Tom Maglaqui

Hey!

I’m excited to announce one of my short stories will be published through Twisted Dreams Press sometime next year! Keep checking back for updates and find a brief sample of the story below:

This was in the early 2000s. A group of marine biologists, myself included, were in the [1] Philippine Sea to study the effects of global warming on local marine wildlife. This was exciting to me for two reasons. One is that I was born in the Philippines and never had the opportunity to return until then. And two, that the expedition was headed by Dr. Ryan Anderson (changed for anonymity), a pioneer in microbe studies, and one of my heroes at the time.

I don’t think I can describe the joy I felt when my director at the University told me Dr. Anderson had chosen me and one of my colleagues, Dr. Abigail Washington, or Abby as she was known around the lab, to join his expedition. The weeks until the expedition felt like years, but the day finally came when we boarded a plane to Manila before taking a bus to a small village on the island of Luzon called Magway.

The sky was clear and the air warm the morning we left the dock in our small expedition boat. Birds flew high above as the boat sliced through waves. It took about an hour to reach the coordinates, where there was no sight of land in any direction, just a deep turquoise ocean. There was a strange silence that hung in the air with the only noise the slight beating of waves against the bottom of the boat.

Our full crew consisted of me, Abby, Dr. Anderson, and additional researchers Sonny Yoon, Lucas Dahl, and Dina Pham. We arrived at the coordinates and began donning our wetsuits.

“You don’t want to take off your jewelry?” Lucas asked in his thick Norwegian accent.

He was referring to the small necklace I’d picked up in Magway. It was made with a thin piece of twine and had a copper coin at the end with what looked like a poor excuse for a cow carved into it. When looking at it, the small older Filipino woman who I’d assumed owned the place told me she made it herself. I talked about our expedition and she insisted I take it. I didn’t really want it, but the woman seemed desperate for the sale. I’d honestly forgotten I was wearing it.

“No, it’s fine,” I said, thinking I might accidentally leave it on the boat if I took it off. I was notorious for forgetting where I put things.

We finished putting on our gear and jumped into the water. It was so clear I could see several yards in any direction, making it easy to spot the myriad of fish species swimming around.

We collected our samples and spent some time swimming along the sides of the boat and chatting. After a few hours, we took the samples we collected and started back to shore.

It was only one to two miles from where we were when the sonar picked up something. We all checked the screen and then looked at one another. Whatever this was was big, at least the size of a tall building….