1 Chapter 1

She clung on to the piece of driftwood, praying for daylight. "How long has it been?" She muttered to herself. Agitatedly looking at her bland surroundings. Considering the events of the last few days, she calculated it was almost a week she had been floating aimlessly in the Atlantic. She reminded herself to be patient, and stay calm. What else could she do? It would be useless to get frustrated. Even more so to panic. Possibly even lessen the probability that she could survive this shitstorm she managed to get herself in.

She was trying to keep her body temperature up in this bone-chilling cold of night. The days were tolerable, but she could not avoid the sun's scorching rays. She could feel her skin becoming more sensitive to it with each passing day. The wood provided comfort from the cold water at night, but not much more than that. She cursed her bout of bad luck.

Luck had been on her side, though. Juba was the only survivor in the expedition to do research in the Mariana Trench. With how quickly the world was evolving with new technologies, there were also ways to extract much more energy from nuclear sources. However, this lead to a rapid increase of nuclear waste. Humans were running out of sensible places to dispose of this, and at the bottom of the deepest trench in the world had been someone's brilliant idea.

The constant shifting of tectonic plates made it a dangerous spot to explore for long periods of time. Everyone participating knew the possible consequences when they took the challenge. Their lives would depend on it either way. If not immediately, then within the next hundred years or so.

Juba let the scene unfold in her mind once more. The deep, unsettling rumble coming from the aphotic abyss. The submarine she shared with her three colleagues was ascending as quickly as it could. She had been gathering emergency life vests for the rest of the crew and looked up through a concave window to see a wall silently cruising towards her. She had nearly reached them when it hit. The submarine lodged, and water rushed in filling it almost instantly. She was swept off her feet as she activated her vest. Knowing she had limited time, she had crawled through an opening in the crumpled metal. After she had done her part, she let the vest do its job. If she wanted to make it to the surface alive, she would need to conserve her energy and relax as much as possible. She hadn't bothered looking down to see if the others had made it. She was certain they would follow the proper procedure as well as follow her lead and everyone would make it out just fine. She had to remain positive. She could see the light of the fading sunset shimmering into the depths as she was in her last few seconds of consciousness.