten. He walked without making a sound. No footsteps. Just appeared wherever we went, always keeping just behind us. His eyes were too bright. Too wide. And he never looked away from me.

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  I kept my mouth shut. It felt like the wrong place to make friends.

  They brought us to a new unit: INTAKE HOLD 6-B.

  Bunk beds. Metal lockers. A single window that looked out into open water.

  There were no bubbles outside. No currents. Just… stillness. As if the ocean had stopped breathing around us.

  “I know you,” said a voice behind me.

  I turned.

  It was the boy.

  He was smiling, teeth too sharp. His skin was pale, almost translucent. His black hair clung to his cheeks like seaweed.

  “No,” I said quietly. “You don’t.”

  He tilted his head.

  “You blinked when the Eye looked at you. Most don’t.”

  I stepped back.

  “What eye?”

  He giggled. Not a child’s laugh. Not really. Too hollow.

  He pointed to the water outside.

  “It’s still watching. It likes you.”

  Before I could answer, he walked away.

  Cass claimed the top bunk. The old man sat in the corner with his back to the wall. The twins curled up on the floor, back-to-back like a mirrored sculpture.

  I stood by the window and stared into the abyss.

  That’s when I realized something: the tanks outside had no reflections.

  Not of the room. Not of me.

  They weren’t windows.

  They were watching ports.

  Later, a Caretaker arrived to bring us to “communal recalibration.”

  That’s what they called the cafeteria.

  The room had long metal tables and circular holes in the wall where trays were dispensed like coins from a vending machine.

  We ate in silence.

  The food was the same paste as before. Slightly warmer. Slightly more bitter.

  I sat next to the old man. He didn’t acknowledge me.

  But after a moment, he leaned in and whispered:

  “They didn’t build this place. Not really. They found it. Dressed it up in wires and words. But the bones were already here.”

  I turned to him. “What are you talking about?”

  He gave me a look that was almost pity.

  “The Aquarium didn’t save us. It just made space. Because something down here wanted guests.”

  He didn’t say anything else.

  The lights dimmed for night cycle.

  Back in our unit, I lay on the bottom bunk, staring up at the steel underbelly of Cass’s bed. Every few minutes, I heard water trickle through the walls. It sounded like someone sighing through gills.

  I didn’t dream that night.

  But I heard someone else’s dream.

  A voice whispering through the bunk’s metal frame.

  Whispering to me.

  “Let go.”

  “Sink.”

  “Become.”

  The next morning, we were given clothing.

  Not assigned. Not distributed.

  Just… there.

  Folded at the edge of each bunk. Perfectly fitted. Seamless gray jumpsuits that shimmered faintly in certain angles, like fish scales.

  I put mine on.

  The fabric clung to me like a second skin. It was warm. Too warm. Like it remembered body heat.

  In the mirror, I didn’t recognize myself.

  My eyes looked too dark. My hair was still wet.

  I blinked.

  The mirror didn’t.

  At breakfast, one of the twins was missing.

  No one said anything.

  The other twin still held out her hand, palm up, as if someone would return to hold it.

  She didn’t cry. Didn’t eat.

  Just waited.

  The Caretakers never acknowledged the absence.

  They just stood, silent and smiling, near the food dispensers.

  Cass finally spoke to me on the third day.

  “I used to be afraid of drowning,” she said, standing at the window. Her breath fogged the glass. “Now I dream about it. And it feels like flying.”

  I didn’t know what to say. So I said nothing.

  She smiled faintly, not looking at me.

  “They don’t want survivors. They want seeds.”

  That afternoon, I saw my first hallucination.

  I was in the hygiene unit, brushing my teeth. Foam. Mint. Metal sink.

  I looked up—and there I was.

  But not me.

  A version of me in the mirror. Older. Thinner. Skin pale. Eyes black. No whites.

  His mouth moved.

  No sound.

  Then his hands pressed to the glass.

  And water filled the mirror.

  I blinked—and it was gone.

  Just my reflection again.

  Normal.

  Except the sink was full of seawater.

  And my gums were bleeding.

  Cass and I sat alone that night in the far corner of the lounge. The others were sleeping. Or pretending to. The boy had disappeared. The old man was silent, mouth open, breathing slow. His lips didn’t move, but I could swear I heard humming.

  Cass held a glass of water. Her hands trembled.

  “I think I’m forgetting my brother’s name,” she whispered.

  I looked at her. “You have a brother?”

  “Had. Maybe. I don’t know anymore. But I remember holding his hand on the roof. Before the wave.”

  A long pause.

  “The wave didn’t kill me. I remember it hit. Then I was underwater. But I could breathe.”

  She finally looked at me.

  “Tell me I’m not going insane.”

  I couldn’t.

  Because I didn’t know if I was still sane myself.

  I just reached out, gently placed my hand over hers.

  “You’re still here,” I said.

  She smiled. Just barely.

  “Not for long.”

  That night, I saw something in the hall.

  A shape.

  Tall. Wrong. Half-shadow, half-water.

  It moved through the corridor like a current.

  It passed through the Caretaker without slowing.

  And the Caretaker bowed.

  By morning, the old man was gone.

  The boy returned, soaked from head to toe.

  “Where have you been?” I asked.

  He smiled. Water trickled from his ears.

  “I had a conversation. With the thing in the walls.”

  He looked at me, tilting his head again.

  “It’s choosing soon.”

  And I realized—Cass was right.

  No one talked about the surface because the surface wasn’t real anymore.

  This was it.

  The Aquarium.

  The descent.

  And we weren’t survivors.

  We were offerings.