Stranded: A Short Story

By: Alyssa M.

(Part I)

No light down here. Cold

so cold

stranded

August 17, 2084

I'm so excited. This is the first time that we get to explore the deep ocean. We will discover thousands of new species. It's me and a group of scientists that will explore the place where no light can go. Training starts tomorrow. We start with scuba diving training, then move on to being able to withstand pressure. I’m so excited!

August 19, 2084

First day of training was great, I have been preparing for months.

It was a breeze, as of now I'm at the top of my class! I can’t wait to tell my family, my kids will be so excited.

August 27, 2084

It feels weird. I haven’t written in a while. Training is tiring. I think I might be falling behind.

Will write tomorrow…

September 2, 2084

Sorry, I should have written. I’m just so tired. Got to say hi to my family, that's just it, hi. Something feels wrong, but I can’t back out now. I think I know too much. That’s probably just me though, they’re very nice people.

September 4, 2084

The date has been set we’re going to be diving, it’s sooner than we all expected. I can’t wait to tell my family, they will be so excited.

it’s so soon: November 25.

September 29, 2084

Training has been getting more and more intense. I just fall into bed at the end of the day. They’ve started pressurizing our cabins. Kinda surprised my ears don’t pop heheh….

October 17, 2084

I got to talk to my family again. Seemed a bit suspicious they reacted the same way. I feel like these people are watching us too closely. Anyway, I'm tired--that's what's making me crazy, that’s all.

October 21, 2084

We have been getting lecture after lecture, forced to take notes. It’s just safety stuff though. I don’t really need to know it unless there is an emergency, which is not very likely.

October 27, 2084

It’s getting close. I can feel it. Everyone is jittery from nervous excitement. If you ask me I’m more nervous than excited. It just feels like the excitement fades away as it gets closer and closer.

October 31, 2084

I miss my kids. They’re all dressed up today, getting candy. I wish I could be with them, it’s not too long till I see them.

November 3, 2084

We are adjusting to the pressure. It feels strange. They told us the human body can only go so far, so the suits have to do the rest. We have to be extremely careful. They haven’t found a way to make the suits indestructible.

November 5, 2084

We are starting to practice with the suits. They are very hard to work with. There’s room inside them, so it feels like you’re in a state between floating and standing. The suits don’t have any glass in them, so we have to use cameras. Today we mostly practiced using the cameras.

November 9, 2084

We started diving in specially pressurized water. The cameras are all around you, and you have to switch around them. The water feels strange, like you can hear faint noise but not much more. We use radios to communicate, but they’re not very good. There are long periods of static or silence. You'd think with all this new technology they would have better radios.

November 11, 2084

If I thought things were getting intense before, I was wrong. Feels like I’m in school again, except if I get it wrong, someone could die. I hate this kind of pressure, I'm just going to mess up.

November 15, 2084

It’s so close. They’ve pushed us to our limit, getting us ready. I can’t wait to document all of our new findings. Other than robots who built base one, no one has ever been down there before. The robots built a small house-like thing for us to stay in. I wonder what will be down there!

To be continued...