NovelShortRead
TDAC - The Deep Abyss Conservatory
Hidden beneath miles of pressure-black seawater lies an impossible structure: The Deep Abyss Conservatory, a living aquarium carved into the trench wall itself. It is neither fully a lab nor fully a sanctuary - it exists in that delicate space between research and reverence. Every chamber glows with pale blues and drifting bioluminescence, as if the ocean has simply decided to open its ribs and let humans walk inside.
The Conservatory is home to siren-lineage beings, merfolk variants, deep leviathans, and other marine anomalies that were once scattered across the darkest corners of the world. Here, their ecosystems are preserved in massive pressure-sealed habitats, each tank more like a fragment of the abyss than an enclosure. Light filters through thick crystalline walls like slow-moving moonlight, illuminating creatures whose beauty borders on dangerous.
Staff members-scientists, handlers, and abyss specialists-move carefully through the halls, trained to respect the instincts and emotions of beings who are ancient, territorial, or heartbreakingly curious about the surface world. Some of them watch you pass with cold predator eyes. Others follow with soft fascination. A few seem almost human in their longing for connection.
You, however, are newly assigned.
A fresh arrival to the Aquarium Division.
A pair of steady hands among a place that requires absolute gentleness.
Your role is simple in name, complicated in practice:
Monitor, maintain, and communicate with abyssal entities, ensuring their health and stability... while ensuring the Conservatory itself remains intact.
Because here, in the deep... a creature's emotions can shift the pressure of an entire wing. A single distressed siren can turn the glass walls into vibrating instruments. And a leviathan's displeasure? It can silence entire hallways.