This happened even before Gorbachev took power. The first ones to find it were workers from an oil platform located far from everything in the northern Pacific Ocean. While digging in the ocean floor, they discovered a very unusual trench, filled with rocky formations none of their specialists recognized. Several geographers were called by the Bashfnet to the location, for they needed to know if drilling there was dangerous. But no one was able to decipher which mineral that was. That is, until a biologist analyzed the samples. The results were surprising. Those weren’t rocks. Taller than the Ostankino Tower, those were the largest fossilized teeth known to mankind.

The Politburo didn’t want the West to discover what they had found, so even if the Iron Curtain was still strict, the general population could not be informed. I never knew exactly what they wanted to do with that fossil. Resurrection? cloning? Trying to find an ancient virus to create Bio-Weapons? Announce to the world they had discovered a never seen before super-organism by themselves? I didn’t know, and frankly, I didn’t want to. I wasn’t paid to make questions. In fact, I was just a radar operator. Most of the information I’ve shared until now was acquired via eavesdropping. As I said, the Politburo was not interested in letting many people know. A handpicked group of researchers was chosen to investigate further. I was not one of the scientists, but I was a member of the submarine used to accommodate them.

Preliminary surveys by the Red Fleet revealed that there were a total of fifty-seven tooth, in an irregular circumference of almost forty kilometers. Between the teeth, the sonars found there was a large trench, which appeared to be much deeper than Mariana’s. None of us dared to say it out loud yet, but we knew that was a maw. Traces of the largest living being ever found on Earth. I don’t know which of us started it, but we started calling it the Maw of God.

Our submarine, the Zukhov-19, was completely reformed to become a mobile laboratory to the scientists that we would take to the depths of the ocean. Biological, geographical, mineral, that vessel could do all the analysis one could think of. Nearly all weapons were removed to make way for their equipment. The Zukhov-19 crew went from thirty to forty-six. Fifteen of the smartest scientists of the Union, and a KGB official.

And then, we started descending. We kept going low and lower for days. Of course, everything was very slow. For every hundred meters or so, the researchers would put on their fancy diving suits and go out to collect samples. Or at least it was like that in the beginning. Soon, they started getting bored, and even claustrophobic. Submarines are not for everyone, that is a fact. And also, discovering the teeth and the gigantic esophagus of the monster was hundreds of millions of years old was fun for the first time, but the tests promptly became repetitive.

After two weeks, it began. First with the scientists, but soon all of us were having it. Nightmares, night terrors, intrusive thoughts, hallucinations. An enormous, alien, terrible creature, that had been dead for a long time, but was sensing us, and hoping we would bring it back to life. We stopped sleeping, we started getting angry, depressive or anxious. Some of us knew the Maw was responsible, somehow. The KGB officer was the one who resisted it the most. She said the Politburo had ordered the mission could only stop once we reached the very end of the trench, or the deepest we could go without the submarine being destroyed by the pressure. We had rations for months, and water-filtering machines, apart from sewage “disposal”. The submarine was nuclear-powered, so we didn’t have to worry about energy or fuel.

After three weeks, the scientists had completely stopped going out to collect samples. They just wanted to get back to the surface. But it looked like the creature didn’t want us to leave. I calculated the depth we had descended to in secret. It didn’t make sense. We had gone down more than twenty-kilometers. The submarine should have been splattered at that point. But what could we do? Tell the KGB officer? She would have us declared crazy. Anyone that even mentioned going back to the surface was harshly reprimanded.

After nearly two months, me and the original crew could not stand it any longer. We had not slept well for weeks at that point. We were not harmless scientists. She could have the authority, but we were more numerous. We broke into her cabin during the night, but she was awake, and saw us. The officer confessed, in tears, that she was also having the psychological effects, but dreaded telling the Politburo she’d failed. I told her we could help her fraud the reports, tell the higher-ups we had found the bottom.

To our surprise, we reached the teeth, that we had not seen for months, after merely a day going up. And then, we could not go above them. There was solid material blocking our path. The Maw had sealed us in. Luckily, the Zukhov-19 had discarded most of it’s weapons, but not all. We used a torpedo to blow our way out of the Maw.

Analysis of the submarine’s materials revealed they had been compromised by an impossibly-strong acid. Like if it had been submerged on it for weeks. Four more days, and the walls of the Zukhov-19 would have let the acid and pressure in.

I know that, after all the events, the KGB officer had a talk with the Politburo, and the place was used for nuclear testing not long after. Not many who know about the Maw remain. The dreams never stopped… And not everyone was strong enough to withstand having night-terrors of being swallowed by the Maw of God.

Update

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