Jormungandr

Everyone wanted it, and Enertech Solutions was eager to offer it. Despite decades of spills and massive damage to local human and natural systems, huge spikes in birth defects in marine life, refusal to disclose their industrial chemicals to the public, documented sabotage of climate change studies and environmental groups.

An army of lobbyists and oil state politicians had won ES and its brothers continued governmental subsidies and unprecedented access to drill on public land. Surely black gold was getting more expensive by the year, and ever more frequent wars drove the price up more. But only ES had the technology and cash to get ahead of the pack, drilling ever further out and deeper into the sea floor and reaping a hefty profit.

In another ten years the seas were thick with rigs, clumped close as trees in some areas.

Massive die-off of sea life ensued, in turn reducing the food supply of a population pushing ten-billion. Floods of dead fish and black ooze wiped out low-lying towns. As the ice of the poles retreated, heated resource wars broke out for the right to poke new holes in the globe.

As sea levels rose, they built bigger, stronger drills. Fleets of drillships, armed with weaponry, that would replace conventional navies.

Soon would follow submersible drills, drill subs that could withstand the depths and burrow into the very deep trenches of the world. Walking drills to scour the sea floor for any signs of the good stuff.

Bigger rigs needed larger crews, and on the largest people lived their entire lives. Drill forests grew into drill towns, into drill cities.

Species loss in oceans over 70%, only those most hardy animals surviving. Drill cities kept farms of genetically engineered crabs and mussels. Most wild caught creatures were deformed or steadily rotting alive. These phenomenae were not confined to animals.

One morning, an Enertech rig far out in the Pacific, the first to this last patch of sea.

Another spill, was the official story. Everyone was so used to them by now. Soon pictures leaked out of the rig drenched in red.

Video came next. The drill hits something. A noise too loud to even register, just a giant blast of sound. Blood gushes up. It sprays first from the well, and crawls over the rig.

Those who touch it are reduced to quivering masses that slide off into the ocean. The blood continues to pour, catching the currents.

The following weeks contained exponentially increasing reports of attacks by unknown sea life. Long, snakey fish with human skeletons were found near the rig. Normal fish soon become healthy, then larger and more aggressive. Then little more than floating armor and teeth. Groups of them chewed down entire drill towns.

Whales beached themselves and exploded with hordes of human-sized parasites seeking new prey. The blood congealed in places, rending huge swaths of ocean uninhabitable. Barnacles were found blocking the throats and lungs of millions in seaside communities and inland.

Seismic detectors picked up activity beneath the drilling platform, still bleeding. Throbbing tremors that grew stronger by the day. Soon the quakes formed a ring that encircled the globe. Remote cameras caught hundreds of miles of sea bed twitching and undulating.

Even Enertech would soon be bankrupt. The tsunami and earthquake damage alone would run into the trillions.

But this would be only the beginning.

Credited to Glumdrop