Jack stood for another moment, staring unblinkingly into the deep blue ocean around him, before taking a seat on Lifepod 22's roof. He pulled his knees closer to him, resting his arms and head on them. For a while, all he did was sit there, his short brown hair gently blowing in the wind. His breathing was unsteady as he took multiple shuddering breaths, trying in vain to calm himself.

"...PDA... is it a bad time to mention I'm afraid of the ocean?" he managed to say. He waited quietly for a moment, lifting his head slightly.

"Yes. Thalassophobia will prevent your survival in the long term. 4546B is covered in over 99% water, and it can be assumed that the majority of resources crucial to your survival are found beneath the surface."

"...Thanks... that was very reassuring." He sighed, putting his back down. The man went quiet again. For about a minute, he sat there, feeling the soft salty breeze and the warm sun above. It was almost peaceful, in a sense, were it not for the void of nothing but water beneath him and God knows what lurking within—

"It is recommended to take action soon. Delays will decrease your already slim chances of survival." Jack again raised his head, this time glaring at the device from where it sat on his hip.

"You're not helping."

"Ignoring important survival tasks is not helping your survival." Jack groaned, standing up and stretching his arms out as he gestured to his surroundings, as futile as it was doing so to an AI with no eyes.

"Then what should I do? I could try swimming 2 kilometers, or I can try to construct something with the resources I don't have." He scoffed, crossing his arms. "There's nothing I can do here."

"It is not recommended to attempt swimming. However, your assumption 'There's nothing you can do here' is incorrect. Attempting to send out a distress signal is an important step towards rescue. From there, it will be a matter of improvising a solution."

"Great. The AI designed to keep me alive is telling me to wing it." The PDA shared no response, so the man sighed. "Guess I'll send out a distress signal." Bending down, he pulled open the roof hatch. Feet first, he descended through the hatch and onto the ladder. From there, he moved over to the radio. Finding the correct button, he pushed it.

"Recording Message," the radio voice said. Jack took a deep breath, thinking of what he would say, before speaking.

"This is Lifepod 22. It's just me, Jack Fitzgerald, Assistant Electrical Engineer, aboard. Currently, I'm 2 kilometers out from the rendezvous point, stranded with no resources and only a few days' worth of food and water. While rescue would be nice, my PDA has detected several Leviathan-class lifeforms near my pod, so if you try, please come prepared. In the meantime, I'll be trying to figure out a way to get out of here. Jack out.

"Oh, and please, someone try and stay alive. I don't want to go mad out here alone."

"Message recorded. Send out signal?" the device asked.

"Yes." Jack affirmed, the radio letting out a small glow in response. He stood for a moment, lost in thought, before sitting down in the lifepod's chair. He sat, pondering, before speaking again. "PDA, do you have any ideas?"

"Improvise." Jack sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Anything else?"

"No other solutions present themselves at this moment."

"...Great." Jack facepalmed.

30 minutes later...

Jack breathed heavily as he held onto the ladder. For the last 20 minutes, he had hung off the side of the pod, scooping water with his hands in an attempt to paddle the lifepod toward the rendezvous point, but now, he was taking a breather, resting his sore arm.

"Congratulations. You have made a total distance of 8 meters. Note: Currents may affect progress in varying degrees."

Jack groaned, climbing back up the ladder toward the top of the pod. Halfway up, however, one of the rungs snapped loose, nearly causing the man to topple back into the sea if he hadn't grabbed another. "Son of a..." As he looked at the separated bar he held in his hand, a thought came to his mind. "PDA? What's this rung made of?"

"It is comprised of 80% titanium and 20% iron. Note: It is not recommended to remove all the rungs from your lifepod."

"I've got an idea." Jack smiled, climbing to the top and back into the pod.

1 hour later...

"This was genius." Jack had a broad smile on his face as he looked at his creations. A survival knife, made from ladder rungs and torn rubber from the seats, was now held in his hand. Inspecting it yielded no visible imperfections despite being constructed from scrap. Attaching it to his waist, he moved on to the two other things. The first was a simple prybar. Created from the first rung that had broken off, this tool had helped him get the rest of the rungs off one side of the pod. It was crudely made, as there was no preinstalled blueprint, and the one who had made it had about half a year of coding and design under his belt.

Moving on to the second item, it was the one he was more proud of. A large paddle, created from the majority of the rungs, sat fresh off the fabricator. While this design was just as rough as the prybar, the tool itself was simple enough not to warrant any huge defects. However, he had added a small mechanism that would certainly come in handy. Jack grinned widely as he removed the item from his fabricator, holding it with two hands as he inspected it, before placing it on his back where it attached to the hooks waiting for it. The man took a moment to place the prybar on his hip as well, before stepping back to look up at the hatch. "Well, PDA. It turns out you were right," he said, placing his hands on his hips.

"This unit is right 99.95% of the time, with a 0.05% margin of error. Note: Your creations are not licensed by the Alterra corporation and cannot be used as evidence in any legal action taken against Alterra."

Jack raised an eyebrow as he looked down at his PDA, before shaking his head. "With this paddle, I will get to the rendezvous point, meet up with any survivors, and start looking for a way off this planet." Grabbing onto the ladder, he hoisted himself through the hatch and onto the roof.

Standing, he saw how far the planet's sun had progressed across the sky, already past noon. "Guess the days are quicker here. PDA?"

"Planetary data supports your hypothesis. Days on this planet are estimated to be 15-16 hours long."

"Cool, thanks." Continuing his task, he removed the paddle from his back and took a seat on the front edge of the pod, just above the number 22. Inspecting the shaft of his tool, he turned it until a small metal pin embedded in the handle faced him. Pushing the pin in, he pulled on the end of the shaft, lengthening it to be about 3 meters long. Then, he spun the paddle end toward the water and dipped it in.

Making sure his grip was true, he began rowing the pod, occasionally switching sides to keep the direction straight. Already, he could see the distance between him and the rendezvous point shrinking ever so slightly, meter by meter.

"Well... this is tedious... but hopefully... I'll be there soon..." he said, pausing between each string of words to take a breath as he kept rowing, hopeful he was traveling toward fellow survivors and safer waters.

Elsewhere...

"I don't like this. I don't like this. I don't like this!" the large creature said repeatedly as she rapidly swam toward the surface. Shortly after appearing and waking up in her old body, she'd decided to take a swim around, remember what it was like to not be human, and explore for a bit.

And for a while, it'd been nice. Well, except for the whole no-bottom-in-sight ocean she was in. Seriously, she was used to lakes and maybe the occasional sea, but she mainly stayed near the coast. As to why she stayed next to the coast, it was mainly because of her fear of deep water, but also so she could use her magic on sailors and others that approached. Speaking of her magic...

It seemed there, more so than after she'd been defeated by the Rainbooms, but yet not as much as when she was previously in her true form. For one, she couldn't fly at all; she'd tried earlier to leave the water and it didn't work. And two, she couldn't use her singing abilities at all. Every time she'd tried so far, either the creature swam away or it got seriously angry. Which was how she'd ended up in her current situation.

The creature she'd seen... it glowed eerie blue while its body was transparent. It was ginormous, easily triple her length. While it seemed to keep its distance at first, it got angrier when she'd approached. And when she'd tried to sing to dissuade it, it got even more mad. And that's how she'd ended up here.

Chancing a look behind her, she noticed how it had slowed and stopped pursuing into shallower waters, instead opting to keep its distance, occasionally facing toward her. She allowed herself to slow, only coming to a full stop when she was just a couple feet from the surface. While she couldn't fly away, it was much more comforting than being all the way down there.

The creature circled a few more times before it finally swam back down and disappeared into the depths below. She let out a breath, making sure to keep her gaze on the abyss below for another minute before finally being confident enough to look elsewhere. It appeared she was still in open ocean, and there wasn't anything resembling land or even underwater land for miles.

"Okay, Sonata, think. What would your sisters tell you to do?" She closed her eyes and rubbed her head for a moment with her hooves, deep in thought, before she again opened them and clapped her hooves together. "I know! They'd tell me to go to the surface to look. Good thinking, me!" Swimming the short distance to the surface, she slowly poked her head out of the water, instantly being met with the warm air and sun above.

"It's pretty warm out... It was nearing fall last I checked when I was still human..." She began to scan her surroundings, twisting her flexible neck and body to view every direction like a lighthouse. At first, there was nothing but more ocean, and ocean, and even more ocean, until...

"...nope, still more ocean—wait!" She spotted something. A small dot of gray and luminescent blue on the horizon. And it appeared to be moving, albeit very slowly. "Must be some kind of weird ship... maybe they can give me some directions!" Her stomach rumbled after a moment, and a small blush appeared on her face. "And maybe some food as well." She finished.

Turning her body to face the strange ship, she again dunked her head underneath the water and began to swim. "Land and hopefully food here I come!" she cheered.

Back to Jack, 2 hours after starting to paddle...

Jack was gassed. The paddle, due to its long length, made it very difficult to retain his already low stamina as he continued to pull it through the water. His arms now ached considerably, and he could feel a small bit of hunger within him. A long while had passed, and in that time he'd made some distance...

...of a little over 400 meters, now putting him about 1.5 kilometers from the rendezvous point. Jack let out a small sigh. "Christ... It's going to take a while to get there... and I don't know if my arms will make it..." He pulled the paddle out of the water, pushing on the second metal pin to fold it down. He decided it was time to take a break, maybe grab some food and water, and continue later.

Setting the paddle beside him, he laid back, resting his head on the pod's top hatch. He stared at the sky, which was beginning to adopt an orange tint as the sun drifted closer to the horizon. Besides the ever-present slight breeze, there wasn't much in the way of surroundings, except for those clouds—

Sitting up, the man looked toward the clouds, off on the horizon to his southwest, noting their slightly dark appearance. "Probably a storm then... not good." He quickly grabbed the paddle, getting ready to re-extend it. "I need to hurry. Don't want to—"

His thoughts were interrupted as a shadow, a large shadow passed beneath his pod, followed by something bumping it, jostling the lifepod and nearly making Jack slip from where he was seated. Hastily, he stood to his feet, his eyes wide as he scanned the water for whatever passed him. "PDA? What the hell was that?" he breathed out.

"Scanning..." Everything seemed quiet as Jack waited. "A single leviathan-class lifeform is in your immediate area. Please seek shelter in your lifepod's interior until further notice." Jack's eyes shot open even wider than before. Quickly, he turned around, reaching down to open the hatch...

...if it weren't for the pod being bumped again, this time causing the panicked man to lose balance and topple over, plunging into the deep waters below...

Author's Note

In my sorta headcannon, I believe ghost leviathans feed predominantly on micro organisms and maybe the occasional larger creature, so in turn, it would not directly hunt larger prey, and instead defend itself and it's territory.