One Set of Footsteps in the Vessel That Drinks Sound

Story  ·  Rui  ·  Oct 9, 2026

Mute was a vessel that drank sound.
The seawater brushing the hull, the fingers turning the checklist, the seat fabric shifting under a body:
every one of them faded a beat late, and quietly.
Rui sat inside that stillness, only sitting.

Her work was already done.
Sleepiness was drifting in from somewhere far off,
and she thought it could come, or it could not.

Then a footstep.
A sound that should have been swallowed arrived a little clearer than usual.
One step at a time, testing the floor.
Not the walk of someone used to deep-water work.
The sleepiness drew back a pace, for no reason at all.

In the hatchway stood someone dressed far too casually for the site.
A shoulder bag slid down to knee height, knocked against the wall, and vanished without a sound.
"Yu," the visitor said, and smiled.
Rui thought about it, and said the name back.
"Yu."
Since she was thinking, it came a little late.

You can take your shoes off, if you like, she told Yu.
Yu's eyes went round, and then Yu burst out laughing.
"You're someone who takes their shoes off to get into a car, aren't you?"
Rui looked down at her socked feet.
She had never been in a car. But she probably would. At home, always.
It had been a while since anyone laughed at her.
It wasn't a bad kind of laughter.

When the hatch closed, the stillness of the craft went one step deeper.
Night departures aren't unusual, she explained,
but the person in the next seat was already half given over to the window.
That was fine.

The blue-green glass slowly turned to ink,
and fine grains streamed upward.
Not falling. They were the ones sinking.
Yu watched without looking away.
Rui kept her mouth closed, so as not to disturb whatever was being watched.

Near the edge of the city, her eyelids went heavy, once.
She held the cooling mug in both hands and got through it.
Then a thin light crossed the corner of the window.
A Light-Eel.
No sound. Only the water it left behind, swaying a little.

She followed the light with her eyes,
and something very small seemed to sound deep in her ear.
She held her breath.

A few seconds later, she let it go.
It's nothing, she said.
But something had been a little near.
Not a meaning. Only near.

Mute descended slowly along the rim of the city.
The profile of the person beside her had begun to melt a little into the dark outside.
The deep was much quieter than she had thought.
Today, it seemed, she didn't have to watch it alone.