In the ink-black depths of the Silent Trench, where pressure could crush steel like parchment and the water held its breath, there swam a whale that was never meant to exist.
Its name was Nycta, and its body was translucent—a living cathedral of cartilage and pulsating veins through which entire ecosystems flickered like candle flames. The whalers who glimpsed it swore its skeleton glowed the blue of drowned sunlight,casting shadows that moved independently of anything physical.
Nycta did not sing like other whales.
When it opened its jaws, the ocean fell silent for miles. Fish froze mid-swim. Currents stilled. Even the great squids curled defensively in their ink clouds. Because what emerged from Nycta’s throat wasn’t song, but absence —a vacuum of sound so complete it left bleeding cracks in reality.
Sailors told of finding ships adrift with crews perfectly preserved, their lungs full of seawater that had somehow entered without drowning them. Of diving bells hauled up with their windows shattered inward,though the pressure should have crushed them outward.
