The Alteration

In 1930, the research vessel Meridian leaves Cape Town for the southern waters of the Indian Ocean. Its mission is simple: chart an almost unknown section of the ocean floor, collect deep-sea samples, and turn a blank space on the map into numbers, profiles, and scientific certainty. Then the crew brings something up from the depths. The bones are too close to human to be dismissed as animal, and too wrong to be called human. Soon after, the sea changes. A storm destroys the Meridian, and junior naturalist Alexei Korvin wakes alone on an unnamed island that does not appear on any chart. There are no survivors. No wreckage worth speaking of. Only black stone, deep burrows, ancient obelisks, and markings that seem to describe what happened to the ship long before it ever sailed. As Korvin struggles to survive, he begins to understand that the island is connected to whatever the expedition disturbed below. But the worst discovery is not carved in stone or buried in the caves. It is happening inside his own body.