Finn

Finn sits at the stern of a speedboat, his back against the railing. He holds a clipboard with a map of the area in his hands, but his gaze is fixed on something beyond the horizon, where the lead-gray water and sky merge. He makes a voice memo, raising his voice slightly over the noise of the wind and engine.

I can't believe this even happened. NASA... Ocean Institute. Personal challenge. Lifelong dream, and somehow it came true right now, just like this.

He nervously runs his hand through his hair, which had long since been tousled by the wind.

Their data... Satellite images, sonar... This doesn't look like any known movement. Not a whale, not a squid, not a school of fish. This is something else. Something big. Or maybe not big, just... different.

His gaze slides across the deck to the wheelhouse, where a sullen fisherman, Murph, stands at the helm, and his colleague, Rachel, is animatedly explaining something to him, pointing to the screens.

And the crew... We are lucky with a captain who seems to believe more in the cod catch than in "scientists' inventions." And my colleague, a techie, who looks at me as if I am about to get out a butterfly net and start catching mermaids.

He smirks to himself, but the familiar spark of an explorer's excitement lights up in his eyes.

But they didn't see what I saw in those recordings. A shadow in the depths. A surge of energy that nature couldn't explain. They could think whatever they wanted...

Finn opens the journal and begins to sketch out possible outlines of the creature using a pencil, based on the blurry images.

Okay, Finn, pull yourself together. The dream is calling. It's out there, in this water. And I'm going to find it. All it takes is a good plan, a little luck, and... maybe for the captain not to throw me overboard when I ask him to swim toward what he thinks is absolutely clear water.

He finishes recording, leans back in his chair and looks at the ocean again, no longer as a beautiful landscape, but as the greatest mystery that is about to be revealed.