Abyssal Plain / Season 1, Episode 1
Descent
Episode 1: Descent
The submersible Nautilus-7 shuddered as it dropped through the black, a metal coffin slicing into the gut of the Atacama Trench. Inside, Dr. Elena Voss clenched the armrests of her seat, the cold steel biting into her palms. The cabin smelled of stale sweat and recycled air, the hum of the propulsion system a low growl beneath the hiss of static from the comms. A single overhead light flickered, casting jagged shadows across the control panel where readouts blinked in angry reds and greens. Depth: 7,892 meters. Pressure: 1,100 atmospheres. Outside the viewport, there was nothing—just an endless void that pressed against the reinforced glass like a living thing, hungry to crush them.
“Systems check, Elena,” barked Commander Travis Holt from the pilot’s seat, his voice rough over the headset. His broad shoulders hunched over the controls, fingers dancing across the panel with a precision that belied the tension in his jaw. “We’re losing hydraulic stability on the port thruster. I need numbers, now.”
Elena snapped out of her daze, her breath fogging the inside of her helmet. She leaned forward, her gloved hands fumbling with the diagnostic tablet strapped to her wrist. The screen glowed a sickly blue, numbers scrolling too fast for comfort. “Hydraulics at sixty-two percent. Pressure differential is spiking. We’ve got a micro-leak in the secondary line. Nothing critical—yet.”
“Yet,” Travis muttered, his tone sharp enough to cut through the static. “That’s real comforting. Fix it before we’re a smear on the ocean floor.”
“I’m on it,” she shot back, unbuckling her harness with a click that echoed in the tight space. Her boots clanged against the grated floor as she moved to the access panel at the rear of the cabin. The submersible lurched again, a groan of metal protesting the weight of the abyss outside. Her stomach flipped, but she swallowed the nausea. No time for weakness. Not here, not now.
The Atacama Trench was the deepest scar on Earth’s crust, a gash off the coast of Chile that plunged nearly eleven kilometers into darkness. No one had ever mapped its lowest reaches—not fully. That’s why they were here, the crew of the Nautilus-7, a joint operation between the International Oceanic Research Coalition and a private outfit called AbyssalTech. Six souls crammed into a titanium can, sent to probe a place where sunlight was a myth and pressure could turn bone to paste. Elena’s job was marine geophysics, but down here, titles meant nothing. She was just another pair of hands, fighting to keep them alive.
She pried open the access panel, the hinges squealing like a wounded animal. Inside, a tangle of pipes and wires gleamed under her headlamp, beads of condensation rolling down the metal. The air was frigid, her breath a white plume as she scanned for the leak. A faint hiss caught her ear—there, a hairline crack in the hydraulic line, weeping fluid like blood. “Got it,” she said into her mic. “I can patch it, but we’ll need to reroute power to the backup system. Ten minutes, tops.”
“Make it five,” Travis growled. “We’re hitting the thermocline. Currents are gonna get ugly.”
Elena didn’t argue. She grabbed a sealant gun from her toolkit, the weight of it grounding her as she worked. The submersible trembled again, a deep rumble vibrating through her boots. Outside, the void stared back, unblinking. She couldn’t shake the feeling that they weren’t alone down here—that something was watching from beyond the glass.
In the forward compartment, Dr. Mei Lin sat cross-legged on the floor, her laptop balanced on her knees. The glow of the screen illuminated her sharp features, her dark eyes flicking across lines of code. She was the mission’s data specialist, a wiry woman in her early thirties who spoke little but saw everything. Her fingers tapped a staccato rhythm, debugging the sonar array that had been glitching since they passed 6,000 meters. The air around her was thick with the tang of metal and the faint ozone burn of electronics.
“Sonar’s still offline,” she said, her voice calm but clipped. “I’m rerouting through the secondary grid, but the interference is… weird. It’s not just static. There’s a pattern.”
“What kind of pattern?” That was Priya Sharma, the mission’s biologist, strapped into a seat nearby. Her voice carried a lilt of her Mumbai roots, but there was an edge to it now, a tightness that hadn’t been there on the surface. Her hands gripped a notebook, pencil hovering over a sketch of some imagined deep-sea organism. At thirty-eight, Priya was the oldest of the science team, her dark hair streaked with gray, her eyes always searching for life in the dark.
Mei didn’t look up from her screen. “It’s like… a pulse. Low-frequency, repeating every seventeen seconds. Could be a glitch. Could be something else.”
“Something else?” Priya raised an eyebrow. “You mean like a whale call? Down here?”
“No whale’s singing at this depth,” Mei said flatly. “Pressure would collapse their lungs. Whatever it is, it’s not biological. Or shouldn’t be.”
Travis cut in over the comms. “Focus, people. I don’t care if it’s a damn mermaid choir. Get that sonar back online. We’re flying blind without it.”
Mei’s lips pressed into a thin line, but she didn’t reply. Her fingers kept moving, coaxing life back into the system. The cabin vibrated again, a low thrum that set her teeth on edge. She glanced at the viewport, at the nothingness beyond. For a split second, she swore she saw a flicker—something pale and fleeting, darting just beyond the edge of the light. She blinked, and it was gone. Just the dark. Always the dark.
Back at the access panel, Elena finished sealing the leak, the acrid smell of the adhesive stinging her nose. She wiped a gloved hand across her helmet visor, smearing a streak of grime. “Patch is holding,” she reported. “Rerouting power now. Thruster should stabilize in thirty seconds.”
“Good,” Travis said, though his tone didn’t soften. “Get back to your station. We’re dropping through the thermocline. Brace for turbulence.”
Elena secured the panel and trudged back to her seat, her boots heavy on the floor. The submersible tilted sharply as she buckled in, a wave of cold water slamming against the hull with a sound like a hammer on steel. The cabin lights dimmed for a heartbeat, then flared back to life. Depth: 8,314 meters. They were getting close to the bottom—or what they thought was the bottom. The charts were incomplete, guesses based on sparse data. No one really knew what waited down there.
“Elena,” Priya said, leaning across the narrow aisle. Her voice was low, almost a whisper beneath the headset static. “You felt that, right? Not just the current. Something… off.”
Elena met her gaze, saw the unease flickering in Priya’s eyes. She wanted to brush it off, to say it was just nerves, the weight of the deep messing with their heads. But she couldn’t lie. “Yeah,” she admitted. “Like we’re being watched.”
Priya nodded slowly, her fingers tightening around her notebook. “I’ve studied deep-sea ecosystems for fifteen years. There’s life down here, sure—anglers, tube worms, things that thrive in the dark. But this… it doesn’t feel like life. It feels like something waiting.”
“Cut the ghost stories,” Travis snapped over the comms. “We’ve got enough to deal with. Mei, sonar status?”
“Online in thirty seconds,” Mei replied, her voice steady despite the tremor in her hands. “But that pulse is still there. Stronger now. It’s… accelerating.”
“Accelerating?” Travis turned in his seat, his helmet visor reflecting the red glow of the control panel. “Explain.”
“It’s not seventeen seconds anymore,” Mei said, her eyes locked on the screen. “It’s twelve. And dropping. Like it’s… reacting to us.”
The cabin went quiet, the only sound the hum of the submersible and the distant groan of the hull under pressure. Elena’s pulse thudded in her ears. Reacting to us. The words hung in the air, heavy as the water outside. She glanced at the viewport again, half-expecting to see something—anything—staring back. But there was only black, a darkness so absolute it seemed to swallow the light from their external floods.
“Could be a natural phenomenon,” Priya offered, though her tone lacked conviction. “Some kind of geothermal vent, emitting low-frequency waves. Or a mineral deposit interfering with the sensors.”
“Or it’s not,” Mei said quietly. “I’ve run the diagnostics twice. There’s no error. Whatever’s out there, it’s real.”
Travis cursed under his breath, his hands tightening on the controls. “Alright, enough speculation. We stick to the mission. We hit bottom, deploy the probes, collect samples, and get the hell back up. No detours, no chasing shadows. Understood?”
A chorus of affirmatives crackled over the comms, but Elena could feel the doubt radiating from the crew. They were scientists, explorers, trained to question everything. And right now, every instinct screamed that something was wrong.
The submersible shuddered again, harder this time, a jolt that threw Elena against her harness. Warning lights flared across the control panel, a shrill alarm piercing the cabin. “What the hell was that?” she demanded, her voice sharp.
“External impact,” Travis said, his tone grim. “Something hit us. Hard.”
“Hit us?” Priya’s voice rose an octave. “There’s nothing down here big enough to—”
“Quiet!” Travis barked. He switched on the external cameras, the feeds flickering to life on the monitors. Grainy images of the abyss appeared, illuminated by the submersible’s floodlights. At first, there was nothing—just the endless black, particles of sediment drifting like snow in the beams. Then, a shape loomed into view—a jagged ridge of rock, part of the trench wall, so close it looked like they’d grazed it.
“Must’ve been a fragment,” Travis said, though he didn’t sound convinced. “Current pushed us into the wall. Damage report, Elena.”
She was already on her tablet, scanning the diagnostics. “Hull integrity at ninety-four percent. Minor dent on the starboard side. No breaches. We’re lucky.”
“Lucky,” Travis muttered. “Yeah, that’s the word.”
Mei’s voice cut through the tension. “Sonar’s back online. Mapping the bottom now. We’re… wait. This can’t be right.”
“What now?” Travis snapped.
“The depth readings,” Mei said, her voice tight. “They’re fluctuating. One second it’s 8,900 meters, the next it’s… 9,200. Like the bottom’s moving.”
“Moving?” Elena leaned forward, her heart hammering. “That’s impossible. The trench floor is solid basalt. It doesn’t just… shift.”
“I’m telling you what I see,” Mei shot back. “The data doesn’t lie.”
The cabin fell silent again, the weight of her words settling over them like a shroud. Outside, the floodlights swept across the void, catching glints of something—metallic, maybe, or crystalline—embedded in the trench wall. Elena squinted at the monitor, trying to make sense of it. Not rock. Not sediment. Something else.
“Travis,” she said slowly. “Slow us down. There’s something on the wall. We need a closer look.”
“We don’t have time for sightseeing,” he growled, but he eased off the thrusters anyway, the submersible’s descent slowing to a crawl. The floodlights focused on the anomaly, revealing a structure—angular, deliberate, protruding from the rock like a blade. It shimmered faintly, a sheen of iridescence that didn’t belong in the deep.
“What… is that?” Priya breathed, her voice barely audible.
No one answered. They didn’t have to. Whatever it was, it wasn’t natural. Not a vent, not a mineral deposit. It looked crafted, ancient, buried in the heart of the trench for reasons no one could fathom. Elena’s mind raced—geological anomaly, sure, but this? This was something else. Something that shouldn’t be here.
“Mei,” Travis said, his voice low and steady now, almost too calm. “Record everything. Elena, get the probe ready. We’re taking a sample.”
“Are you serious?” Priya turned to him, her eyes wide. “We don’t even know what that is. It could be dangerous. Radioactive, corrosive—”
“We’re not leaving without answers,” Travis cut her off. “That’s the job. You knew the risks when you signed up.”
Elena nodded, though her hands trembled as she prepped the remote probe. The cabin was thick with tension now, every breath a little shallower, every sound amplified. The structure on the monitor seemed to pulse in time with the sonar readings, a silent heartbeat in the dark. Whatever they’d found, it wasn’t just a discovery. It was a warning.
And they were too far down to turn back.
[To be continued in the second half of Episode 1]
The Nautilus-7 hung suspended in the black, its floodlights locked on the strange, angular structure jutting from the trench wall. Inside the submersible, the air felt heavier, charged with a tension that pressed against Elena’s chest. Her gloved fingers moved mechanically over the probe controls, calibrating the robotic arm to extend toward the anomaly. The hum of the machinery was a steady drone, barely audible over the thump of her own pulse in her ears. The cabin smelled of nervous sweat and the faint metallic tang of fear.
“Probe is armed,” she said, her voice steady despite the knot in her gut. “Extending now. Distance to target, fifteen meters.”
“Keep it slow,” Travis ordered, his eyes fixed on the monitor feed. His hands hovered over the submersible’s controls, ready to pull them back if anything—anything at all—went wrong. “I don’t want us getting tangled in… whatever that is.”
The monitor showed the probe’s claw inching forward, a skeletal hand reaching into the void. The structure loomed larger now, its surface a patchwork of sharp edges and smooth planes, reflecting the floodlights in eerie, fractured glints. It looked almost like glass, but harder, darker, with veins of something luminescent threading through it. Not stone. Not metal. Something else entirely.
“Mei, you getting this?” Elena asked, glancing at the data specialist.
Mei nodded, her face bathed in the blue glow of her laptop. “Recording in high-def. Running spectral analysis now. But the readings… they’re off. Absorption patterns don’t match any known material. It’s like it’s… absorbing the light, not reflecting it.”
“Absorbing?” Priya leaned forward, her brow furrowed. “That’s not possible. Not at this depth, with this kind of illumination. It should scatter, not consume.”
“I’m just reading the data,” Mei said, her tone flat but her eyes sharp with unease. “It’s not following the rules.”
The probe’s claw was closer now, five meters from the structure. Elena’s fingers tightened on the joystick, guiding it with surgical precision. The submersible trembled slightly, a ripple of current nudging them sideways, and she adjusted course, sweat beading on her forehead inside her helmet. The structure seemed to shimmer, almost as if it were reacting to their approach. A trick of the light, she told herself. Had to be.
“Two meters,” she reported. “I’m taking a surface scrape. Stand by.”
The claw extended further, its titanium edge brushing against the structure. A faint vibration traveled through the probe, up the arm, and into the submersible itself—a low, resonant hum that made the floor plates rattle under their boots. Elena froze, her breath catching. The monitor flickered for a split second, static slicing through the feed.
“What the hell was that?” Travis demanded, his voice tight.
“I don’t know,” Elena said, her eyes darting between the controls and the screen. “Contact feedback, maybe. I’m pulling back a sample now.”
The claw scraped a tiny fragment from the structure, a sliver no bigger than a coin, and retracted. The hum faded, but the air in the cabin felt different now, electric, like the moment before a storm breaks. Elena secured the sample in the probe’s containment chamber, sealing it with a hiss of pressurized air.
“Sample acquired,” she said. “Bringing it in for analysis.”
“Good,” Travis grunted. “Let’s not linger. Mei, keep that sonar on high alert. I don’t want any more surprises.”
Mei didn’t respond right away. Her fingers were still, hovering over the keyboard, her gaze locked on the sonar display. “Travis,” she said finally, her voice barely above a whisper. “That pulse… it’s back. Faster now. Every six seconds.”
“Six?” Priya’s head snapped up. “It was twelve just a minute ago. What’s happening?”
“I don’t know,” Mei admitted, and for the first time, there was a crack in her calm. “But it’s not random. It’s… synchronized. Like it’s responding to what we just did.”
The words hung in the cabin, heavy and cold. Elena felt a chill crawl up her spine, her mind racing through possibilities—geothermal activity, seismic waves, some kind of natural resonance. But deep down, she knew none of those fit. This wasn’t nature. This was something deliberate.
“Responding,” Travis repeated, his tone hard. “You’re saying that thing out there knows we’re here?”
“I’m saying the data suggests a correlation,” Mei corrected, though her voice wavered. “I can’t explain it. But the timing… it’s too precise to be coincidence.”
“Enough,” Travis snapped. “We’ve got the sample. We’re not sticking around to find out what’s playing games with us. Elena, secure the probe. We’re heading for the bottom to deploy the rest of the equipment, then we’re done.”
Elena nodded, her hands moving to lock down the probe arm. But as she did, the submersible jolted again, harder this time, a violent lurch that threw her against her harness. Warning alarms blared, red lights flashing across the control panel. The hull groaned, a deep, tortured sound that echoed through the cabin.
“External impact!” Travis shouted, wrestling with the controls. “Something hit us again. Starboard side!”
“Another rock?” Priya asked, her voice high with panic.
“No,” Mei said, her eyes wide as she stared at the sonar display. “It’s not a rock. It’s… moving. Whatever hit us, it’s circling.”
“Circling?” Elena’s stomach dropped. She turned to the external camera feed, her breath fogging her visor. The floodlights swept the darkness, revealing nothing at first—just the endless black, the occasional drift of sediment. Then, a shadow flitted across the edge of the beam, too fast to make out, too large to be debris.
“Did you see that?” Priya whispered, her hands gripping the armrests so tightly her knuckles whitened.
“I saw it,” Elena said, her voice barely audible. Her heart hammered against her ribs. “Travis, we need to move. Now.”
“I’m trying,” he growled, his hands a blur on the controls. “Thrusters are sluggish. Whatever hit us, it knocked the alignment out. Elena, get down there and recalibrate. We can’t maneuver like this.”
She unbuckled her harness, the click of the latch sounding like a gunshot in the tense silence. Her boots hit the floor, the cold metal sending a shock through her legs as she stumbled to the access panel again. The submersible rocked once more, a softer bump this time, but enough to make her grab the wall for balance. The air was thick now, suffocating, every breath tasting of fear.
“Mei, talk to me,” Travis barked. “What’s out there?”
“I don’t know!” Mei’s voice cracked, her usual composure shattered. “Sonar’s picking up multiple signatures now. Small, fast, moving in patterns. They’re… they’re surrounding us.”
“Surrounding?” Priya’s eyes darted to the viewport, though there was nothing to see but black. “That sounds like behavior. Like they’re hunting.”
“They’re not animals,” Mei said, though she didn’t sound sure. “The signatures are too erratic for biologics. Too… mechanical.”
The word sent a jolt through Elena as she knelt at the access panel, her hands shaking as she worked on the thruster alignment. Mechanical. That wasn’t possible. Not down here, not in the deepest part of the ocean, where no human tech had ever reached. Her mind flashed to the structure on the wall, its unnatural angles, the way it pulsed in sync with the sonar. What if it wasn’t just a relic? What if it was… active?
“Alignment’s at eighty percent,” she called out, forcing her voice to stay level. “Give me another minute.”
“We don’t have a minute,” Travis snapped. “They’re closing in. I’m arming the external deflectors. If they get too close, I’m not taking chances.”
“Deflectors?” Priya turned to him, her face pale. “You’re going to fire on something we don’t even understand? What if it escalates?”
“What if it doesn’t?” Travis shot back. “I’m not waiting to find out if they’re friendly. My job is to get us out of here alive.”
The submersible shuddered again, a series of rapid thuds against the hull, like hail on a tin roof. Elena’s hands slipped on the tools, her breath hitching as she fought to focus. The cabin lights flickered, casting long, jittery shadows across the walls. On the monitor, the floodlights caught another glimpse of movement—a flash of something sleek and angular darting past, too quick to identify. It wasn’t a fish. It wasn’t anything she’d ever seen.
“Signatures are within ten meters,” Mei reported, her voice tight. “They’re… they’re stopping. Holding position.”
“Holding?” Travis’s brow furrowed. “Why?”
No one answered. The silence was worse than the alarms, a suffocating void that pressed in from all sides. Elena finished the recalibration, slamming the access panel shut with a clang. “Thrusters are back online,” she said, scrambling to her seat. “Full power available.”
“Good,” Travis said, his hands tightening on the controls. “We’re moving. Hold on.”
The Nautilus-7 lurched forward, the thrusters roaring to life with a sound that vibrated through the hull. The floodlights swept the trench ahead, illuminating a jagged, uneven floor of basalt and sediment—the bottom of the Atacama Trench, or close to it. Depth: 9,047 meters. They were deeper than any manned mission had ever gone, and the weight of that knowledge sat heavy on Elena’s shoulders.
“Signatures are following,” Mei said, her eyes glued to the sonar. “Matching our speed. They’re not engaging, just… tracking.”
“Tracking,” Priya repeated, her voice hollow. “Like they’re studying us.”
“Or herding us,” Elena muttered, the thought slipping out before she could stop it. She regretted it instantly as Priya’s gaze snapped to her, wide with fear.
“Don’t say that,” Priya hissed. “Don’t even think it.”
But the idea lingered, gnawing at the edges of Elena’s mind. The structure, the pulses, the shadows on the sonar—none of it felt random. It felt coordinated. Intentional. She forced herself to focus on the monitor, on the sample secured in the probe’s chamber. Whatever they’d taken from that thing on the wall, it was their only clue. She had to analyze it, had to find answers before—
A sharp, piercing sound cut through the cabin, a screech like metal tearing apart. The submersible tilted violently, throwing Elena against the wall of her seat. Alarms blared louder now, a cacophony of warnings as red lights flashed in frantic patterns.
“Hull breach!” Travis shouted, his voice raw with urgency. “Lower compartment, port side! Pressure dropping!”
“A breach?” Priya’s voice was shrill. “How? We didn’t hit anything!”
“We didn’t,” Mei said, her tone grim as she pulled up the damage report. “Something cut through. Clean slice, not an impact. Like a blade.”
Elena’s blood ran cold. A blade. Not a rock, not a current. Something deliberate. Her eyes darted to the viewport, to the black beyond the glass. The floodlights flickered again, weaker now, casting stuttering beams into the void. And then she saw it—a shape, clearer this time, hovering just at the edge of the light. It was angular, segmented, with edges that glinted like polished obsidian. Not a creature. Not a machine, not in any way she understood. It moved with a fluid, unnatural grace, darting closer, then retreating, as if testing their reaction.
“Travis,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “You see that?”
“I see it,” he growled, his hands white-knuckled on the controls. “Mei, seal off the lower compartment. Elena, get on damage control. We’re not sinking down here.”
Elena nodded, her mind numb as she unbuckled again, staggering to the emergency panel. The submersible rocked, more thuds against the hull, each one a punch to her nerves. The air was colder now, the breach sucking heat out of the cabin, frost forming on the edges of the viewport. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps as she worked to isolate the damaged section, rerouting pressure systems to keep the rest of the submersible intact.
“Compartment sealed,” Mei reported after a tense few seconds. “Pressure stabilizing. But we’ve lost twenty percent of our reserve oxygen. We need to surface. Soon.”
“Surface,” Travis muttered, almost to himself. “Yeah, that’s the plan. If these things let us.”
The shapes outside were multiplying, more of them visible now in the flickering light. Three, then five, then too many to count, circling the Nautilus-7 like predators around wounded prey. They didn’t attack, not yet, but their presence was a threat all its own, a silent promise of violence. Elena’s hands shook as she secured the emergency panel, her mind screaming to get out, to escape this suffocating dark.
“Travis,” Priya said, her voice trembling but firm. “We can’t fight them. We don’t even know what they are. We need to retreat, now, before they decide we’re not worth keeping alive.”
“I don’t run,” Travis snapped, though there was a flicker of doubt in his eyes. “But I’m not stupid either. We’re ascending. Slow and steady. If they follow, we deal with it.”
The submersible tilted upward, the thrusters whining as they pushed against the crushing weight of the water. Depth: 9,032 meters. A small victory, but Elena felt no relief. The shapes outside kept pace, their movements eerily synchronized, their forms flickering in and out of the light like ghosts made of shadow and edge. The sonar pulse was faster now, a relentless drumbeat every three seconds, echoing through the cabin like a countdown.
“Mei,” Elena said, her voice low. “That sample. Can you run a preliminary scan? I need to know what we’re dealing with.”
Mei nodded, her fingers flying over the keyboard as she accessed the probe’s data. “Scanning now. It’s… strange. High density, non-metallic, but there’s an energy signature. Like it’s… active.”
“Active?” Travis turned sharply. “What the hell does that mean?”
“I don’t know yet,” Mei admitted. “But it’s emitting a signal. Low-frequency, same as the pulses outside. It’s like… it’s communicating.”
The cabin went still, the word hanging like a blade over their heads. Communicating. Elena stared at the containment chamber, at the tiny fragment they’d taken from the structure. A piece of something ancient, something alive in a way they couldn’t comprehend. And now it was inside with them, calling out to whatever waited in the dark.
Before anyone could speak, the submersible shuddered again, a bone-deep jolt that sent a scream of metal through the hull. The lights died completely for a heartbeat, plunging the cabin into absolute black, then flickered back weaker than before. On the monitor, the shapes outside surged closer, their forms clearer now—jagged, insectoid, with appendages that moved like blades. One of them pressed against the viewport, its surface rippling like liquid obsidian, and for a moment, Elena swore she saw something inside it, a flicker of light, a shape that wasn’t a shape, staring back at her.
“Travis!” she shouted, her voice breaking. “They’re on us!”
“I see them!” he roared, slamming the thrusters to full power. The submersible lurched upward, the hull groaning under the strain, but the shapes didn’t falter. They clung to the exterior, their movements a blur of precision, and then—a sound, a high-pitched whine that pierced through the cabin, growing louder, sharper, until it was all Elena could hear.
The last thing she saw before the viewport cracked, a spiderweb of fractures blooming across the glass, was the fragment in the containment chamber glowing, a sickly, pulsating light that matched the rhythm of the pulse outside. And then, with a deafening roar, the darkness came for them.