Board Thread:Short Stories/@comment-26108027-20181004153536/@comment-25870342-20181004165447

You've heard of them too?

God, I thought I was going insane.

I'm currently contracted to a salvage company. We're reputable, often to the point that the government contracts us to do work. Now, to clarify things, we're hardhat divers. Which means we wear helmets, instead of just a mask, or, SCUBA, to be more practical. Connected to our suits is a large cord. Because we wear helmets, our air is surface supplied with an umbilical. Conneted to that umbilical is also electricity, for lights, comms which is a radio, and essentially a depth gauge, to be simple. We have a small tank on our backs, but, that's only for emergencies. Not much, but enough to get us topside if anything goes wrong. I have many stories, but, the Keepers of the Deep..that's something not discussed. I'll explain later.

Our group was contracted by the Military to do a salvage operation. They had lost contact with a plane, and wanted to retrieve it, and the black box. If you don't know, the black box contains all the flight information, recorded sounds, etc. Basically a big hard drive for the plane. I was one of two divers placed on bottom. It didn't take long to find the plane.

I called up to topside and told them we found the plane.

"Well, what shape is it in?"

What's strange is that..it was intact. Just resting on the sea bed. I called back up to topside, and told them that it was intact.

"How extensive is the damage?"

Now, when I say intact, I meant fully intact. There was no visible damage. There was no scratches, no deformation, nothing. It's like they took this plane right off of the assembly line and placed it as gently as could be right on the bottom. When we looked closer, we realized, the cockpit was still sealed. This means the pilot..did not eject. But..there was no sign of the pilot. We told the military what we found and they took custody of the plane and..that was it. No questions were asked. You learn not to ask questions in this field.

Now, here's another story. We were on our way to a salvage op on a wreck, when our prop got fouled in something. I was placed in the water to check it out. It didn't take long to figure out what the problem was. I radioed up to topside, explaining that there was thick, black cables wrapped around the prop and shaft. They lowered down a canvas bag full of tools for me to free our prop. I hung the bag on the rudder and began cutting away the cable, and in short time, the cable was all cut away. I went to place the tools back in the bag, when I heard a light crunch. I looked into the bag, and saw it was full of shells, some of which, I had just crushed. I closed the bag and went back up. After I de-geared myself, I inspected the shells. Upon further inspection, I realized something. These were not shells. These were bones. Carved into them were..hieroglyphics. Waves, flames and bodies. I asked the vetrans, but they just shrugged and said "It's normal."

I didn't ask further.

An easy way to keep track of a diver from topside is to watch the bubble trails. When a diver inhales, the regulator pulls air from wherever the air source is. When you exhale, the regulator vents the bubbles out of the helmet, and they float up to the surface. When you're on topside you can watch the bubble streams to get a general idea of the divers location. On this particular dive, we had two divers on bottom, and I was on topside. I noticed what looked like a third bubble stream. I thought that perhaps there was a current, but after a while, I noticed there was a fourth more distinct bubble stream moving towards the other strange one. We asked the divers but they didn't see anything. Suddenly, we heard a blood curdling screech come from the depths. Out in the distance, the water looked like it was boiling, but then we realized it was multiple bubble streams, rapidly closing in on our divers. We began to pull the divers up. During one of their decompression stops, they reported they had begun seeing shadow figures in the distance. Our supervisor opted to pull them all the way up and throw them into the barometic chamber to decompress the gasses in their blood. We declined to continue with the contract.

Now, before the last story I tell you, let me explain the Keepers of the Deep.

We're not meant to roam the depths of the ocean. 92% of the ocean is unexplored. The legend goes that whenever a diver loses his life under the waves, it doesn't stay that way. They're cursed to forever roam the depths, haunting the place that they're not supposed to be in. Whenever they encounter the living, in a fit of blind, envious rage, they drag them back to the depths from whence they came. I've had multiple expierences with them.

One such story was on a salvage op on a sunken ship in the Virgin Islands. It was one of my first dives, so I went with a veteran. I watched him look inside a hole on the port side of the ship, before swimming a few feet into the the vessel. I asked him if he wanted me to tend to his umbilical, as it's not safe to risk fouling up the cord on the wreckage. The reply sent chills to my bones.

"No. I'm looking at the starboard anchor."

I reached out to grab the diver that was inside the ship. It was reluctant to turn, but when it finally did, I couldn't talk. The faceplate was dark. Fogged, even. I looked closer and then began screaming. Rotting, putrid flesh behind the faceplate. Whoever was in this suit had been dead for a long time. That's when I noticed the telltale sign of no bubbles. I backed up and called to topside and reported that something is down here. Something that shouldn't. The reply came back.

"Both divers report to the dive platform and get squared away to return to surface."

The phantom diver turned away and went back into the ship. As I watched from the platform, it carried a body out of the wreckage and began to walk away. When we reached surface, I asked the supervisor and all he said was: "I refuse to put my divers in exceptionally dangerous situations."

I have more, but, this is all I'm willing to share right now. After years of doing this, I've seen things that shouldn't even exist. All I can say is, we're not meant to be down there.