In the main hall, warm lights bathed the faces of the passengers. The music flowed steadily, slow and elegant. Some couples twirled on the wooden floor, while others preferred to watch from their tables, glass in hand. Soft laughter, gentle conversations — that golden atmosphere found only when everything seems to be going well.
Samuel walked down one of the side corridors, leaving behind the echo of the waltz. He was thinking of heading to his cabin when he felt it.
At first, it was slight. A barely perceptible tremor in the floor, as if the ship had passed over a stronger current than usual. Samuel stopped, furrowed his brow. He looked up at a hanging lamp that swayed slightly, almost imperceptibly. Around him, no one seemed to notice.
But then came the second movement.
It wasn't violent, but it was clearer. A dull, deep sound, as if something enormous had grazed the keel. A vibration ran through the floor, longer this time, deeper. The walls creaked with a metallic whisper, and the lamp swung again, more forcefully.
"What was that?" a woman in the hall asked, pausing with her glass halfway to her lips.
"Did we hit something?" a man said, looking around unsure who to address.
Within seconds, the elegant murmur turned into a buzz of questions. Some people stood up, others looked toward the ceiling as if expecting to see something beyond the ornamental panels. The orchestra, for a moment, stopped playing. The violin hung suspended in the air, then, with a gesture from the conductor, resumed the piece… but with less vigor.
On deck, some passengers stepped out to look at the sea, though there was nothing to see. The night remained just as calm, the water's surface barely rippled by the wind. But the ship had tilted slightly, just one or two degrees. Enough for a chair to roll a few centimeters in one of the reading rooms. Enough for the most attentive to feel the floor wasn't exactly where it should be.
In the engine room, the engineers had already mobilized. The youngest, the same one who had noticed the vibration hours before, anxiously watched a series of indicators showing a drop in pressure in the cooling pipes.
"Something hit the keel," he said quietly.
"It didn't hit," corrected one of the veterans, looking over a hull blueprint. "They scraped the bottom. A rock formation, maybe. But at this depth, we shouldn't even be near that."
The chief officer appeared through the hatch, face calm but eyes serious.
"Inspection immediately. Check compartment by compartment. No one is to panic."
But panic, though still distant, had already taken root.
Back in the ballroom, Samuel returned with slow steps. The atmosphere had changed. Everyone felt it, though no one could put a name to it. It was as if the ship, until then majestic and secure, had whispered a warning. Not a scream. Not an alarm. A dull, rough, cold whisper that had risen from the steel guts up to the champagne glasses.
The waltz was unraveling in the air. The music no longer filled the space. Everyone present looked around with the same question in their eyes:
What just happened?