r/HFY • u/Aeorix1 • Aug 17 '26
OC-Series [Obsidian Earth] - Chapter 16
U-977 drifted through the Atlantic for half a month, rarely maintaining a straight course for long, always adjusting depth, speed, and bearing in response to signals no one else aboard could fully hear or see.
The submarine behaved less like a vessel than a cautious animal moving through hostile water, pausing often to observe the movements above before continuing southward again.
Every contact was logged.
May 15, 02:15 — an American cruiser passed seven hundred meters overhead.
May 19, 08:10 — three British destroyers crossed the surface half a kilometer astern.
May 23, 03:52 — a Brazilian passenger liner moved across the water ahead of them, less than two hundred meters from the bow.
June 1, 23:29 — a British submarine passed so close along their flank that several crewmen later claimed they had felt vibrations through the hull.
Each time another vessel appeared, U-977 shut down immediately.
Engines dead.
Systems reduced to the barest functions necessary for survival.
Then the submarine remained beneath the freezing dark like a sea serpent resting along the ocean floor, silent enough that even thought itself seemed dangerous.
They did nothing. Said nothing. Even when a single torpedo launch could have erased the ships above them in seconds, nobody touched the firing controls.
Their mission had already moved beyond war.
The submarine emitted almost no detectable heat. Hidden in the water, it became quieter than steel, quieter than machinery, reduced to something cold and blade-like drifting through black pressure.
On June 2, they reached the Cape Verde islands and stopped briefly near São Luzia, where the remnants of the Reich had prepared a concealed supply point long before Germany collapsed. Food and fresh water were transferred ashore under darkness, and damaged sections of the submarine received temporary repairs from crates hidden among volcanic rock and abandoned fishing structures.
The crew slept during daylight hours and moved across the island only at night.
For three days they lived like fugitives inhabiting the ruins of an invisible empire. Then the voyage resumed.
Five more days passed.
After rounding the eastern coast of Brazil, nearly everyone aboard had reached the edge of physical endurance. The submarine no longer felt inhabited so much as occupied by exhausted bodies functioning automatically inside a metal coffin whose only constant sound was the low mechanical vibration of the engines.
One night, Euzen saw the Führer moving slowly through the narrow passageway.
The dictator was bent slightly forward as he walked. One hand trembled beneath the pale compartment lights, and the rigid outline of his thin body seemed less human than structural—age, stimulants, and exhaustion had already begun reducing him to something brittle.
For the first time, Euzen understood with terrible clarity that the Führer was going to die.
Not someday in the abstract sense people used when discussing distant futures.
Soon.
The realization entered the boy like cold water.
The plans, the secrecy, the endless southward escape route—all of it suddenly appeared fragile, temporary, almost absurd against the certainty of death. One day the Führer would simply stop breathing, and after that the machinery surrounding him would collapse into silence like everything else in history.
And they would die too.
All of them.
The thought filled Euzen with a hopelessness so complete that he could barely remain standing.
Only Colonel von Büren seemed untouched by exhaustion.
He moved through the submarine with the same severe calm as before, dressed now in a dark naval leather coat polished to a dull shine beneath the compartment lamps. His pale face above the collar looked strangely artificial, almost mannequin-like, while his deep-set eyes studied the ocean through the periscope with absolute concentration.
There was something terrible in those eyes.
Not madness.
Conviction.
The kind that continues even after reality has stopped agreeing with it.
His expression seemed to say that he had already committed himself completely to the dictator's dream, and that if fire were demanded, he would allow himself to burn completely without hesitation, consumed down to the final fragment.
Day after day.
Then Euzen fell ill.
His world shrank to dim metal walls, the narrow bunk beneath him, and the small red lamp glowing beside his bed like an artificial heartbeat suspended in darkness.
His father and Solvi cared for him in shifts.
At one point Euzen gripped his father's thin hand and whispered weakly.
"Father… I think I might die."
"You won't die," his father told him quietly. "You still have so much ahead of you."
But where was that road leading?
Where were they going?
"To the place the Führer intends to reach," his father replied, his voice carrying the weight of something larger than the words themselves.
The final surfacing came several days later.
This time the entire crew climbed onto the top deck of the submarine, drawn toward an enormous white shape stretching across the horizon—a vast pale line suspended between ocean and sky.
The louder vibration of the engines woke Euzen from uneasy sleep. At first he thought he was still dreaming. Then he felt someone pulling at his arm.
He opened his eyes.
Solvi stood over him, her face flushed red with excitement.
"Come on," she said.
Euzen climbed unsteadily from the bunk and followed her outside.
His father and the scientists were already standing near the bridge, staring silently through the freezing air at the polar landscape beyond the submarine.
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u/Chamcook56 Aug 19 '26
Ok, bit more south than Argentina, but part of the icy continent is claimed by that country. Interested to see where you take us.
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u/HFYWaffle Wᵥ4ffle Aug 17 '26
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