Ocean's Planet

Contest Submission

When I opened my eyes under this pitch-black water, I already knew the Earth was destroyed--what I didn't know was that I discovered a completely different world under the ocean, miles below the earth.

I float further into black void I once called my home's ocean. My eyes scan the information in front of me against my visor. How could I have not known this? How could we have not know this?

"Grata," I whisper to my astro-suit's AI. "Diagnose the world."

"Certainly, Commander number 326." Grata replies swiftly. As it scans the planet beneath me, the suit adjusts to the pressure, keeping my alive as it turns the salty water around me into an endless supply of oxygen. "Here is what I found."

Popping up would be a name, numbers, and a picture of the new world. There's a fairly significant population of poor souls who never knew the world above them became our nuclear Hell.

From all the stories we were told as young recruits...we were told to never go this far deep into the ocean. Mainly because of all the deep sea monsters awaiting to swallow us whole.

If I could tell them what I see now, they would laugh.

The eyes of the Kraken stare me down as I pass by him and other glowing eyes of the other mythical sea monsters watch me fall closer to what they've been guarding for eons.

Our Planet X. The Greeks' Atlantis. The World's Eden. They were all one world.

And with me as the last survivor of Earth, it's now my mission to prevent the same thing from happening there.