SIMON, THE CONVICT

Every sound feels louder when you are alone. The groan of metal overhead. The hiss of recycled air. The quiet panic settling into your chest as the vessel sinks deeper into an ocean no human being was ever meant to see. Rusted iron and the copper sting of blood cling to the damp air, tangled with the dark smoke of pine tar soaked into the walls of the submarine. Hinoki moves quietly through the stale air, carrying the faint comfort of dry wood and somewhere far from the crushing dark outside the hull. Petrichor falls through it, into the narrow corridors and rusted steel, cold and damp like condensation on shaking hands.