Disclaimer: I don't own Goosebumps; it is the sole property of its publisher, Scholastic Books, and its author/creator, RL Stine. Original Characters are of my own design and concept. This story takes place within the Full Moon High Universe, but also within the Talbot Pack Crusaders timeline. Enjoy.
The Ocean
Nearly 70 % of our world is it.
A vast Cradle to where all life began in the waters. A virtual DNA codex exists within its ancient waters.
It is said that it is just as vast and unexplored as Space, and teeming with aliens that we see in aquariums each day.
Far below the seas, lies a vast underwater mountain range of canyons, pits, and depths deep to hide even the Himalayas. Deeper than any man or machine has ever discovered.
What lies down within the murky and blackened depths of our oceans has remained a mystery. Whether it is untold worlds or places we never dreamed of finding.
And more so… what life lies within those depths.
Whatever the mystery, there is one answer: there are some secrets and things of our world… we're not yet ready to know about.
And if we do, there is one thing to know: Don't fool with Mother Nature.
Year: 2017
Location: Atlantic Ocean
Deep within the Atlantic Ocean
Deep down within the depths of the underwater canyons of the Atlantic Ocean, an enormous Japanese BATHYSCAPHE free-fell through the water. An autonomous fifteen-man submersible. Almost futuristic in its design. The nose cone was an amazing ultra high-pressure plexi-dome. The lettering along the side had the christened name of the sub, the Shinkai 90000.
Computer printed across the screen on its CPU were…
Assignment: Geological Exploration
Sub-Oceanic Seismic Research
Tectonic Plate Surveillance
Addendum: About to Break the World's Record for the deepest dive.
Above the Sea
Riding with the waves, anchored in station for their sub to come back, the captain watched a DLD laser tracking system on the bridge, and barked one worded questions to his crew. The sailors worked on the consoles and dave clipped monosyllabic answers. The Science Officers went over the charts on the electronic position board. A continuously-shifting graphic representation of the ocean contours below. Behind them was an elaborate depth gauge with computerized graphics. Reading 34,000 feet and dropping. The crew worked at a feverish pitch.
Suddenly, an alarm sounded off as the depth gauge sounded 35,000 feet. All eyes on the depth gauge, as the science officers shared excited looks. It continued to plummet deeper and deeper, as the excitement build around them. Even the captain's weathered eyes widened. And then as the depth gauge hit 35,801 feet below sea level, the entire crew broke into cheers, whoops, handshakes, and high fives all around.
Back Down Below
The Shinkai 9000 continued its descent, passing corroding metal drums leaking toxic waste, radioactive materials that melted the rock bed, dumped into the depths for years, away from prying eyes, and populated areas. The vessel dropped into a Basin so vast, you would have to imagine it as the Grand Canyon, under forty thousand feet of water.
But this Basin was similar to the Sulu Basin: which was ten times the size of the Grand Canyon.
Down there, ten thousand fathoms below the sea surface, all was calm. The dual turbo-props on the ear of the submersible kicked on. The baby saphe was now mobile. It glided down the side of an enormous rock face, carefully avoiding massive sandstone pinnacles which jutted up from the ocean floor far below.
The Shinkai hovered near a gigantic tectonic plate. A robotic arm extended out from under the plexi-dome. Its 'hand' was a high-tech laser cutter with a claw attachment. It approached the plate, steadied, then gently fired a direct blue beam at the bedrock, burnng the rock into magma, as it cut a perfect round pattern. The other arm, which had a main claw, reached forward, gently picking up the cut rock from inside the pattern, then took the sample and set it inside a hydro-basket on the submersible's port side.
But as it did that, it noticed a desolate, barren spooky place. The Mindinao Deep. Nothing breathes, nothing lives, at least down there. Or so it would seem. The Shinkai entered the huge rock fissure.
Back on the Ship
The Captain and the science officers stared through the plexi-dome camera lense on the robotic sub, and out into the freezing, cobalt blue of the Fissure Through. They watched as the drone went through the fissure. Then dead ahead, it was the end of the trough, which was half-blocked by a rock-encrusted embankment. The Shinkai approached the embankment, and slowly started to glide up the side. The captain and science officers seemed mesmerized by all the lonely creepiness of what the drone showed them on deck. They crested the embankment, but then the dome view filled with an unimaginable horror.
As far as the eye could see, the entire murky landscape was filled with whale bones. A valley of death. Cluttered her eand there, carelessly flung about, were the rusting hulks of several ships, seemingly ripped apart. Clusters of shark cartilage afloat through the water like white ghosts.
The captain and the crew, the entire crew, just stared, frozen in place by the strange horror before them. The vessel cruised through the valley of death. Everyone was nervously taking readings, making calculations and adjusting equipment. Gone was the excitement and euphoria of the record breaking. Several crewmen cast nervous glances out through the screen shown to them by the sub. Giant skeletons everywhere.
What creature could have caused such a horrendous scene.
The drone circled about, getting ready to leave. But then noticed a strange fossilized rock formation near one of the corpses. It swam over to gently scan it, and found it was somewhat coffin sized, but scans indicated something interesting to the crew, allowing their euphoria to return.
The element showed that there was something organic cocooned inside.
The drone used the cutting laser to cut around the rock bed that anchored it to the sea bed. And then carefully, using both arms, it wrenched the fossil free. Without wasting much time, the drone sped back to the main ship, leaving the carnage behind.
Though as it left behind the bones and death, it didn't do a whole scan of the area. For behind where the fossil was found, down a mile below… there were fossilized humanoid bodies clawing up to the skies with furious intent. Though oddly enough… these beings had characteristics of fishlike anatomy.
Full Moon High: Leviathan