The Frozen Echo

Sarah's boots crunched across the ice shelf. Each step sent cracks radiating outward like frozen lightning. The Arctic wind bit through her parka, carrying the taste of salt and ancient cold.

"Terror's hull is intact," Marcus said, adjusting his thermal scanner. His breath formed white clouds that dissolved into the gray sky. "The preservation is... unnatural."

Sarah knelt at the edge of the ice hole. Below, the ship's masts pierced the frozen surface like skeletal fingers. The wood was dark, untouched by rot despite 171 years underwater.

"We should wait for backup," Liam said. He wiped frost from his goggles, hands trembling. "This doesn't feel right."

"The storm window closes in six hours." Elena descended the rope ladder without looking back. Her crampons scraped against the ice wall. "We go now or never."

Sarah followed, the rope burning through her gloves. The air grew colder as she descended. Thirty feet down, the ice transitioned to water—liquid despite the temperature, impossibly unfrozen.

The ship's deck materialized below them. Sarah's headlamp illuminated pristine wood, coiled ropes, brass fixtures untarnished. A cup sat on the captain's table, still upright.

"It's like they just left," Marcus whispered. He touched the mainmast, then jerked his hand back. "The wood is warm."

A low groan resonated through the hull. Not wind, not ice shifting. Something deeper, more deliberate. The sound wrapped around Sarah's chest like frozen fingers.

Liam's light swept across the deck. "Door's open." The entrance to the lower deck yawned before them, darkness absolute. "Someone's been here recently."

"Impossible," Elena said. But her voice wavered. She moved toward the doorway, drawn like a moth to flame. "No one's touched this ship since 1848."

Sarah followed, her scientific training warring with primal instinct. The ship groaned again. This time, she heard words beneath the sound—desperate, pleading, calling them deeper.

The darkness swallowed them whole. Behind them, the ice hole sealed with a sound like breaking bones.