The Sound Beneath Mercer’s Folly (Part One)

My name is Andrew Davenport. I’m twenty-five years old and recently landed a kind of boring job restoring old maritime tapes and such for government archives. The tapes are mostly dull stuff, things concerning cartography expeditions and official logs for geographical surveys. However, today, I came across a tape labelled: Personal Log 1: Captain E. Mercer. There were nine other tapes like this, all labelled as personal logs. I found this odd, as I mostly deal with official stuff. The personal logs typically remain with family… but I guess not this time. The tapes piqued my interest, and I thought I’d make a little project of restoring these tapes to listen to what this Captain Mercer had to say. Especially since nothing about these tapes are mentioned on the official report. And after listening to the first one, I feel like something’s off. Something isn’t quite right, and I have a bad feeling about the remaining tapes. I’ll write down my transcription below. I’d like to have a record of this. I’m not exactly a transcriber, so forgive any formatting errors I might make.

Log 1: Landfall

Captain: Personal log one, this is Captain Elliot Mercer speaking. I have my first mate, Helen Price, working on the official record that we’ll send back to the team back home, but I want to do a bit of speculating about this island, things that aren’t strictly scientific, and I know that those fuckers at the survey will give me a warning for wasting their time with anything other than the strict list we’ve been given to follow. We’ve come here on the Meridian, a truly grand name for a truly shitty ship, if you ask me, but I digress. We’ve been sent here to survey this tiny island that’s recently risen from the sea after a series of rapidly occurring undersea earthquakes. Satellites picked up on it a month ago, and we’re here to examine the land and determine its geological stability and produce accurate nautical charts to establish whether this here island presents any nautical hazards. I doubt it will, though. There are no plants or animals to speak of, just us and our equipment and sand all around. We first saw the island around dawn. The first thing I noticed (and I could tell everybody else did, too) was the utter lack of, well, anything around that island. No seabirds circling around or seals resting on the rocks. It was silent in a way that the sea never is. I still notice that—the complete lack of any and all noise. It’s so uncharacteristic. Almost… unsettling. I hope some noise starts up soon. I don’t know if this is the by-product of disasters or whether there really is something up with this place, but I think it’s best to keep everyone’s guard up for a bit while we get our bearings. I think—

Marine Biologist, Dr. Sophie Kerr: Hey, Captain, do you hear that…?

Captain: …that what? I don’t hear anything. It’s so quiet here.

Marine Biologist, Dr. Sophie Kerr: Yeah, but it feels like that sound’s coming from the ground. Like a hum. A vibration. Can’t you hear it?

Captain: No. I’ll let you know if I do. But in the meantime, tell Rohan to run some tests, see if we’re at risk of an earthquake or tsunami.

Marine Biologist, Dr. Sophie Kerr: Alright, thanks.

Captain: I told her I couldn’t hear anything, but now that she mentions it, I somewhat do. It’s incredibly faint, but it’s there. I hope we aren’t at risk of anything terrible. Ah, it seems like Rohan is here to tell me about his findings. Until next time, I guess.

*Recorder turns off*

*Recorder turns on*

Captain *in a soft, almost undiscernible whisper*: I didn’t mean to add another observation to today’s entry, but I noticed something so strange. After a while, everybody started talking so very softly, in whispers. Even the wind seemed muffled, even our footsteps sounded softer than they usually do. It was all so quiet I could actually hear the hum that Sophie was telling me about. In fact, even as I’m saying this, I’m aware at how low my voice is, but it’s as if I have no choice. As if, if I raise my voice even half a decibel, something will change. Something vast and indescribable will shift, and we will be exposed to it. It sounds crazy, I know. But there is something not right with this island, and I have a feeling that hum has something to do with it.

*Recorder turns off*