This was the first serious story I wrote in a while.

Across coastal labs and research studios, scientists detect an abnormal earthquake far out to sea. Unbeknownst to them, the noise detected on the seismometers was actually a black swallower making a meal out of a drifting cruise liner, happily and noisily digesting it's catch on the ocean floor.

Enjoy!
:)

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Only mere minutes after radio contact with the cruise-ship 'Harmony Princess' was lost, seismometers on coast-guard ships and along coasts detected what appeared to deep, powerful tremors and shakes, emerging from far off the coast of the Carabian. Believing that out at sea, an underwater earthquake was occurring, labs prepared to send out Tsunami warnings to nearby coastal communities. It was only after they had done this, and after several minutes had passed, did they realize that something was off with the still receiving data.

Earthquakes never usually lasted this long. Of course it wasn't impossible, but it was still unusual. The pattern was also strange. The seismometers showed the detected tremors fluctuating, with them consistently growing quieter, before quickly becoming more persistent and larger again. Not only this, but the tremors the underwater sensors were detecting, were also becoming more powerful. None of the Tsunami recorders had detected any change in water level, meaning there was no Tsunami being produce... an Earthquake this powerful - if that what it was - should be making quite an ocean disturbance.

The scientists scratched their heads, feeling baffled, before sitting down at their computers to check the data once more, and to track where these tremors were coming from.

Far out at sea, away from any mainland, a massive shape had settled comfortably into the seafloor. The shape belonged to the Harmony Princess, though it was barely recognizable trapped inside the depths of a hungry black swallower. The fish in question lay comfortably on the bow of it's meal, residing contently with it's physically-impossibly sized stomach stretched out behind it; already grumbling and growling in anticipation of breaking down such a feast.

Only hours earlier had the Harmony Princess been broken from it's mooring by a storm, and drifted out to sea before anyone could stop it. Unable to rescue the ship with such severe weather, the workers had been forced to wait for winds and waves to die down...

Unfortunately, by the time it had, the fish had beaten them to it. After being forced up from the depths of the sea out of hunger, the ravenous fish - after spotting the ship in the distance - had swum over. At first, it had done so out of curiosity, but after it's hunger continued to grow, the fish had decided to try a taste. It was delicious. Far better than anything it had eaten down in the midnight zone, and so the ship's fate as food had been solidified. Practically launching itself at the stern of the ship, the fish had engulfed the colossal propeller, stretching it's tiny body over the hunk of steel with a GUMLP! With another mighty swallow, the black swallower had forced more of the shape into the awaiting gut.

With the propeller being first to enter the stomach, the rudder had quickly followed, and finally the stern of the ship. As the fish made powerful gulps, the ship had been gradually lifted from the water as it was forced down - stern first - on it's final voyage. Slowly but surely, the ship had sunk deeper and deeper, with the fish making more and more progress in swallowing the body of the liner. Finally, upon reaching the bow, the black swallower had hardly needed to swallow. The ship's weight pulled the rest down, stretching the stomach out so much, that it became partially transparent. With creaks, groans, and a final gulp, the ship had vanished forever. Sealed inside the belly of it's superior marine counterpart.

The swallower had then taken a moment to adjust and enjoy the feeling of being so full. Below, it had felt it's belly mildly scraping the ocean floor. With a satisfied, bubbly belch, the swallower had set off to find a deep, darker part of the ocean, where it could spend the next few weeks digesting it's colossal meal.

As time passed, the grumbles and gurgles gradually became louder. The swallower's stuffed gut produced acids slowly, but they were highly corrosive, and quickly pooled at the bottom of the stomach. By the time the day had ended, the acids had began to eat through the bottom hull of the ship, breaching the lower compartments, and only speeding up the digestive process as the inside of the ship began to be exposed to the hostile outside environment.

Over the course of day two, the water around the ship was visibly vibrating, as the gurgles disturbed the outside ocean. By this point, more acids were pooling around the ship, increasing the rate of which it was melting and dissolving. It wasn't just the acids that had increased. By this point, the stomach had accepted it's contents as food, and tightened around the ship in an attempt to break it apart. Something that was inevitably going to happen. Groaning echoed through the empty halls, restaurants, and ballrooms, as the superstructure began to slowly warp under the pressure. The gut had began to eat away at the underside of the ship, with melted parts and mineral-rich slurry filling the bottom of the stomach.

With all this work, the swallower would occasionally belch loudly and proudly, enjoying ever moment it had of dominating such a powerful machine of the seas.

On day three, the electrics failed. The gut had melted enough of the ship that the bulkhead to the engine room had finally given way, flooding the final lower compartment with corrosive juices. With the lower parts of the super structure already weakened, a shuttering boom rippled through the stomach, as the front lower section of the hull finally gave in and imploded, disturbing both the ship and the fish alike, not that it really cared. With the lower areas rapidly dissolving, the ship-shaped bulge had begun to deform. While the shape of the ship was clear and obvious, some of the masts and sharper edges had begun to round out.

By the time day four had come to close, the ship was no longer obviously recognizable. With the acids still fizzling away at the bottom and now at the sides of the ship, the structure had begun to soften and melt inward. Less stable compartments had begun to implode because of this, filling the stomach with more debris and glee, as the acids were allowed to explore new rooms and corridors inside the vessel. With all this work, the swallower spent most of it's time sleeping. Turning a marvel of the seas into scrap metal, and then nutrients was hard work, and no doubt taxing on it's energy. Nonetheless, the ship continuous to digest not as a continuous, but an exponential rate. With so much melting, the bottom of the stomach had bulged out slightly away from the ship's shape, as the sea of digested ship parts, only grew by the hour. From the outside, it gave the impression that a soft, occasionally lumpy, and very sloshy pillow was rising up around the ship, hiding the lower areas of the dissolving cruise liner from view.

On day five, the super structure finally gave way. With a shuttering roar, the middle of the ship collapsed inward on itself under the pressure of the tightening stomach, falling into the sea of churning acid. Juices poured into the new, relatively untouched areas of the ship. Furniture, plates, electrics, wood, steel, all of it was made short work of by the ravenous stomach. With the structural integrity largely compromised, the stern and bow began to experience increasing amounts of pressure, as the stomach attempted to warp the ship in on itself. One had to give eventually, and one certainly did. Creaking and groaning, the bow having felt already plenty of damage, began to rise up, bending in towards the collapsed now rapidly digesting middle section. With a final, deafening snap following by crunching and sloshing, the bow crushed inward, folding back onto the middle section. All this disturbance prompting the awoken swallower to release a mighty belch, as digestive gases and oxygen rushed out of the enclosing environment. With it, a few small pieces of half-digested debris manged to escape their fate from within the stomach, but it was far too late for the ship itself.

The fish twisted itself back slightly, and gazed at the still colossal sized mass of dissolving metal behind it, now no long recognizable with the destruction that had just occurred. Only the stern of the ship remained somewhat intact, although that wouldn't be the case for long. The ship belonged to the sea now, and there was no doubt the swallower's gut would take good care of it.

3 days later, the swallower could finally move once more. Over those days, the Harmony Princess had gradually melted down, with the stern section finally giving way and dissolving like ice-cream on a hot day. Initially, the gut had been filled with the outlines of undigested ship, scrap, and even an undigested lifeboat which had freed itself. In time, the outlines had softened and rounded out, giving the stomach a water balloon-like complexion. With the ship mostly liquefied, the mineral-rich slurry was quickly metabolized into energy, with some becoming fat across the fish's body and bloated stomach. Gradually, the belly shrank, becoming the size of a large blimp, an airplane, a truck, a small car, before settling at around the size of a large watermelon. Dislodging itself from the crater which it's previously huge gut had made, the swallower released one final belch as the last remanets of the Harmony Princess fizzled away.

It's hunger satisfied, the swallower swam off lazily towards the deeper depths of the midnight zone. It's stomach idly sloshed and wobbled slightly with every movement. The cruise liner would satiate hunger for a few weeks, but eventually it would be hungry again... and there was no doubt this wouldn't be the last time this swallower ventures to the surface for a meal...