The Sea Spirit Whisperer

By Julisa Basak 

“How does one communicate with a sea spirit?”

High-pitched shrieks continued to reverberate throughout the vessel as I dropped the question on the engineer. My crew and I stood with plugs in our ears, but our methods to keep ourselves sane were failing.

“You’re asking me, an acoustical engineer, if I know how to talk to an invisible force that hijacked your submarine?” He looked at me, brow raised. “Why not try shrieking back, ma’am?”

His sarcasm irked me, but I had no time to deal with incompetent remarks. The situation was quickly becoming unbearable, if not hopeless.

I let him go and resumed my distressed pace down the corridor, my eyes following the assembly of pipes, machinery, and control systems along the pressure hull. We were beyond 800 feet and counting. If a shrieking sea banshee wasn’t in control, this boat would have broken apart by now.

I groaned. The ghastly screech had been going on for hours, rattling my core and ratcheting my headache up another few notches. I knew what increased exposure to ultrasound could do to the body, but this was much worse. A sudden bout of nausea made me fly into the galley. Within moments, I was throwing up into one of the cooking pots.

“You’re not the only one, Captain.”

I could barely make out the cook nearby, his face red and sunken with sponges strapped to his ears. The banshee was affecting everyone on board.

“Stay strong. We’ll resume course soon enough.” I wiped my mouth and returned a hopeful nod. It was all I could do.

My mind fished for a new strategy as I made my way back to the conn. We had tried distress calls to no avail, and a counterattack was too reckless without ascertaining our target. If there was anything I had learned from my training, it was to avoid these monsters entirely. Never how to escape them.

“What’s the news?”

The XO, Arnez, was on conn duty where I assigned him, his eyes desperate when I walked in.

“The news is that sound engineers make bad sea spirit whisperers,” I relayed, feeling another wave of nausea making its rounds. “In other words, that option is out.”

“Great.” He winced, holding his stomach. “No sonar or radio. Not even the slightest clue on how to appease this vicious beast. This boat is out of our control, Ximena.”

I rolled my eyes. As if that wasn’t obvious enough. “Then allow me to provide you with a new set of orders, Arnez. Secure—”

He lurched forward, letting out a spew of whatever was in his stomach before I could continue. Sighing, I handed him the cooking pot I had brought with me and took over the helm.

“Your captain has the conn,” I communicated. The crew at the controls turned to me. Weary, anticipating my next course of action. I realized I had none. The shrieking seemed to grow louder, deeper, as if the spirit was purposely taunting me from every direction.

I was ready to scream with it. I cursed myself for not thoroughly preparing for these unknown waters. For not getting the right experts for the job. Of course, there was always a sadistic appeal in going down by mysterious circumstances, in making legendary headlines. But I wasn’t ready to abandon ship just yet.

I thought about what the engineer had said.

Shriek back at it.

Unless I got a choir to start yelling all at once, no way that was happening. None of our equipment could match the spirit’s frequencies either.

I thought about appeasing it. Unless someone knew how to negotiate with sea spirits, this one was going to kill us all.

I impulsively reached into my pocket, thinking some tool could incite a new battle plan. What came out was a photograph of my husband and daughter. He’d been so proud I was going to rewrite history with this voyage. Memories of him faded to memories of our daughter, of the nights leading up to my departure when she would wake up in her crib and scream her little lungs out. I remember singing to her. I promised her I was going to be okay.

The idea struck me like a missile. I bolted towards the comm system and grabbed the microphone. It wasn’t working, but I was willing to try anything at this point.

“Arrorró mi niño…” I began singing. “Arrorró mi sol…”

I was loud but steady, matching the volume of those hellish screams. I poured a different kind of emotion into each verse, imagining singing to my little girl as I went along.

“Duérmase pedazo… de mi corazón…”

I tried to make my voice sweeter, more melodic. I knew which syllables to linger on longer, which lines to follow with a hum. The banshee served as some back-up choir to the vocal concert of nightmares.

“Cierre los ojitos… ya se va a dormir…”

Just when I was ready to quit, however, something changed—the screeching wavered and quieted. My migraine simmered to a low throb. My stomach felt like it unloaded a ton of bricks.

“Que el pícaro sueño… no quiere venir…”

After a few minutes, the control system in front of me came alive. But I didn’t stop. The returning sound system amplified my voice throughout the submarine. I didn’t realize how hard I had been focusing on the lullaby until a hand rested on my shoulder. I turned to see Arnez beaming with joy.

“We’re back on!”

I fell silent. The screeching had ceased, replaced by the hums and whistles of the surrounding machinery. We had ascended to our original depth. I couldn’t believe it.

“So Cap’n, the sea spirit whisperer was always you, huh?” Arnez joked as the crew filled the new stillness with cheers.

My eyes fell on the photograph in my hand, and I smiled.

“Negative,” I simply answered. “Let’s say I have practice with appeasing vicious beasts.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Julisa Basak is a speculative fiction writer who also dabbles in various genres to explore the human condition. Her recent lgbtq+ short story made it to the #1 New Release category on Amazon ebooks. She is currently drafting a full-length science fiction while chugging out articles for a geek girl blog. When not crafting words, Julisa likes to paint digital illustrations, dance with her Bollywood group, and go on adventures with her Baby Yoda plushie.

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