Night Echo

It was exactly 3:17 in the morning when Anna Orlinska first heard the sound - a low, dragging tone reminiscent of a cry sunk somewhere under a layer of fog and sea. She opened her eyes in her flat in the attic of an old tenement building on Węglowa Street in Gdynia. The rain was tapping against the glass and the light from the lanterns was spilling across the ceiling in golden streaks. For the past few months, her life had been strangely stable - as if she had finally found a safe haven after several turbulent years. She'd been working as a translator for a maritime museum, slamming hours on scans of old logs and captain's logbooks. A boring, tidy job. And yet, for the past few days, she had felt something... unsettling. As if the harbour itself was looking for something. Or someone. The sound repeated itself two more times. It resembled a horn, but it was too deep, too... alive. As if it came from the wrong era. She stood up, got dressed, slipped an old trench coat off the hanger that had once belonged to her father - a police inspector who had disappeared 25 years ago in strange circumstances. A man in a dark coat was waiting for her on the quay. She didn't know him, and yet she knew he had turned up not by chance. – Anna Orlinskaya? - He asked. - I know where your father's diary is. But before you get it, you have to help me find something that shouldn't exist.... She looked at him suspiciously, but curiosity won out. They set off together towards one of the forgotten docks. As they passed deserted halls and rusted containers, the man spoke faster and faster. About a ship that did not exist on any registers, yet returned to port every few years. About a crew whose names you won't find in any archive. And about a sign - an old symbol that Anna had seen earlier in one of her father's diaries. – 'This is no ordinary diary,' he said, stopping by the locked hangar. - It's a key. The inside of the hangar was flooded with faint light. In the middle stood a box, and in it - a strange compass-like device. But its needle was not pointing north. It was pointing towards the sea. And it was vibrating. – Your father constructed it. He believed that time and space in this harbour were... unsealed. That it was possible to pass through them. Anna looked at the needle, then at the man. - 'What if that's true? – Then we must hurry. Because the 'Erebus' doesn't come alone. He opens the door. And behind him something is coming. Before she had time to reply, the sound - the same deep, dragging sound - resounded again. Closer this time. The man handed her the journal. It was heavy, as if steeped in memories. – He had left clues. But only you can read them. We must go on board before he disappears. Anna nodded her head. She already knew there was no turning back that night.