Chapter 1

As the top deep-sea rescue diver in the country, I received an urgent call for help.

The missing person was a ten-year-old, last seen in Gale Creek Bay.

Ten years ago, my sister, Sophia, accidentally fell into the same waters.

My then-girlfriend, Olivia, who was the diving team captain, promised me herself, "With me there, I'll definitely bring Sophia back safely."

But what she brought back was only Sophia's bloated body.

Later, I learned that during the dive, she had actually caught Sophia's hand but, wanting to give the credit to her partner, Marcus, she deliberately unclipped the safety line attached to Sophia.

After surfacing, Olivia cried, claiming she had done her best. Marcus, too, became a "rescue hero" through fabricated stories.

From that day on, I dropped out of college and trained to get my rescue diver license.

Over ten years, I'd done more than two hundred underwater rescues. One hundred ninety-three lives made it back to shore, alive, because of me.

I'd simulated the underwater conditions thousands of times, hoping that one day, no one else would suffer Sophia's fate.

But today, the command center sent a photo of the missing child to my phone.

I stared at the screen for a long time.

The child’s mother stood on the shore, her face contorted in tears as she cried into the camera. I recognized her.

I flipped my phone face down on the table. “I can’t do this rescue. I’m not going down.”