Chapter 1 — The Song of the Lonely Isle

“Lena, listen to me—anyone diving today is asking to die!”

Old Bill shouted from the breakwater, his voice torn apart by the roaring wind. The red plastic bucket in his hand rattled; a few palm-sized rockfish flipped weakly inside, pale bellies exposed.

Lena Shore didn’t look back.

She tightened the valve on her oxygen tank. Her black wetsuit was so worn the logo had faded completely, the frayed sleeves revealing calloused wrists covered in pale scars.

“The waves aren’t that high,” she said quietly, her voice almost carried off by the wind. “Current data shows the flow is still within the safe threshold.”

“Data again! That brain of yours works better than radar?”

Old Bill slammed the bucket down, frustration boiling over.

“Seven damn years you’ve stayed on this cursed island! For what? The stink? The dead corals?”

Lena paused only for a breath.

Then she pulled her mask on, lifted a hand to give an “OK” sign toward the dull, grey water—

And dove.

Clean and sharp, like a white shark cutting through the surface.

Old Bill watched the foaming circle left behind and sighed, muttering curses as he picked up his bucket and left.

Below the surface, the world fell silent.

And murky.

Particles hung in the water like underwater smog.

Industrial runoff had turned this area into a pot of over-fermented seaweed soup.

But Lena didn’t need her eyes.

The moment she entered, signals flooded her brain through the current itself.

Flow speed: 3.2 knots.

Salinity: 34‰ — slightly low.

Acoustic anomaly: 11 o’clock. Distance: 800 meters.

A gift. A curse.

Her mind could convert the ocean into a living data-model.

She was the most precise sonar in these waters.

But today, amid the usual noise, something sharp cut through—

A high-frequency biological pulse.

Pained. Rushed. Dying.

Lena shifted her posture, kicking powerfully as she dodged jagged dead coral and rusted shipwreck metal, heading straight for the anomaly.

Eight minutes later, she reached a shallow back-eddy.

The sight hit her like a punch.

A massive abandoned nylon trawling net—

A “ghost net”—was tangled around five pilot whale calves.

Their smooth skin was torn open; the net had cut deep into flesh.

Blood drifted in red clouds, even in the low visibility.

In the deeper water beyond the rocks, their mother circled helplessly, singing frantic bursts of sound that shook the water.

Lena didn’t waste a heartbeat.

Her mind calculated instantly:

【Targets: 5 juveniles】

【Fatal issue: blowholes obstructed — 120 seconds until hypoxia】

【Tool: one specialty steel dive knife, used for 3 years】

She drew the knife.

This wasn’t normal netting.

Steel wire. Barnacles.

Hard as iron.

One hand braced the slick whale.

The other sliced—fast, precise, avoiding skin by millimeters.

One freed.

Two.

Three.

Then, while cutting the fourth—

Crack.

The water amplified the sound.

Her blade snapped clean in two.

The broken edge sliced her cheek, leaving a thin red line, but Lena didn’t even blink.

Two calves remained.

Time was gone.

The smallest one was already convulsing.

She threw the useless hilt aside, planted her feet against a rock, and hooked both hands around the thickest nylon rope.

No knife.

Fine.

Her hands would be the knife.

Give.
Me.
Break—!

The net sliced through her gloves, into skin.

Salt filled the raw cuts like fire.

Pain shot straight up her spine.

Her face didn’t move.

Her eyes didn’t flicker.

Internal alarms screamed:

【Muscle fiber rupture warning. Heart rate overload.】

Shut up.

With a violent pull, she arched back—

Pure brute force.

SNAP!

The last net tore apart.

Five calves burst free, circling her with tingling whistles before rushing back toward deep water.

Their mother rose once, enormous and silent, black eyes locked onto Lena—

Then released a single, long, resonant whale song.

A thank-you rising from the abyss itself.

Lena surfaced, tore off her regulator, and gulped the salty air.

Her hands were drenched in blood.

The gloves hung in tatters.

It hurt—so much it numbed.

But her lips lifted in the faintest curve.

Worth it.

Not just because she saved them—

But because in the rock crevice where she cut the net, she had seen a faint, impossible green.

“Z-7 algae.”

Seven years.

Seven years cultivating a microbe capable of devouring heavy metals and microplastics—

And finally, it lived.

Hope in the cracks of a dead sea.

She reached for a sample vial—

BZZZZT—

A low, mechanical hum vibrated above her.

Lena snapped her head up.

A black quad-copter drone hovered twenty meters overhead.

Its red cyclopean lens zoomed in on her blood-soaked hands, the broken knife, the whales vanishing into the haze.

Golden letters gleamed under its belly: Global Geo.

Lena’s eyes narrowed.

Seven years ago, she might’ve smiled politely.

Now?

It felt like a hidden camera in a locker room.

Without hesitation, without giving it a second of her face—

Lena arched backward and slid beneath the waves like a silver eel.

Holding breath.

Silent dive.

Avoiding reefs with clean, practiced precision.

Miles away, on a luxury yacht—

A man in a floral shirt stared at the feed, now washed into blue static.

He blinked, then whistled low.

“Well, someone’s got attitude.”

He replayed the captured second of footage.

Freeze frame.

Blood-red sunset.

A woman, hands crimson, standing among jagged rocks as a whale pod vanished in mist.

Violence and mercy.

Death and rebirth.

“Mermaid?”

He lowered his sunglasses, revealing amused, peach-blossom eyes.

“No.

That’s a siren.”