The Abyss / Season 1, Episode 4
The Silence After
THE ABYSS Season 1, Episode 4: "The Silence After" --- [CHAPTER 1: LANDFALL] Six months. One hundred and eighty-three days since Mira Chen had stood at the breach and refused an offer that no human had ever refused before. One hundred and eighty-three nights of dreams that weren't quite dreams, of whispers in languages she'd never learned, of waking up with her hand reaching toward something that wasn't there. She was supposed to be on sabbatical. That's what the official paperwork said—Dr. Mira Chen, taking a well-deserved break after a "stressful deep-sea research assignment." The university had been understanding. Her colleagues had been sympathetic. No one asked too many questions about why she flinched at the sound of running water or why she'd moved from her beachfront apartment to a cabin in the Colorado mountains, as far from any ocean as she could get. The others had scattered too. Adaora Okonkwo had returned to Nigeria, ostensibly to be with family. Her emails were brief, formal, stripped of the fierce intelligence that had made her one of the world's leading linguists. "I'm well. I hope you are too. We should not speak of certain things in writing." Chen had gone dark entirely. His phone was disconnected. His email bounced. The last anyone had heard, he'd been seen boarding a flight to...