The water was cold, dark and silent except for the hiss of his own breathing. Eastiel descended through the murk with ease. He had done this over and over again, after all.

His dive light cut a pale cone through the gloom, scanning the dam’s inner walls that were rising around him like the bones of some ancient leviathan.

Concrete and steel. Then he saw the contrast of black corruption bleeding through the cracks.

The sluice gate loomed ahead. Even through the silt and the shadows, he could see the damage. The hydraulic seals were warped. The gate’s alignment had shifted by several centimeters, just enough to let the corruption seep through.

Not a catastrophic failure. Or at least, not yet. But if they didn’t patch it now, the pressure would build, and the gate would buckle, and the entire reservoir would be compromised.

He gestured to Reyes, two quick hand signals, and the younger diver nodded, already moving toward the seals.

They had gone over the schematics three times before the dive and they knew this gate better than they knew their own refrigerators.

Eastiel positioned himself at the alignment mechanism while Reyes began the painstaking work of replacing the damaged seals, his welding torch flaring to life in a burst of brilliant white light that reflected off the silt like a dying star.

The work was slow.

Eastiel’s hands moved smoothly. At this point, he could weld in his sleep. He adjusted the gate’s alignment millimeter by millimeter, checking and rechecking the pressure readings on his wrist display, feeling the subtle vibration of the metal through his gloves as it settled back into place.

Beside him, Reyes sealed the last of the hydraulic joints, and his torch leaving gleaming, perfect seams in its wake.

After forty minutes, the gate was solid and the leak had stopped.

The black tendrils of corruption, which had been bleeding into the reservoir were no longer spreading.

"That will hold it." Eastiel’s voice crackled through the comms. He checked his own suit integrity, ninety-four percent, well within safety margins, and turned to Reyes.

"East, now we scan for the deep one?" Reyes was breathing hard but steady. He had done well. Better than well.

But they were not done yet.

"You fine? No strain?" Eastiel asked.

"It’s ninety-seven percent suit integrity." Reyes answered, but there was a tightness to it. "No numbness. No eyebrow strain."

"Okay. We go fast."

They prepared the LiDAR device, a sleek, waterproof unit that looked more like a science fiction prop than a piece of industrial equipment, and began the slow, careful work of scanning the dam’s deep underwater structure.

The device emitted a soft, rhythmic pulse, invisible beams of light mapping the concrete in three dimensions, searching for anomalies.

Hairline cracks, stress fractures, anything.

The scan was tedious, though necessary. Eastiel guided the scanner in slow, overlapping sweeps across the concrete face, his eyes fixed on the readout display, watching the data accumulate in layers of blue and green.

Beside him, Reyes handled the tether, keeping the device steady, keeping the line clear, keeping everything exactly where it needed to be.

That was when Eastiel saw something.

It was dark down here. Very dark. This kind of dark truly only existed in the depths of reservoirs and the bottom of oceans. Even the most powerful dive lights could only push back the gloom by a few meters.

But this... this was darker. Something darker than the darkness. Something blacker than the black water. It was seeping from one of the cracks in the dam’s structure—what?

Eastiel’s eyes narrowed behind his visor. His hand, moving on instinct honed by years of experience, flew to his suit’s integrity readout. Eighty perce—it dropped significantly!

"We are surfacing now." He said calmly, but urgently. It was somehow clear that he had just seen something very bad and was making very quick decisions about it.

"Reyes, slowly. Up. Don’t rush." He switched channels, his tone sharpening. "Hey, Damon, issue evacuation down the tailwater. Quick."

"What’s wrong?"

The voice that came through the comms was not Damon’s. It was Arkai’s.

"Evac procedure on the way." Damon’s voice followed immediately. He trusted Eastiel enough not to wait for an explanation before acting.

Eastiel heaved as he began the slow, controlled ascent, his body fighting the water pressure, his muscles screaming with the effort of maintaining the correct speed.

Too fast, and decompression sickness would tear his lungs apart before the corruption ever got a chance. Too slow, and whatever was seeping through that crack might decide to stop being dormant. 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

"I think it’s not structural damage. I think there is a rift inside the concrete of the dam—"

"Get out of there, then. Quickly." Arkai said, voice tight. It made Eastiel almost scoffed knowing this wolf was already calculating how fast he could get down there and drag his brother out himself.

"I’m working on it." But that was all Eastiel managed.

"Boss, the decompression chamber is ready. You can go faster." Swanson’s voice cut through the channel, reliable as usual.

"Reyes." Eastiel turned his head, his dive light catching the younger diver’s face through the visor. Reyes’s movements had started to look rushed. Snappy. It was the usual dangerous edge of a diver who was on the verge of panic. "Stay calm. Remember, pressure sickness is bad enough. You can’t risk corruption poisoning on top of it."

"Okay... okay..." Reyes’s breath came in a strangled gasp, his voice trembling with the effort of controlling it.

Eastiel swam closer, positioning himself between Reyes and the darkness below. "Slow down. I’m here. I will protect you—"

CRACK—

The sound came through the water. It wasn’t loud, but deep and resonant, travelling through liquid and bone alike. Somewhere below them, something was breaking. Something that should not have been breaking.

"Oh, shit." Swanson whispered, perhaps forgetting to cut the channel. "Boss—"

"It’s okay, slowly." Eastiel calmed them down.

"Alright, secure the Saintess," Damon’s voice sounded a bit more distant. "Evac update! Come on!"

CRACKLE—CRACKLE—

"I see the crackling. Get out of there, Brother." Arkai’s voice was sharp now, urgent. "Forget it. I’m getting down there."

"CALM DOWN!" Eastiel roared.

The channel went silent. Even Reyes, still trembling beside him, went still.

"Just ten more meters," Eastiel said steadily. "Calm down. Slow down. It is alright." He was talking to all of them now. Reyes, Arkai, Swanson, and himself. "We’re almost there. Stay with me."

It was actually fifteen more meters.

CRACKLE—