Boundless, gray ocean stretched beneath a low, leaden sky. The air was an icy suspension; each breath seared the throat, frosting the lungs. The "Svoboda," her sides scarred by salt and time, groaned in the silence. She carried a secret cargo, but her true freight now was hopelessness. For days, the ship had wandered a labyrinth of water and ice, every horizon the same indifferent expanse.

Anxiety began as a hairline crack: hurried whispers at the helm, long silences on the radio. Then came the realization: there was no land. Only leaden waves meeting milky fog, and the occasional ghost of an ice floe—white as bleached bones. Days slipped by, viscous and colorless. Provisions in the galley dwindled with silent dread.

Horror stood by the stove, his tall frame casting a trembling shadow. His long fingers sliced the last sack of potatoes into translucent slivers. His empty eye socket was a dark void; his living eye—scarlet as old blood—darted across the emptying shelves, calculating rations. Click. The dry crack of his knuckles echoed. Nerves. From beyond the door came whispers—the rustle of frightened leaves. Fragments: “…no land…”, “…fuel’s gone…”. Panic hung in the cold-soaked corridors.

He shut down thought. Thinking was dangerous. He clung to routine: clean, cut, stir. The broth was murky water; the meat, meager. But he cooked. It was all he had.

Time flowed, thick as tar. The cold tightened its grip. A dry cough crept through the ship, then fever. Medicine ran out faster than food. One morning, the chief stoker didn’t report. They found him stiff, his face dusted with frost. Passing the shapeless bundle, Horror only clenched his jaw. Death. Here again.

A month, perhaps. The seven-day voyage was hell. In the frozen smoking area, sailors with sunken eyes spun tales—of ghost ships, of the Spirit of the Northern Waters. “He doesn’t like outsiders!” someone rasped.

Horror listened. Nonsense. But in his icy cabin, listening to the hull creak like grinding teeth, he wondered. What if? He shook his head, knuckles cracking. Stupidity.

Then the storm hit. The ocean’s fury. The sky collapsed. A wall of wind, snow, and ice descended—blinding, roaring. The "Svoboda" groaned, her skeleton screeching. Horror fought the deck’s tilt, fingers gripping frozen rails. The wind tore the snowy veil aside.

And there. Dead ahead. Impossibly close.

An iceberg. A cathedral of death, glowing with a phosphorescent whiteness in the blackness.

Screams merged with the siren’s wail. Metal shrieked. Horror pressed into a doorway, fingers digging into wood. The colossal wall grew, filling the world. A cold deeper than the ocean seized him.

The impact was a monstrous crunch—the spine of a living thing snapping. The ship shuddered. Steel tore. The "Svoboda" lurched, squealed, hung impaled. Then a soul-chilling screech as she listed, heavy and final. Ice had pierced her heart. Black, icy water roared into the wound.

Horror’s legs buckled. He scrambled, claws scraping the deck. His frozen muscles moved like stone. Another wave slammed into the ship, rolling her violently. He was thrown sideways, barely catching the railing. A wall of black water rose over the half-deck. Horror shut his eyes.