The main corridor inside the ship stretched before them like a void. Frankie touched the cold rusted wall, slick with decades of condensation. The rust had eaten through in patches, leaving jagged brown scars across the white peeling paint. Art déco light fixtures hung from the ceiling with glass shades covered in thick dust that filtered the beam from Damon’s flashlight to an amber glow.

  “The radio has to be on the bridge,” Damon said, his voice a little too loud in the silence. “Upper decks, probably.”

  Frankie nodded. The ship groaned, a slow protest of stressed metal, and something else stirred. A rhythm, faint. Footsteps? No. The ship settled. It had to be the ship.

  “Let’s split up,” Ted said. He stood near a door marked LOUNGE in rusted bronze letters. “We cover more ground.”

  “Are you insane?” Dee Dee adjusted her glasses, glaring at him. “That’s rule number one in every horror movie ever. You don’t split up.”

  The ship groaned again, a deep, guttural sound that vibrated through the soles of their feet. The light from Damon’s flashlight flickered.

  “We don’t have time to debate movie tropes,” Frankie said, her voice low. “That sound… the electronics failing… Something is wrong with this place. We find the radio now, or we don’t get out. Ted’s right. It’s faster this way.”

  The coldness from the deck seeped into her boots. It wasn’t just the fog anymore. This cold was deeper. It made the muscles in her back tighten.

  Dee Dee’s jaw was tight. She hated it. But she couldn’t argue with Frankie’s logic. “Fine. Twenty minutes. Then we’re back here, found something or not.”

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  “Okay, dude,” Ted said.

  They separated.

  Frankie followed Damon up a narrow stairwell, his flashlight beam bouncing off the corroded railings.

  The corridor on the upper deck was narrow. Cabin doors lined both sides. 201. 203. 205.

  The air tasted of dust and decay.

  Damon’s light missed something on the floor. A child’s porcelain doll, its face cracked. It lay by door 207. A serving cart was overturned nearby, its contents a rotten smear against the wall.

  “Place feels preserved,” Damon said, his voice a low whisper. “Like everyone just vanished.”

  He was right. No bodies. No blood. No sign of a fight.

  An open doorway.

  Frankie stopped. Inside, a suitcase lay open on a bed. Clothes neatly folded. On the nightstand, a man’s watch with hands stopped.

  11:47.

  “Look,” she said, pointing.

  Damon leaned in. “Broken. The watch is ancient.”

  Maybe. Frankie’s throat felt dry.

  They kept moving. The corridor stretched on. Damon paused at the end, where another stairwell led up. “This should be the way to the bridge.”

  Frankie nodded, about to agree.

  She stopped.

  A sound. Not the ship’s groan. Whispers. Dozens of them, like a badly tuned radio.

  She froze.

  Damon glanced at her. “Hear what?”

  The whispers grew louder. Mumbling, gaining clarity. They slipped into her mind like freezing water. She couldn’t understand the words, but the tone was urgent. Desperate.

  “Frankie?”

  She held up a hand. Strained to listen. The voices shifted. Became one. A single thread of sound, thin and distant, speaking directly into her skull.

  She’s awake.

  Frankie’s heart hammered against her ribs.

  The voice cut off. Vanished.

  The silence rushed back in, heavier than before.