Ryan M. Patrick

Older posts can be found on the main Crush Depth page. This is an incredibly valuable exercise for me and it also gives my readers an insight into my writing process. It’s been a long journey but there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Chapter Thirty: Parkowski’s head is briefly probed by one of the beings – perhaps the Librarian, but she can’t be sure. The crew braces but however they don’t get another attack. Debates rage over evacuation. They decide again to use the submersibles to reach a safer depth in the caves, where the Navy was doing underwater testing of low-yield nuclear torpedoes – the original reason that the habitat was down here, finally revealed to Parkowski – where there are supplies, including air. End the discussion and chapter just before they go to board the submersibles.

Stuff starts getting weird. We’re on the bleeding edge of technothrillers, nearly sci-fi. But it’s good and I love how it’s working together.

I really need the cave system to be better foreshadowed – it will be in edits.

And we’re going to try to leave again.

Chapter Thirty-One: They (Parkowski, Carmano, Vasco, Okonkwo – the others are on the Seaquest) leave the habitat, temporarily pausing as the contacts move, then stop again. Parkowski asks more questions about the nuclear torpedoes but is rebuffed. Some light discussion on the Nautilus about the creatures. They communicate with the other submersible (Seaquest) by shining lights back and forth in morse code. Sonar tracks multiple pursuers closing in.

We’re back outside of the habitat. And they’re being followed.

Lots of really good dialog here. I’m not changing much of this.

I heavily foreshadowed Morse Code being important early on and the payoff is here. And then we go into the caves!

Chapter Thirty-Two: Start as soon as the last chapter ended (they entered the cave). The submersibles are ambushed – the creatures behave like predators, tossing their prey around. They still don’t get a good look at them. Seaquest is destroyed while the remaining survivors on Nautilus decide to head back to the habitat and abandon the caves.

Ignore the obvious continuity errors – I did a really bad job here of keeping track of who is on what submersible and who is alive and dead. All of that will be fixed in edits.

There’s a lot of foreboding – bad things are about to happen.

Another attack – seemingly random, but we’ll go through it more later.

And now it’s time to leave.

Hope you’re enjoying following along!