Florida: Monsters of the Deep

Florida: Monsters of the Deep

Michael Konik

04/23/2026

In the year 2093, Homestead is now 8.0 feet or 2.4m underwater. My name is Jobe and I am 27 years old. I was born and raised in Florida, I wear high tech sneakers, camo jeans, brunette hair, and a blue shirt. On Saturday, I decided to take a trip to the now flooded remains of Biscayne National Park. I hit up my friend Adrian, I’ve known him since middle school, he wears a black high-tech jacket, khaki jeans, black boots, and a holo watch on his wrist. I asked him if we could explore it using a rental submarine, he replied “Okay, just let me use my holo phone to see if we can borrow one for a few hours.” We drove to the Sub rental station and found Our Submarine; it was a green oval shaped sub vessel with its periscope sticking out from the top. We fooled around with it for an hour and saw some fishes, mostly mackerels and Lion Fishes swimming around. The strangest thing happened; I thought I saw something out of the corner of my left eye. “What the hell is that?” I asked. It looked like a figure, I couldn’t make it out, Adrian replied "Could've been a Manatee or somethin, I dunno.” A Manatee? But they’re nearly extinct and are pretty rare to see, and they’re supposed to be seen in riverbanks. “It was probably nothing.” I spoke. We continued exploring the flooded area that used to be Homestead Bayfront Park. I couldn’t get that strange figure I saw earlier off my mind; it was living in my head rent - free. I then told Adrian to take over as the pilot, and I sat down at the small table at the corner of the deck. I got up and walked towards the small smart fridge, the voice coming from it said, “Good evening, sir, what a fine day it is, isn't it?” I replied, “I’m just getting mineral water and that’s all.” I sat back down and wondered what that thing even was for the next few minutes. Later on, I decided to go back to the deck to check up on Adrian. We were near the drop off point, Adrian admitted to losing focus and instead just messed around with the sub’s controls. I fought to regain the controls and told him to sit in the passenger’s seat. “What is your problem man?” He spoke. “Dude, we’re supposed to explore the sunken national park not beyond it!” I replied angrily. I piloted the Submarine and for the next few minutes we were in Biscayne National Park, or what remained of it. We docked the submarine near the old lighthouse and put on our diving suits and explored the abandoned area. The Park itself looked dead and mostly suffering from climate change as a result. Fishes were swimming around like they owned the place and I was fascinated at first but then it started to get old real quick. Adrian didn’t mind the fishes though, he was in fact, more fascinated at the sight then I will ever be. We spoke on the radio. “You seeing this? Over.” Replied Adrian. “Yeah, over.” I said back to him. We then spotted a strange figure in the distance, it looked like a giant fish with human arms and legs, it resembled an Angler Fish. Which is odd due to them only being sighted in the deepest darkest depths of the Ocean. The being was identified as female due to its lantern and the shape resembled that of a woman.
It looked odd and I told my friend to be careful and to not make any sudden movements, the creature looked like it was eating something and I did not want to find out. So Adrian and I tread carefully so we didn’t disturb the Angler and her dinner. I wanted to ignore the creature and pretend that we didn’t see it. As we walked, I noticed that there was a similar creature, only this time it lacked the lantern, it was smaller looking, and the size of a Labrador Retriever. It was a male Angler Fish looking humanoid. My friend and I started to notice that there were more of them, and we both started to panic. What makes it even worse is that one of the Angler creatures noticed us and it immediately screamed, the rest followed. The diving suits were far too slow to use, later we caught up to the abandoned Lighthouse. We went to the top, took our diving suits off and stayed there for what seemed like an eternity. “What were those things?” I asked and Adrian shrugged, not even he knew. Well, I knew they resembled Angler Fishes, but they’re not supposed to be here, Anglers are supposed to live in the deeper depths of the oceans not near Florida waters. But then I remembered something from my college years: my biology professor talked about an incident that occurred on January 18th, 2068. A Nuclear reactor fell from a Naval Vessel and sank beneath the ocean, never to be seen again. I never realized that these sea creatures would forcefully mutate into bipedal humanoids but here we are. Adrian told me, “Dude, do you think that maybe these things have some sort of intelligence?” “Probably.” I answered. I looked at Adrian’s watch, and it was almost 7 ‘o clock. How long have we been here? I thought and wondered how we were going to get out of this. So, Adrian figured out a plan and even told me that we could use the harpoons from the submarine, I agreed and we went for the Submarine. Unfortunately, we were too late. The Anglers were surrounding it despite being next to the Lighthouse. However, our diving suits contained flares that we can use in case of emergencies. Adrian shot one flare from his suit’s arm and the Anglers darted towards the flare. We got onto the Submarine and tried to start it. The Submarine couldn’t start and we were doomed either way. I conjured up an idea, that one of us had to distract the bipedal fishes. For the moment, we tried hatching some ideas, but they couldn’t work. None of the ideas we had really worked. The Sub barely had anything at all. We were both at a loss, until we saw some harpoon guns and a box of TNT inside a cabinet. We geared up again, with the Harpoon guns in hand and took the TNT along with us. We fought these creatures for a few minutes and they never stopped coming. The creatures retreated to somewhere else and we tried following them. The Fish Humanoids swam back into a small cave and we both wondered if we could try to blow up the cave so they wouldn’t come back out. Adrian said, “Should we?” I replied, “Let's see if it works.” We went in and saw an entire nest. The creatures were asleep, so we stepped in cautiously and quietly, so we didn't attract any attention. As we walked, I thought to myself wondering how we ended up here in the first place. This was supposed to be a fun submarine trip around the flooded Biscayne area that used to be a tourist spot though it still is but for scuba divers and submarine trips. Slowly we tread within the cave and planted the TNT, Adrian and I bounced towards the exit of the Cave. Suddenly, I accidentally stepped on a foot of one of the creatures. It screamed, “EERRAAGGHH!” It awoke its fellow Anglers. We hopped as fast as we could out of there, as we hopped, Adrian’s diving suit was grabbed by one of them. I used my harpoon gun to kill them so Adrian could escape. However, I was then grabbed as Adrian ran off. I was terrified, I felt as if my life flashed before my eyes. That is until Adrian came back and shot the one grabbing me. He pulled me out of the cave, and we ducked near one of the large rocks. The Cave exploded, taking the Angler Humanoids along with it. A minute later; I came to and got up, Adrian laughed as we hopped back into the submarine. I piloted the Submarine, as we dove back, I realized that we were being followed by something even bigger. The Giant Sea Monster looked exactly like a giant sea snake. The Serpent was the size of an extinct Titanoboa from the Paleocene Epoch, its scales looked like it had ink covering its body, the fangs were sharp, and so was its tongue. We tried to narrowly avoid it, it started to follow us and devour our rental sub. Adrian was panicking, I was praying to God in my head, wondering why I decided to do all of this in the first place. I assumed that this was the day I’d die alongside my best friend. The Serpent was right in front of us, readying its jaws to eat us. Fortunately, I was able to scare it away using the Submarine’s flare via the emergency button. This Submarine had everything emergency related for some reason, did the rental service knew someone would be unfortunate enough to be put in a similar situation such as ours? Running away from the large Serpent was like a never-ending nightmare for the both of us. “Are you okay?” I asked Adrian. “I think I just soiled myself dude.” He replied. I then asked him to change his clothes in the small bathroom located within the sub. We continued our way back to the Rental Service area; I then decided to put the Submarine on Autopilot just so I could catch my breath. Adrian, now sporting Jean shorts, the same boots, holo watch, and an undershirt walked up to me to ask me if I was alright. “You look kind of upset, my guy.” He said nonchalantly. “Gee, you think?” I replied. “Well, we did just survive a Giant snake thing so…….” Said Adrian. “So?” I replied. “So, What!” I replied angrily. “Today was supposed to be a fun day, but no! Mother nature just had to throw whatever these Animals were, of course I’m deeply upset.” I spoke. “Leave me alone."

I said once again. My friend and I didn’t speak for what seemed like an hour. It was 10 PM, it was dark and quiet in the ocean. All I saw was darkness with the occasional moonlight shining through the dark Florida waters. I wondered what would’ve happened if I never decided to come here with Adrian, we probably would’ve just hung out in my apartment and watched a few films on the flat TV screen hanging on my wall. Or maybe go on a double date and ask a few ladies out? I’m not really sure, I now want to get home and forget this nightmare ever happened. I took a nap and dreamt I was back home, though things were different. My apartment was oddly connected to the submarine's inner walls and I saw Abraham Lincoln wearing an I’m with stupid shirt for some odd reason. He looked very disappointed, Adrian appeared but he looked very upset with me, both him and Abraham Lincoln almost resembled the Angler Humanoids; Adrian proceeded to tell me, “I’m not sure if you’re full of waffles, Jobe!” Then, the Serpent from earlier slithered into my face and devoured me, prompting me to wake up in a cold sweat. I went up to Adrian and woke him up, I apologized and told him that I was still in shock over the serpent. Adrian accepted but told me that everything’s going to be alright. Suddenly, we heard a loud crash, it was that same Snake from earlier. We decided to free the submarine as it was being devoured. We found an escape hatch but if we opened the hatch we’d drown. We were doomed and not sure of our survival. Adrian was unfortunately pierced by the Sea Serpent’s long tongue and I screamed, “ADRIAN!!” My friend was dead. I had to pray but I’m not sure if it would work, until I returned to the cockpit, where I found an eject button. I went in and pressed the release button. The seat transformed into a miniature sub, and it swam up back to the surface. I narrowly escaped but Adrian wasn’t lucky enough, the Emergency team found me days later and I ended up going to the hospital for minor injuries. I initially thought to sue the Rental service, but I couldn't press any charges. I thought that this was going to be a 2-hour undersea adventure and that was all, but we were very unfortunate. Sometimes I wonder if there were more of those mutant sea creatures out there in the ocean, maybe there are far bigger monsters out there then what my late friend and I realized.