[Help! My wife started eating raw meat! She says it's tartare!]

[Did someone hear the song last night? My cat died of fright.]

[I'm an ENT doctor. I've been receiving a lot of patients with abscesses behind the ears, but when I cut into them, I found…]

With trembling fingers, I tapped into that doctor's post. The original poster's ID was 'The Scalpel'.

The post was of a blurry photo accompanied by a block of text.

[Upon incision, no pus was present, only this semi-translucent, scale-like tissue. Moreover, the tissue appears biologically active. It continues to writhe after being removed from the body.]

[I attempted lab analysis. DNA sequencing indicates that it does not belong to any known terrestrial organism.]

The replies were even more terrifying.

[Dude, run! This is the first stage of Deep Sea-fication!]

[Don't cut it! Those are their egg sacs!]

[I have them too. You can’t scratch them off. The more you try, the deeper the itch goes.]

I touched the back of my ear. The place where I scraped off the fish scale started to itch again. The itch did not feel like it was on the surface, but was coming from deep inside my bones.

I could not help but create an account with the username 'Drowned123'. I created a post.

[I started listening, and a fish scale grew behind my ear. I dreamt that my room was flooded. What should I do?]

I regretted it immediately after I posted it. I was literally falling into a trap.

In less than a minute, someone replied to me. The ID was a strange symbol, like a vortex.

[Welcome to the food chain. Stay moist. Do not resist.]

What did that mean? Food chain? Was I prey?

Then, I received a private message from a 'Dr. Chenowith'.

[Don't listen to them. If you don't want to become fish food, send me your address right away. I have the inhibitors.]

Inhibitors? Did that person know something?

I hesitated. Who could trust anyone on such a strange and dodgy platform?

Right at that moment, my doorbell rang, which made me jump. I almost dropped my phone.

I looked through the peephole to see Albert Winston, my neighbor, standing outside my door.

Albert was a friendly old man who would greet me happily whenever we bumped into each other.

However, he was acting a little weird that day. He had a thick raincoat on. He wore his cap so low I could barely see his face.

It was not raining in the corridors, not to mention that it was summer, so why was he in a raincoat?

"Lily? Are you home?"

His voice sounded muffled as if he was talking through a thick curtain.

No. More like talking through water.

He added, "Could you lend me some salt? I've run out."

Salt?

My heart skipped.

I thought about the saltiness I felt in my dreams. I remembered the eyeball.

"Albert, I'm sorry. I ran out of salt too," I replied through the door.

"No, you do have it. I can smell it."

Albert's voice suddenly turned soft with a hint of greed. "You smell freshly of salt. On you."

Thump!

He banged on the door. It was not something loud and hard, but more like a soft lump of meat slamming against the door.

"Open the door. Let me… Let me have a taste."

Thump, thump.

The thumping got more frequent. I pressed myself against the door, sweating profusely.

"If you're going to continue behaving this way, I'll call the cops!" I yelled

The movement stopped, and there was dead silence.

A long time later, I heard a sigh, just like the one I heard in my earphones last night.

"What a pity. It's not fully ripe yet."

I heard footsteps, but not of leather shoes tapping against the tiled floors. It felt like wet and sloppy, like bare feet against the mud.

I slumped to the ground, staring at the crack beneath the door. Water slowly seeped in, and in the water, tiny threadlike shapes writhed like worms.

I had to get to the bottom of that. That 'Dr. Chenowith' person was probably my only hope.

With trembling hands, I replied to Dr. Chenowith.

[I can't give you my address, but I need to know the truth.]

They replied instantly.

[Smart. Exposing your coordinates too early will only get you killed faster.]

Then, he sent a document link.

[Deep-Sea Bioacoustic Research Log. TOP SECRET]

I opened the document to see the file filled with fragmented audio transcripts and photos of handwritten notes.

[June 2021. At the extreme depths of the Marina Trench, we detected a set of anomalies frequency. Initially thought to be the seismic vibration caused by whales, spectral analysis shows a structured pattern consistent with a type of language.]

[January 2022. All decoding attempts failed. Researcher Daniel Lynch experienced an acute psychotic break while monitoring the signals. He pierced his eardrums with a pen. Before he died, he kept yelling, "They're hungry! They're hungry!"]

[March 2023. It's confirmed. The signal source isn't technological. It's biological. An ancient, colossal organism that feeds on bioelectric signals, which humans perceive as emotion.

[We named it God of the Seas, or more accurately, the Abyssal Maw.]

My hands and feet turned cold.

It feeds on emotions? Then, why did it need to go through a radio app?

The final block of text answered my question.

[Modern wireless signals are the perfect bait. It has learned to camouflage itself, taking advantage of humanity's curiosity, and embedding its call within music. The moment you listen, you establish a link. Through that link, it slowly erodes your consciousness, alters your flesh, and ultimately, it guides you willingly into the deep sea, where you will become its nourishment.]

I threw my phone away.

So, that was the so-called Deep Sea-fication? Was I becoming its takeaway dinner?

Ding!

My phone rang once more. It was a notification from the application.

Red words filled the entire screen.

[The Predator's Song will be played in 10 seconds.

[10, 9…]

My brain froze. What did the rule say?

[Remain completely still and hold your breath until the broadcast concludes.]

I instantly lay on the couch like a log. My heart was thumping so loud that it was about to pop out of my chest.

[3, 2, 1.]

The world turned quiet.

There was no music. No white noise. Only an ultra-high frequency buzz, which pierced directly into my brain like a red-hot needle.

It was agony.

It was so painful that I wanted to curl up, but I did not dare to move. The rules said that I needed to remain completely still. I could not move even a finger.

The buzzing drifted closer, then further, as if it was flying around me in circles.

No, not flying. It was swimming.

The air thickened. Gravity seemed to have multiplied. I felt stuck like an insect sealed within amber.

The air in me was almost gone, and my lungs started to burn. The lack of oxygen made me start to see black, but I still did not dare to breathe.

I was afraid that an inhale would disturb the airflow.

It was next to me. I could feel its hot and moist breath on my face, as well as that familiar, nauseating stench.

Something gently touched my eyelash. Long and slick.

A tentacle.

It was testing me. Testing to see if I was dead or alive, prey or carrion.

My eyes were wide open, staring ahead at the emptiness in front of me. Even if tears were falling, I did not dare to blink.

The tentacle slid down my face, to my nostril, landing on my lips.

It was waiting. Waiting for me to take a breath. A single breath.

I was finished. I was starting to lose consciousness, and every fibre in my body was yelling for me to breathe.

Using my final strain of senses, I locked my throat tighter. I was taking a bet.

A bet that it would start to lose patience before me.

A while later, perhaps a minute but seemed like an eternity, the tentacle retracted.

The buzzing in my ears gradually faded and eventually disappeared altogether.

The application's interface returned to normal. An alert popped up.

[End of song.]

I gasped and took a huge breath of air while coughing violently. I fell to the floor, curling up.

I survived. I somehow managed to survive. However, just before I could celebrate, I caught sight of the mirror from the corner of my eye.

There were three deep purple marks on my neck, like something had cinched tight around my throat.

Between them, a slit slowly opened.

It opened, then closed.

It was a real gill.