Beneath the Glass Sea

The ocean was a glittering sheet of glass stretching endlessly beneath the pink twilight. Lyra’s submersible, The Dauntless, descended into the depths, its lights cutting through the eerie blue as she ventured into the uncharted waters of Gliese 581d. She steadied herself, fingers tight on the controls, watching the screens as the readings spiked. Everything about this alien ocean felt… aware.

“Control, this is Lyra. I’m at 700 meters, visibility is low, but I’m getting strange heat signatures,” she reported, her voice tense.

“Copy that, Lyra,” came the crackling reply. “Stay alert. Gliese’s oceans haven’t been mapped for a reason. Don’t take any unnecessary risks.”

“Roger,” she murmured, though she had every intention of pushing further. Lyra was no stranger to danger, but something about these readings pulled at her. The signals seemed almost… deliberate, as if someone, or something, wanted to be found.

The submersible dipped lower, and the vast quiet surrounded her, pressing in from every side. Shadows loomed just beyond the floodlights, shapeless masses that shifted like phantoms. The deeper she went, the colder it grew, yet her readings suggested a massive heat source close by.

“This is Lyra. I’m picking up a large energy signature ahead,” she said, breathless. “It’s… enormous. Something like this shouldn’t exist in the middle of an ocean trench.”

Static filled the radio for a moment. Then, Control’s voice returned, “Approach with caution, Lyra. If it’s active geothermal—”

But the signal cut off, and the sub’s controls flickered as though something was interfering. The lights began to pulse, dimming and brightening in sync with her heartbeat.

Then she saw it.

A structure emerged from the darkness, a massive dome of translucent crystal embedded in the seafloor, glimmering with shifting lights that resembled bioluminescence. It looked ancient, but alive. Strange symbols pulsed along its surface, almost like veins of liquid light.

“Control, are you seeing this?” Lyra whispered, but only silence answered. She was alone.

She leaned forward, staring in awe as something within the dome shifted. A figure, or maybe several, shadowy and elegant, moved slowly on the other side of the glass. Lyra’s heart raced.

“This can’t be… life?” she murmured, barely breathing.

One of the figures approached the dome’s surface, raising an elongated arm that pulsed with light. The strange markings on the crystal flared, and a soft, resonant hum filled the sub, vibrating through her bones.

The figure’s hand pressed against the dome, and without thinking, Lyra raised her own gloved hand, pressing it to the inside of the submersible’s glass. The hum grew louder, deeper, a strange rhythm that felt like it was telling a story.

For a moment, images flickered in her mind—a vast, advanced civilization, thriving beneath the ocean’s surface, watching the stars from below, waiting… for contact.

The figure slowly withdrew its hand, and Lyra’s controls came back to life, her radio crackling as Control’s voice returned. “Lyra, report! We lost you for a few minutes there.”

She took a shaky breath, her gaze fixed on the figure that was fading back into the dome. “I… I think I just made first contact.”

Silence on the other end. Then Control responded, “Return to base, Lyra. We’ll debrief you on what you saw.”

She lingered a moment longer, watching the shadows recede, a bittersweet ache in her chest. Whatever was down there didn’t just exist—it remembered.