How Deep Would You Go ?

How Deep Would You Go ?

Arsenio Prado-Vallejos

04/23/2026

The year is 2122. Miami has had its sea level rise to 8 feet. Most of Miami is gone. Most of Brickell’s buildings survived. Vice City as all that remains. Havoc has wrecked the streets and all that's left are canals and bridges. Raiders have taken over the city becoming powerful by stealing all resources and cold bloodedly killing each other for any reason. Survivors have become terrified of even leaving their shelters to allocate resources. The Miami metro police Department is heavily outnumbered, and only a few stayed after the city was destroyed. If things couldn't get even worse, a series of murders would have come to light with a gruesome execution method. He has been given the name “The Shark” the killer kidnaps his victims and slashes and leaves cuts all over their body and even their bite mark on the victims neck then they tie them up to a bunch of heavy rocks and leave them to drown to their death while the salt water makes all their cuts sting cause them to die a painful and brutal death. Vice City is relying on one man to save them all. His name is Jax Slade. A gritty 25-year-old detective who has been assigned lead detective to this case. He’s had experience with murder cases before due to all the cold-blooded raiders all over the city, but Jax has never seen anything like this before. He is willing to do whatever it takes to catch The Shark.

Jax sits on the ledge of the Miami Metro building in downtown Brickell. He smokes a cigarette while looking at the sunrise; the warm sunrays hit his skin and as the smoke fills his lung, he lets off a weary exhale. Something is weighing him down. He drops his cigarette and starts to remember his ex-girlfriend, the only person who could even bring out a laugh or grin out of him. He remembers her silly smile and funny acts; he begins to tear up as he remembers the bloody suicide note she left. Jax then pulls out a photo of him and her out of his pocket that he always keeps. It's been 6 months since she took her life and her body was never found. A teardrop falls on the photo and out of nowhere Jax’s Lieutenant storms from the roof hatch and says “Jax what the hell are ya doing.” Jax almost falls off the ledge and catches himself quickly, stashing the photo back into his pocket. “Just taking a smoke LT, what's up?” The lieutenant replied “Two drowned bodies have been reported in South Pointe Pier. We think it might be our guy:”.

They immediately stormed downstairs to the dock where they had their jet skis and boats. Jax took the jet ski while the rest of the police crew went in their boats. Jax was the first one to arrive on scene, where he saw a group of survivors waiting. Once the whole police crew arrived along with forensics, they reeled the body out of the water. The moment Jax saw the victim he was repulsed and gagged, it was a middle-aged woman and a little girl who they presumed was a mother and daughter. The little girl didn't even look 5 years old. Jax’s vision started going blurry, and everyone’s voice around him kept getting louder. His breathing slowly stopped and Jax damn near fell off the boat. But one of the officers managed to catch him before he fell. “Jax, are you ok” Jax couldn't respond. He was a tough guy, but this nearly broke him.

It all then started coming back to him. The loss of his precious mother. Jax had been on a fishing trip with his mother on their boat’s when a boat came out of nowhere, a man attacked them and pulled on her arm, but she was shielding Jax, the man then dragged her into the water and dunked her head in and drowned her alive , Jax saw the horror on his mother's face as she drowned to her death. The man stormed off. Jax was left alone before he was eventually found by law enforcement.

Jax snapped back into reality, he got up from his ass and looked at his Lieutenant.” LT tis bastards killing even children now, we must find him.” His lieutenant replied, “Were on that Jax, but you need to go back to the station you don't seem stable right now.” Jax’s face twitched slightly before storming towards his LT and jumping on his boat and grabbing him by the collar “Of course I'm not stable what the hell's wrong with you look at that poor little girls face look at her” as he grabbed his Lieutenant to face the poor girls body. Officers immediately rushed to break them up. The lieutenant sighed and only looked at Jax and said its ok son, grabbing him into his arms. Jax hugged his Lieutenant and put his face into his chest, maybe even letting out a few tears because he didn't want anyone to see him in that vulnerable state. “We’ll catch that son of a bitch, Jax I promise”.

Forensics took the body in and then Jax headed back to the station in his jet ski. As soon as he arrived, he started building a wall of potential leads. He analyzed every single body and the location they were found. After hours and hours of putting a theory together, Jax is starting to notice a pattern. As soon as he thinks he might have found something. He receives a call through the specialized signal tower they have. He quickly picks up thinking it might be an officer patrolling who needs back up. As soon as he answers, he hears a chilling noise. He hears screams and the begs of what appears to be one of his police officers. Someone finally talks, “Jax Slade i know it's you, I have Officer Shank here, bring us your helicopter, and all your supplies, and seized drugs or he dies”. “Who the hell is this” Jax replies. “Come find out, but don't take too long every second you make us wait is another second closer to Officer Shanks death, and most importantly make sure to come alone if we hear or see anyone else Shank will pay the price. Tick Tick Slade.” They finally hung up.

Jax wasted no time he immediately ran to the armory, picked out an AR-15 with multiple attachments a sawed-off shot gun and dual wield desert eagles, multiple throwables like, grenades, Molotov's. He also takes the duffel bag full of seized drugs. Before he hops on the helicopter, he takes one more look at the photo of him and his ex-girlfriend. He kisses it and stashes it in his pocket. He does the sign of the cross on himself. And he starts flying towards the raider’s base. While in the air all he sees is Brickell’s remaining buildings, and he can only wonder where everything went wrong. After 5 minutes he was almost there. He landed on a nearby building and took the duffel bag with him. Jax knew he might not make it out alive, but he had sworn how he would never let another man die with the blood on his hands, so he was willing to rescue Officer Shank at any costs.

Jax swam to the entry of the base once he got onto the bridge; the gates opened into the abandoned Miami Dade Stadium (Ex home of the Miami Heat). Multiple snipers were pointed at him, and a loud voice came from above “Show your hands where we can see them.” Jax dropped the duffel bag and said “I come in peace I left the helicopter parked on top of the old Hotel i m just here for Officer Shank. Two members of the raiders walked out with Shank, they had him tied up and he was covered in blood, they had nearly beat him to death. The men shoved him towards Jax where he fell and broke down in tears, sobbing at Jax’s feet. “Everything's Ok Shank I'm here now”. “You have your drugs and money, are you happy now, I need a jet ski to head back to the station”. Then that's when a man appeared from the Shadows.

It was the leader of The Raiders, “The Mask”. “You’re not going anywhere, Jax” he said. Jax immediately tensed up as he felt all the sniper lasers pointed at him. He thought he was about to get his life taken. He began to take steps back as The Mask slowly approached him. “Open the bag up” he tells Jax. “Good, now rip open some of that cocaine and snort it, that way I know you're not bullshitting us” Jax complied and snorted some of the cocaine. Jax felt everything around him start spinning, the voices got louder, his vision and hearing amplified. He began grinding his teeth and clenching his fists. Then out of nowhere The Mask snapped his fingers and slowly walked away, in a matter of a split second Jax heard the loud sniper gunshot fire, and boom, the bullet landed but luckily, he had his bulletproof vest on. That's when Jax knew he had been set up. Out of rage, the bullet didn't even stun him. He threw a smoke bomb down and dragged Officer Shank out of the gunfire that erupted. Jax knew he might not make it out of this, but he wasn't going out with a fight. He hid Officer Shank under some seats and told him, “I'll be back for you just lay low.” Jax popped out and started firing at everything he saw. He shot 3 raiders that ran at him in the head with his assault rifle, then one appeared from behind him, but he heard his footsteps and Jax immediately blow his head clean off with his handy sawed-off shotgun. The Mask then was heard over the loud PA screaming “We need reinforcements.” Jax started launching grenades across the main part of the arena, and Molotov's caused the arena to catch on fire and eventually collapse.

Jax continued to gun down every Raider that ran at him, but then he saw more rappelling from the top of the arena, Jax was heavily outnumbered. He ran to where Officer Shank was and handed him a pistol and said “Shank, if I don't make it try to make it out of here at any costs” he shook his hand, and Jax grabbed his dual pistols and was ready to take on every single one of those bastards to the death when out of nowhere a huge chopper started hovering around the arena, then a loud explosion occurred. The chopper had fired missiles into the arena, then the choppers' spotlight flashed on Jax and Shank, and a loud voice said come with us. Jax finally recognized the chopper it was his LT and the rest of the Police Officers. Jax thought to himself “They must have put a GPS chip on the chopper I came here in and found it strange I was here alone” The chopper dropped a ladder down and Jax picked Shank up and put him on his back and then jumped off the hole in the wall and was able to reach the ladder. The chopper pulled and launched a final missile that made the whole arena erupt in flames and collapse almost instantly. If any Raider’s remained in that building, they were for sure dead.

Once the LT, Jax and Shank and the rest of the police crew arrived at the station. They all took a moment to catch a breather. Jax thanked his LT for helping him and Shank make it out of there. Jax was glad they basically put an end to most of the Raider’s. And the rest of Vice City was now safer to cruise. Jax wasn’t done for the night; he went out on his boat to make sure no Raider’s had escaped during the fire. While cruising around, he spotted something that shocked him. It looked like a little boy's body, but he was floating above the water and looked pale as paper. Jax immediately jumped off the boat and rescued him and once he placed him back in the boat and flashed his light at him, Jax was terrified when he saw the boy's body covered in slashes and cuts and then he saw it. The mark of “The Shark”, Jax started trembling, he immediately checked the boys pulse it was light but still there, Jax immediately started performing CPR and had shot a flare gun for backup to hopefully arrive. No matter how hard he tried the boy wouldn't wake up, that's when Jax started to have flashbacks of him sitting in the boat by himself the day his mother died. Jax kept pressing on the boy's chest with tears in his eyes, but still nothing. That's when he lost his temper and started pounding on the boys' chest with his fists, and screaming, "Don't you die on me “ and with all his strength he did one last blow and that's when boys eyes shot open and he threw up all the water he had in his body. Jax hugged the boy and broke into tears. He was glad he was able to save life. Medics arrived shortly after.

After the boy was treated and taken care of, Jax passed by his bed, and the boy said, “Thank You officer, you saved me from The Shark.” Jax just smiled and patted him on the head. “I know it's too soon, but do you think you can tell me anything to maybe catch this person.” The boy replied, “I remember seeing many different colored fish and a killer whale and a shark.” Jax was lost at first, “Buddy can you water this down and tell me more, but out of nowhere the boy’s eyes started shutting and his heart monitor started increasing his heart rate slowly going down, Medics immediately rushed into the room and kicked Jax out. Jax put his hands over his head, and then it clicked on him. The Miami Seaqarium, it all made sense now.

Jax wasted no time and hopped on the jet ski and made it there quickly. Once he arrived the whole place looked abandoned and eerie to him. He used his flashlight and rode around most of the aquarium, but there were no signs of life anywhere. He got to a section where he would have to get off his jet ski and swim. He swam around and finally found something promising it was the kids play area. He slowly opened a door that was wedged, but he got it open when out of nowhere a shark pounced at him and bit his arm. The shark had nearly bitten his arm off, and Jax screamed in pain and agony. He was able to get it off of him and then he grabbed his shotgun and blew the shark into Smithereens. Jax’s whole arm was shredded, and he was getting nauseous. He wasn't going to be able to keep looking under these conditions; he had no choice but to retreat to the station to treat his injuries.

Jax makes it back alive but instantly collapses while climbing the stairs,, and he is immediately spotted by fellow officers and the Lieutenant; he gets his injuries treated, and he is thankfully able to recover. That's when his LT walks in and screams at him, “Jax what the hell do you think you were doing going there alone, there is a chain of command for a reason, you don't do anything unless I say so, I understand going to the raiders alone, but this is unacceptable.” Jax swallows his pride and keeps his mouth shut. "You're not leaving this damn station” said Lt as he walked away and slammed the door. Jax finally got some rest and woke up not even 4 hours later covered in cold sweat. Jax felt hopeless, he thought to himself “Where could The Shark be hiding at.” He got up and went to his board with pictures of all the bodies found, none of it made sense to him he tried circling where they had been found, but it led him nowhere. Victims were either male or female, ages varying from as young as 4 years old to as old as 90 years old. The police crew had already checked out every popular building in Miami; they had checked out many abandoned properties. Jax was grinding his teeth when finally, he got lost in rage and started breaking the whole board, he ripped all the papers off, he punched the wall multiple times and kicked everything around the office and as he punched the wall, his anchor bracelet snapped in half. He picked up the little anchor pendant and looked at it; his mother had given him this bracelet days before her death when they visited the abandoned Titanic Replica they had built many years before the flooding. Jax might have found a lead, and it made sense. Many people drowned to their death in the Titanic so it would make sense for The Shark to be using it as their hideout. Jax wasted no time, he grabbed all his weapons, and disobeying his LT’s orders, he grabbed his jet ski and stormed off to the Titanic replica.

Upon arriving at the Titanic, Jax got flashbacks from his mother. He misses her so much, but Jax was on a mission. It was time to finally put an end to “The Shark” and their reign of terror on Vice City. He hopped off his Jetski and opened the top hatch of the Titanic. He crossed himself and dived in. Once he was inside, he climbed onto a little surface area that led into a door. What he saw terrified him. There were names written all over the walls, but they were written in blood. The names seemed to be maybe the names of the Victims “The Shark” took out. Jax followed the names until he found a room with a dim light hanging. The light was shining upon some footsteps covered in blood, Jax followed them, and he walked into a hallway where he heard a loud thudding noise. The closer he got to it, the louder it became. He heard the cries of a women, but they sounded familiar.

Once he found the door it was coming from, it was locked so he shot the lock off with his shot gun and who he saw inside dropped his heart to the floor. It was his ex-girlfriend, Bailey. He broke into tears, she was beaten and had cuts all over her body, but thankfully she was alive. She broke into tears when she saw him, they embraced each ither in a warm hug, “I missed you so much” she said in a weak raspy voice. “I missed you more baby, i knew you never left me” Jax replied. Just as he was happy to be reconnected with his lover a loud metal pipe hit him int he back of his head. It was “The Shark”. Jax’s head was ringing and when he saw the man's face, he recognized it. “The Shark” was the man that had drowned his mother to her death. Jax asked him “Why, why did you do it. Why did you kill my mother?” The Shark stayed silent and just laughed he replied, “Because I liked killing, I have no motives, i just love seeing the look of horror on people's faces as they drown to their death.” Jax felt sick hearing that, and his eyes filled with tears of rage. He immediately got up and landed a clean overhand on The Shark. He pinned him against the wall and started throwing elbows at his face, till he became a bloody pulp, but that's when The Shark fired a shot at Jax under his shirt, Jax had been shot in the liver, but that didn't phase Jax he shouted “I will kill you with my bare hands if it's the last thing I do on this damned earth.”

He bit The Shark in the neck, and they both dropped their weapons as they clinched but then The Shark pulled out another pistol from his back pocket, and Jax had no choice but to back up. “Move an inch and I'll put a bullet in her head and yours too.” He tossed Jax a pair of handcuffs. “Cuff yourself next to her” Jax complied and cuffed himself in the pipe with his lover. “You will die the same way your mother did” The Shark said. He shoots the water pipe they are cuffed in, and the Titanic begins to flood, just as The Shark tries to make his escape and starts laughing a loud gun fire erupts. The Shark looks down at his chest; he had been shot from behind he looked back at Jax and Jax said “Looks like you forgot I had a spare too.”

The Shark had been killed but now Jax and Bailey had to worry about the flooding. Jax checked to see if he had any more ammunition to shoot the locks on the cuffs, but that was his last bullet. Bailey started panicking but Jax grabbed her face and said “Look at me, we won't make it out of here but I love you so much, there's not a day that went by that I didn't think of those beautiful blue eyes and pretty pink lips, if I die here with you I will die happy knowing im finally reunited with you and maybe in the afterlife I'll be reunited with my Mother as well, I love you so much Bailey.” Bailey broke into tears and replied, “I love you too my handsome boy.” They embrace each other in a warm, tight hug and kiss as the water quickly floods the boat. The Shark was gone, and what would happen to the rest of Vice City is unknown other than the assumption it would be a safer place without The Shark. They both closed their eyes as they accepted their fate. All Jax could hope is that his sacrifice would not be in vain. For the first time in his life, since everything was taken from, Jax was finally not afraid to drown.