The Signal Room
For several long seconds, nobody inside the communications chamber spoke.
The cassette recorder continued hissing softly beside the skeleton while rain and thunder echoed faintly through cracks high above the cliffs. Emergency lights flickered weakly across the circular room, casting long shadows over broken radio equipment and rusted machinery that looked abandoned for decades.
But the message still echoed inside everyone’s head.
It’s trying to leave the island.
God.
Nora Vale felt cold all over again despite the humid underground air. Until now, survival meant escaping Blackwater Island.
But if Elias was telling the truth…
escaping might not be enough anymore.
Kai Mercer slowly stared toward the cassette recorder like it personally offended him. “You’re telling me the giant underground nightmare monster wants to migrate?”
Nobody answered.
Because deep down, the silence already confirmed it.
Another tremor shook the underground chamber while distant rushing water thundered through the maintenance tunnels behind them. The lower levels of the island were flooding completely now.
And somewhere below—
the Hollow One kept climbing.
Elias stepped toward the old radio tower slowly. His face looked exhausted beneath the flickering lights, like he carried memories he spent years trying unsuccessfully to bury.
“This was the last emergency broadcast station,” he murmured quietly. “After containment collapsed, the remaining researchers tried warning the mainland.”
Selene frowned immediately. “Tried?”
Elias looked toward the skeleton beside the equipment.
“They never finished the transmission.”
God.
Nora’s stomach tightened while she studied the remains more carefully. Rusted headphones still hung around the skeleton’s neck while deep claw marks covered the concrete wall behind the chair.
Something killed him before he could escape.
Kai pointed toward the old radio equipment cautiously. “Please tell me there’s still a way to contact somebody.”
Elias hesitated.
Then slowly nodded once.
“Maybe.”
That single word gave the group their first real hope since boarding the ferry.
Jace immediately moved toward the communication console. “Then we call for rescue.”
“No,” Elias answered instantly.
The sharpness in his voice surprised everyone.
Selene looked confused. “What do you mean no?”
The older man stepped forward quickly. “If anyone comes near Blackwater Reef while the Hollow One is fully awake…” He looked genuinely disturbed now. “It won’t stay trapped here anymore.”
Silence settled heavily across the chamber.
Another distant roar echoed upward through the flooding tunnels beneath them.
Closer now.
Kai rubbed both hands over his face. “I need this island to stop revealing worse information every ten minutes.”
Nora slowly approached the communication console while staring at the tangled radio equipment. Most of the machinery looked destroyed, but one system still flickered weakly with power beneath the emergency lights.
A transmitter.
And beside it—
a map.
The old paper map hung pinned across the far wall covered in notes and frantic handwriting from decades earlier.
Most of Blackwater Island had been circled repeatedly in red ink.
But the ocean around it looked worse.
Dozens of arrows pointed outward from the island toward mainland shipping routes.
And written across the center of the map in massive shaking letters were the words:
IT USES THE DROWNED TO SPREAD
God.
Selene noticed another detail first.
“There are dates here.”
Everyone looked closer.
The notes beside the map listed storms.
Disappearances.
Boat wrecks.
Every few years.
Kai frowned slowly. “This thing’s been active for decades?”
Elias nodded once without looking at them.
“The Hollow One sleeps beneath the reef most of the time.” His voice lowered slightly. “But every few years, storms wake it enough to feed again.”
Nora’s chest tightened.
“The ferry…”
Elias finally looked at her directly.
“It called your ferry here.”
Silence swallowed the room again.
Because suddenly everything made horrifying sense.
The invitation emails.
The abandoned harbor.
The broken ferry.
Blackwater Island didn’t randomly receive victims.
It hunted them.
Another violent tremor shook the communications chamber hard enough to send dust raining from the ceiling overhead.
Then the cassette recorder crackled loudly beside the skeleton.
Everyone jumped.
Static hissed through the tiny speaker.
Then another voice emerged from the tape.
Not the researcher from before.
A woman.
Crying.
“If anyone finds this recording… don’t trust the drowned voices.”
The tape crackled heavily.
“They remember people after feeding. They learn how to sound human.” Her breathing became uneven. “And if you hear someone you love calling from the water…”
A horrible pause followed.
Then softly—
“Don’t answer them.”
The recording ended abruptly.
Only static remained afterward.
Nobody spoke.
Because every person in the room remembered hearing familiar voices already.
Then suddenly—
the radio equipment powered on by itself.
The speakers burst alive with deafening static throughout the chamber.
Everyone flinched immediately.
And beneath the static—
came whispering.
Hundreds of overlapping voices whispering through the radio all at once.
Some crying.
Some laughing softly.
Some begging for help.
God.
Nora physically felt her head begin hurting the longer the noise continued.
Kai covered his ears instantly. “TURN IT OFF!”
But Elias looked terrified now.
Not of the whispers.
Of the machine itself.
“The signal…”
The static grew louder.
Then one voice slowly emerged above the others.
Clear.
Deep.
Ancient.
“Bring them below.”
Every radio in the chamber exploded at once.
Sparks erupted across the room while lights flickered violently overhead.
Then every emergency light died.
Darkness swallowed the communications chamber instantly.
And from somewhere inside the flooded tunnel behind them—
came the sound of something enormous dragging itself upward toward the room.