29 Below

3:00 a.m. Insomnia gnawed at my nerves like a rusted saw, grinding back and forth mercilessly. On a whim that I couldn't explain, I opened a radio app called "Echoes from Below." The interface was simple and bare. Black background, blue text. No ads, no host introduction. Just a single audio waveform, slowly buffering on the screen. The shape of the waveform felt wrong. It didn't look like soundwaves at all. More like rows of sharp, interlocking teeth. A pop-up window appeared in the center of the screen. [Listening Guidelines] The letters glowed blue, carrying an unsettling eeriness. [This station's signal may extend into dreams. If you hear the broadcast while dreaming, firmly believe that you are awake.]

The Dark Below is a steam-punk/fantasy world filled with the darkness that rests beneath a wavering tide. Generations ago, Gods from the depths below rose from the black seas and in doing so, caused a great flood that would have destroyed all of humanity if it was not for the ingenuity of survival. Living among The Dark Below has come to pass, but now four warriors must come together in hopes of forging a brighter future.

Five years of loyalty. Five years of managing his crises, protecting his name, asking for nothing. On their anniversary, Dominic walked a red carpet with another woman and a son Mara never knew existed. By morning, there was a settlement document beside her plate. They assumed she would sign quietly. They had never been paying attention. She was never the placeholder. She was the asset.

We got caught in a blizzard—me, my fiancé Melvin Dunn, a few of his colleagues, including Sally Blom. Middle of the night, I woke up shaking. My heavy-duty sleeping bag—the one built for minus forty—was gone. In its place? A flimsy summer quilt. Sally was curled up in my bag, fast asleep in Melvin's arms. I shoved him hard. "Why is she in my sleeping bag?" He pulled me aside, whispering, "Keep your voice down. Sally's kinda fragile—she's about to catch a cold. You're strong. You'll be fine." I pointed at my feet, already numb. "So I'm supposed to freeze to death for you two because she's 'fragile'?" He frowned. "God, Peyton, stop being so dramatic. It's just a sleeping bag. Think about the team for once." I laughed, tears slipping down my face. Didn't say another word. Just crawled back into the corner, grabbed the sat phone, and called my brother—Captain of Stormfang Rescue, an elite international search and rescue team. "Hugh, come get me. The coordinates are... Remember—I'm alone."

Outside the police tape surrounding a fancy hotel, a police officer can be seen blocking my way. "There seems to be a bomb hidden in the hotel! Unauthorized personnel are not allowed to get any closer!" I'm just about to dig out my work badge when the intern next to me, Christine Wyatt, covers her mouth in a pretentiously shocked manner. "Officer, there's a detonator and a timer in his bag! Those things look so scary!" The entire scene goes eerily silent. Almost immediately, I see a few guns getting aimed at my forehead. Anxiety begins overwhelming me. "I'm a bomb disposal expert from the Headquarters Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit! My bag contains all the tools necessary to dispose of a bomb!" "Throw your bag over to me and keep your hands where I can see them!" Captain Scott Hunter roars at me. My bag is opened afterward. Things like an insulated cutter, a bomb suppression blanket, and a liquid nitrogen cooling tank are scattered across the ground. Before I can explain myself, Christine suddenly points at me while screaming, "Why are you still playing dumb? You just told me that you wanted to set off an explosion in that hotel! "What, now that the police are here, you dare not admit what you just said, huh? You're a terrorist through and through!" Scott reacts quickly by pinning me on the hood of the police cruiser with my hands folded behind my back. "We're taking you back for a thorough interrogation!" My heart almost stops at those words. The bomb that's packed with enough firepower to take out half a street has already gone on a countdown in the hotel lobby. But I, the only bomb disposal expert who can get rid of the bomb, have handcuffs put on me because of Christine's nonsensical accusations. Right now, there are only 29 minutes left before the bomb goes off.

When I'm washing Julian White's pants, I pull out a management fee invoice from one of the pockets. Surprisingly enough, the address is the unit on the floor above my apartment. The thing is, Julian's name is put down as the apartment owner. As I clutch the invoice, I feel my blood turning into ice. Suddenly, I recall the way Julian kept telling me he had overtime shifts to pull over the past six months. Because of that, he often came home past midnight. There were a few times when I realized that his car was still parked in its designated parking slot of the apartment block despite the fact that he had already "gone out". When I asked Julian for the reason, he answered, "The gas prices are very high right now. Taking the subway is more convenient, not to mention I get to save more money for our family's expenses." I used to feel happy about the fact that Julian cared so much about our family. But now, I finally realize that his so-called overtime shifts are just excuses for him to spend time in the unit upstairs. At that moment, I hear the sounds of a key being inserted into the front door's lock. Julian is home. When he notices the invoice in my hand, he takes it from me casually. "Maybe the staff placed it in the wrong mailbox." I nod with a smile. "It's nothing. I'm going to take out the trash first." After leaving the apartment, I head upstairs right away. Once I knock on the door, the woman who came to open the door for me is heavily pregnant. It seems that she's about to give birth.