Lilith's whole body cringed at the horrible scream that the monster let out. She glanced over at it and got a full, clear view of what it was now. It definetly appeared to have a human-like figure and head, but with severe mutation, as she had thought before. What created this creature? She wanted to think it wasn't the radiation, since she hadn't seen a leak affect any human being anything like this before. But if someone was exposed to great amounts, and in this environment then maybe...

She decided not to think on it any longer. She refused to let herself jump to any sort of conclusions or suspicious without hard evidence and research. Besides, this was a monster. She didn't think a human could transform this much in that short a time span. She stared at the creature and made sure she kept the knife out infront of her as she glanced at the diver that she had saved. She looked over to the station as well, seeing how close it was. They were going to make it there alive. She was determined to live longer and definetly not die like this. She just hoped those monsters were outside of the station and not in it as well.

Lilith jumped a bit as the monster started thrashing and she turned and was about to begin swimming towards the station when she felt one of the tentacles smash into her back, knocking the wind out of her. She felt the knife start to slip out of her hands and turned to grab it again. She ducked under another flailing limb but it managed to cover half her mask with it's black tar. Once she could breath again, she gasped and brought a hand up to her mask, trying to get it off. She looked around frantically, noticing she was only able to see a bit out of the right side of her mask.

As she looked around she began feeling disoriented. She didn't know which way she was facing or which way the station was. She couldn't start swimming, for fear that she would end up going the wrong way. Worst of all, she didn't know where the monster was. Her whole body trembling with fear as she looked around, hoping the other diver was still there to help her find her way to the station, to safety.

There was a horrible scream from the mouth of the monster. Or what Tomas thought of as its mouth anyway. The head of the once-human person had rolled backwards in to its spine, leaving a small stump. From here, it was hard to tell if this thing used to be a man or a woman. But its unisex scream told him it was in pain, and the longer they stayed out here, the more chance they had of dying like the men below.

The commander had managed to get around six of his men inside, the rest had been mutilated by this thing. But it appeared as if it wasn't the only one out here, and there was in fact more. Tomas shuddered at the thought. More of these things? What the hell was it in the first place? It wasn't a normal octopus, that was a fact. And the slightest hint of it being human suddenly startled him. Was it... the station that had done this? Had the leak been responsible? Shit! It was a long shot, but how could it turn them in to these things? Surely it would have just melted their skin, and that was it? Not transform them in to monsters!

He quickly thanked the other diver and looked over to the station. Nearly there. Just swim a little bit, and they'd be dry and safe. Safe. He hoped so. He knew how many people worked down there, if it happened to all of them... then there could be too many things running down there.

The monster thrashed its remaining five tentacles (and the leaking stump) around in the sea, squirting its black tar through the water. Tomas managed to avoid it, ducking his head at the last minute. But as he adjusted his bearings, he was alarmed as it went straight for Lilith...

When Lilith had turned back to look at the diver, her eyes widened. He was gone. No where to be found. Now she was scared. When she turned back to see where the others were, she screamed into her mouthpiece and felt like she was about to be sick. There was blood everywhere, clouding the water. She couldn't make out who anyone was anymore, they had all broke away to save themselves. She froze in her spot, but still moved downwards from the weight. She blinked a couple times, trying to regain herself and began swimming as fast as she could, since she had fallen quite a ways behind the rest of them.

As she swam downwards, one of the divers came into view, and he was looking back to see where the diver behind them had been. Then she saw one of the most terrifying, unbelieveable things she's ever seen. It wasn't an octopus or squid, but had tentacles like one. It almost had a human-like figure but was horribly deformed. It was hard to make out exactly what it was with the darkness and cloudiness of the water now. Her eyes glanced up towards where the surface was and wondered if she would have enough time, or energy, to swim back up. As she looked down to figure out how far away the station was, she saw the monster grab ahold of the one diver that she could see and noticed him trying to grab a knife that wasn't there.

Lilith's hand moved to the knife that she had attached to her leg, just in case of an emergency, and felt that it was still there. She took it out and looked at it quickly, before her eyes moved back to the monster and the diver. She took a deep breath and gripped the knife tightly in her hand. She had to help him, who knows how many divers they had lost already? She couldn't let him die infront of her. Without another thought, she swam as fast as she could down towards him. With a sudden burst of strength, probably from the adrenaline now pumping through her veins, she thrust the knife downwards. With a couple stabs, she had cut the tentacle that had secured itself around his ankle off and looked at the diver. She nodded her head downwards quickly, trying to say that they should get to the station. She had no idea how to kill this thing, so she figured it would be safer to try to escape it and get to the station.

Another man went limp, his shadowed body floating towards the ground of the seabed, the weight pulling him downwards. The whole in his stomach, punctured by an unknown attacker, spilled out his own juices. With nothing to defend themselves with - as their regular weapons would fail to work underwater - there was quickly panic amongst the ranks. For half of the men, they were unaware of what was actually happening. All they knew was three of their friends were dead, and something was swimming around them at a quick pace.

By now, they broke from their positions, and it was a case of swimming as fast as they could towards the station before they were next. Was it a shark? No, there was tentacles. So that meant it was a squid or octopus? But why would they attack them? Weren't they peaceful creatures? The SEAL Commander didn't think about anything other than his safety. Waving over to whoever's attention he could get, he watched as Lilith and Tomas came in to view. By now, the scene of carnage came in to Tomas' vision through the mask, and he stopped suddenly. He had kept an almost similar descent speed to Lilith, but as he turned back to check on the diver behind, he frowned.

Gone.

Where was he? He was there a few minutes ago!

Then something grabbed him. It tightened round his ankle, its soft surface squelching against the drysuit skin. Tomas whipped his head round to try and push what ever it was off, maybe it was a hand? No, it was worse than that. The thing that yanked against him wasn't human. Or at least, now it wasn't. What used to be its arms and legs were now flailing tentacles, with another set underneath where it's original arms were - poking painfully through its rib cage. The stomach looked to have developed a gaping mouth, with pieces of bone acting as teeth. Tomas screamed in to the mouthpiece of his oxygen, and scrambled for the knife attached to his leg, but in the process it had been knocked off and dropped downwards.

Looking around, he hoped to try and grab Lilith's attention, or another diver who could help kill this thing, or escape!

Lilith looked slightly shocked hearing that he used to work down in the place they were going. Her expression couldn't really be seen, though, thanks to the suit that she was wearing. She glanced into the water at their feet, still listening to him. "Yeah, I'm not looking forward to going down there either. I hope those men are alright..." She said, muttering the last part to herself. She looked back over at him and tried to give a reassuring smile. "I'm sure we'll all be fine and back up here on the surface in no time." She said with a nod. She really wasn't sure, though, if she believed that or not.

When the commander came over to them, Lilith looked up and nodded, also getting to her feet and putting on her flippers. She had been diving only once before, but that was in the middle of the day and she didn't go down nearly as far as they wold be going. She put her arms through the harness of the oxygen tank before placing the breathing mask in her mouth. She looked over to Tomas, now wishing she had asked his name, and gave him a thumbs up as well. When their turn to jump in came, she watched him jump in without hesitation and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. She then jumped into the water, feeling the weight of the suit pulling her down already. She looked ahead of her and began swimming down, following the rest of them and feeling slightly relieved that there was someone behind her to make sure she didn't get lost.

Her heart was pounding in her chest as they descended, just wishing that they were at the station already. She would have began swimming faster if she wasn't having so much trouble trying to adjust to the weight of the suit. She didn't like this feeling, like something was going to happen. She jumped slightly as she thought she heard a noise from further below. She looked back at the diver behind her before looking forwards and continuing her swim, the feeling getting worse. After swimming for a bit more, getting deeper into the water, she could've sworn she saw something in the distance. She looked back at the diver behind her again, trying to see if he saw it too.

(( I hope so too. I'm sure it will be =D ))

"Am I nervous? Of course I am. If you asked any one of these Navy SEALs here, they'd all say the same thing. If they didn't, then they'd be lying. I used to work down there, for a couple of years. This was a good while ago, mind you. But I always thought something like this would happen. You don't just watch over a nuclear bomb and think everything is going to be okay. Sooner or later, it's going to break open, and everything is going to go everywhere. I hate to sound this negative, but I'm really not looking forward to going back down there." Tomas was unsure of the girl's name, but there was no time to ask. The SEAL commander had ordered his men to get ready to dive below, and he came over to talk to Tomas and Lilith. "We're heading down. Just follow behind us, make sure you don't get lost. I'll have a man behind you in case that happens."

Tomas looked up and nodded, getting to his feet and leaning down to pick up the flippers. He pushed his toes in to them and picked up the oxygen tank, slipping his arms through the harness and putting the breathing mask in to his mouth. The Norwegian tried to smile, and gave Lilith a thumbs up as the men in front of them began to jump in and head downwards towards the station. It was soon their turn, and Tomas took no time to hesitate jumping in. The water hit him hard, but fortunately the drysuit kept him warm. The thick fabric weighed a ton, however, and even without much effort, he felt himself sinking slowly to the bottom. He worried that the woman wouldn't be able to properly swim with it on, and made sure to look out for her as he regained his bearings.

Below them, however, something was happening. Half of the SEALs had reached the station, but they had been interrupted by a sudden shrieking noise, an unnatural song that pierced their ears through the drysuit's hood. One of the men looked around, puzzled as to what was happening. Did he see something in the distance? Was it one of his fellow divers? No, it was moving too fast. He could see... tentacles. Waving through the water, approaching at a rapid speed. What the hell...!

A dull, sticky substance was thrown at his face. His vision went black. He tried to peel it away, but it was glued to his face. The same thing happened to another man, they struggled. A gurgled scream followed as a thick tentacle crunched through flesh and bone. The blue sea temporarily clouded red.

A young woman sat straight up, tense, in a small, uncomfortable chair, staring slightly wide-eyed up at the man that was talking to her. He looked and definetly suited the part of the generic government official, complete with making her feel the most uncomfortable that she's ever felt. Her green eyes never left the man, and hardly blinked, as she took in what he was telling her. When he asked if she understood the confidentiality and seriousness of the situation, she nodded her head quickly, a few strands of her auburn hair falling into her face which she quickly brushed away.

A few hours earlier, Lilith had been happily working on her research. Then she was plucked from her work and shipped to this... underground building. She hadn't known what she was doing there until he started speaking to her. If she wasn't so tense, she would have sighed a breath of relief. When she saw all the men in suits and sunglasses, she thought she had been in serious trouble.

A few times she had tried to say something. comment on what he was telling her, but closed her mouth each time, deciding it was best to just sit silently and listen. Her expression turned to one of slight shock when he mentioned about a leak. A leak of radiation was like a deadly poison... She began to feel concerned about the team that was down there with it.

Lilith leaned forwards and slid the blueprints towards her and took the photo that he handed to her, staring at them both before her eyes returned to the man. "I understand." She said simply.

--

Being on a boat in the middle of the night out in the ocean, surrounded by Navy SEALs waiting to go down into the depths of the ocean was not a comforting feeling for Lilith. Ever since she was pulled into that office two days prior, she began questioning why she was chosen for this mission. It wasn't like she wasn't excited, because she was. This was the biggest mission she was sent on for her research, and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. But as she sat there, staring down at the black water, she felt extremely nervous. She didn't know what to expect when they arrived at their destination.

When the man next to her spoke, it snapped her out of her thoughts and she looked up at him. She gave a slight, wary smile and nodded a bit. "Yeah, I am, actually. I have never really done something like this for research before." She said, giving a slight nervous laugh. "The thought is sort of scary, actually. But I guess I'm grateful for getting the opportunity to do this." She said, trying to reassure herself. "Are you nervous?" She asked.

(( I loved your opening. I'm excited for this rp : ) ha ha ha. ))

"I'm going to tell you something that's not supposed to leave this room. Of course if it does, and someone else hears about it before you do what you're asked, then there will be severe consequences for everyone that you've ever known. Even that boy you glanced at during high school will be in hot water. You understand the confidentiality and seriousness of the situation?"

The man was your typical American Government official. Sunglasses, the suit, the gun in the holster and a mouth that never cracked a smile. They'd more or less pulled the woman from her work and dragged her here to a building hidden from view. Underground.

"There was a submarine that was sunk about ten years ago, off the coast of Florida. We don't know what happened to it, but it was carrying some fragile goods. As you can probably guess, the important item that was on board that submarine was a nuclear reactor. A big one. A size you've only dreamed about. You think the ones you work with are big? Think again."

"It was too dangerous to lift it straight out of the ocean, so we had to improvise. We built a secure sub-station over it, a sort of safety blanket. For the last ten years, we've had a team working round the clock to make sure nothing happens to it."

"But something's happened. The last communication we received from them was... three weeks ago. June 9th. Since then, they've went dead. We were hoping there was a fault with the radio, but that's not the case. It's worse than we expected. We think there's a leak."

"You know that even one tiny leak is disasterous. I can't begin to tell you what it means if this leak isn't patched up. That's why I want to send you down with a team of Navy Seals. They'll escort you down, and make sure you get on the station okay. These men have been briefed on the entire layout of the compound, so they'll know where the reactor is."

The man pulled out some blueprints, and placed them on the table. There was a red circle on the room where she'd be working. "There you go. And this is a photo of it here."



Two days later, Tomas Strand sat with his feet in the water, sighing as the coldness nipped at his toes. With the flippers sitting behind him on the boat, he closed his eyes and enjoyed the silence for a few minutes more.

To avoid any unwanted attention, the boat was small, a converted fishing vessel that had long since abandoned the work it had originally been constructed to do. The midnight darkness did little to help with the feeling of loneliness, and the coast seemed such a long distance away. The only light came from the lamp at the bow, nodded downwards to search for this strange building on the bottom of the sea.

The rest of the Navy SEALs behind him were ready to go down. Unlike them or his female colleague sitting beside him, he wasn't a soldier. He was an engineer, one of the original team that was sent down for the first two years. After his time was up, he had vowed never to return, in fear that something bad would happen. Now, however, he was on a boat directly above it, waiting to go down. How had he been convinced to return?

His short brown hair was hidden under the hood of the drysuit, the diving mask covering his face. All of them looked identical, and it was impossible to distinguish who was a SEAL, who was the researcher, or who was the engineer. Tomas - who originally immigrated from Norway a few years before the submarine sinking - smiled nervously at the woman beside him, obviously knowing it was her because her pretty lips were still visible. "You nervous?" He asked.