I’m a Deep Sea Cave Diver. The Safety Line Led Somewhere Impossible | Part 2

Tammy regularly hauls stuff to her kids at college. That's why she shops at BJ's Wholesale Club, saving up to 25% off grocery store prices. Beef jerky, microwave meals, laundry pods, even they can't screw up. Have you met my kids? And with BJ's gas, she gets there for less. They call me the road warrior. This is your home, road warrior mom. Home of the Save. Join for just $20 at bjs.com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months. Open soon. Limited time offer, new members only. BJ's. Home of the Save. You're not worried about hosting for the holidays? Oh, Wayfair's got me covered with holiday decor, extra dining chairs, and guest bedding. All with tons of five-star reviews, so there's no surprises. Unless Uncle Matt brings his dogs again. For worry-free hosting, Wayfair delivers. This episode is brought to you by TXU Energy. For the first time ever, Texans have an energy plan that combines free nights all year with daytime summer savings. It's called Free Nights and Cool Summer. You get free nights every night, all year long. Plus a 25% bonus toward your daytime use all summer. It's a first-of-its-kind plan, created for how Texans actually use energy. Discover how much more you could save with Free Nights and Cool Summer. TXU Energy. Energy for everything. Visit TXU.com for more information. Rep number 10004. Part 2. Something Beneath the Island. I duck back under the water and swim. Thankful there's enough room to turn around in the tunnel. Not that I think it will help. I feel the creature splash into the water behind me, swimming for my life. I head straight down. My flashlight beam whips around from its tether, which is why I don't see the dead end until I'm right on it. There shouldn't be a dead end here, but there is. The odd-looking wall features only a small divot in the center, the edges of which are unevenly ridged. Remembering the tech knife I carry, I reach down to my belt and pull it out of its sheath. It's not meant to be used as a weapon. It's three inches long, with a dull tip to prevent accidents. Designed for cutting through lines that a diver could get tangled in, but it features a small straight blade on one side and a serrated edge on the other. I spin around in the water to see the creature a few feet away. It has stopped, its black eyes staring. Using its legs on the side of the tunnel, it eases away, as if unsure what to do. Then it turns and heads up the tunnel, leaving me at the dead end. That's twice now a creature has come after me without attacking. I don't understand it, but I'm not about to interrogate my good fortune. After a moment to gather myself, I look around with my flashlight, verifying that I don't have a way out of this tunnel. I press and prod at the walls, surprised to find that they don't feel much like rock at all. They're spongy like a yoga mat, but also tough. Thinking of Robin and Leon, I swim up the tunnel, break the water's surface and find the creature again. It's back at work on the man, now sawing his facial skin off. This time, it keeps its focus as I shine my light around. I see several tunnel mouths around the sides of the strangely smooth cave walls, some of them big enough to admit a human. The creature? The creature moves, pulling the man into a sitting position. It's hard to see what happens next, because most of the man's upper body is pulled into the creature's mouth, although the jaws don't close on him. Instead, a series of wet ripping sounds emanate, and the man bounces in place for a few long moments. When the creature eases him down again, the skin of the man's upper body has been removed, revealing raw musculature and glistening tendons. The creature scuttles backward a few feet, setting the man's skin down before closing its mouth. It starts to shake and jitter, upper limbs doing something I can't quite make out near where the two sides of its mouth come together. Soon, it all makes sense. At least as much sense as something like this can make. In a strange, vibrating dance, the creature removes the rotting squid from its upper body, revealing a hideous and pale torso the texture and color of a giant maggot, but with what appears to be a thin, translucent shell. Its head isn't really a head at all, but a jutting, bulbous stalk that houses its two black eyes. The limbs that had previously been covered by the squid's tentacles are similar to its other torso appendages, only they feature three digits like fingers covered with thin, pale shells. Once the squid facade is discarded, it works the man's skin on in a more delicate reverse version of the removal. The mouth opens several inches, and more worm-like things protrude from inside, only this time, they affix the skin to the creature's body at the appropriate areas. I've seen enough. I have to get Robin and Leon out of here. Maybe I can do it before the creature finishes. I pull myself up to sit on the edge of the hole. The creature continues donning its macabre camouflage, paying me no mind. I turn my gas off, remove my regulator, and pull my goggles down to dangle around my neck. As I reach down to remove my fins, I notice bits of pale green on my wetsuit. Using my flashlight to get a better look, I see a dozen or more spiky green spheres about the size of golf balls stuck to the neoprene, like larger versions of plant burrs. I recall seeing them just before I got stuck in the restriction. I see a dozen or more spiky green spheres about the size of golf balls stuck to the neoprene, like larger versions of plant burrs. I see a dozen or more spiky green spheres about the size of golf balls stuck to the size of golf balls. During all my panicked thrashing, I must have disturbed the plants, or whatever they are. I've never seen anything like these in all my years of diving. Well, that's not true. A memory surfaces from the day Dad disappeared. I saw the plant then, in that very same spot, because Dad pointed it out. He didn't know what it was either. Then we moved on. Shortly after that, he disappeared. Realization comes on a wave of hope. These burrs are why the creatures haven't attacked me. They must be. They're some sort of deterrent. Maybe they're poisonous to these creatures or something. While I'm considering the implications of this epiphany, I glance at the creature. It squats over the skinned man, the middle of its centipedal lower body positioned above the man's face. A spray of liquid erupts from some unseen orifice, soaking the man's fleshless face. That done, it shifts position, grabbing the man by his legs with its two human-skin-covered arms, and it drags him toward a hole in the wall. As the creature moves backward, pulling him along, the man blinks. His eyes dart around. I see the moment the pain hits. He screams, the sound reverberating off the cave walls as the creature pulls him into the hole. The man's screams fade as he grows more distant. I can only stare at the black tunnel entrance, imagining that it's my father instead of a stranger. When I can no longer hear his screams, I snap out of it. Robin and Leon are still alive. I have to get them out of here. I've tried everything I can think of, but they just stare at nothing, unblinking. This isn't surprising. If the man didn't snap out of it while being skinned alive, then some jostling or slapping doesn't stand a chance. I'm not sure how we'll get out if the tunnel I came through is still blocked, but that's a problem the three of us can solve together once I wake them up. And as far as I can tell, there's only one way to do that. I glance over my shoulder at the creature. Shortly after dragging the man away, it came back alone. It has been staring at me ever since. Dark imaginings surface in my mind of my father's flesh being ripped off. My hands tremble so badly that the technical knife I'm holding nearly slips through my fingers. I look back at Robin. She was the one who got me back into technical diving. I stopped for nearly two years after Dad disappeared, but the attraction never faded. Dad had instilled in us a passion for cave diving, mostly because of his enthusiasm for it was infectious. The challenge. The danger. The idea of going somewhere only a handful of people have ever been before. In the midst of my deep depression, Robin pulled me out by cajoling me into a diving trip. It broke the seal, bringing some semblance of joy back into my life. For three years after that, we did it whenever we had the time and money. Eventually, we quit our day jobs and opened a diving instruction business together. No, I could never live with myself if I left Robin here to die. There's no choice, none at all, which means my fear has outlived its usefulness. And, if I'm being honest, some manner of revenge for what these things did to my dad wouldn't hurt either. I set my jaw and tilt my head down, forcing my hands to stop shaking. I've taken off most of my equipment so I can move faster. Knife in one hand and flashlight in the other. I step toward the statuesque creature. Pain flares in my right knee, so bright and hot I nearly collapse. I double over and gulp lungfuls of air. What the hell? I haven't suffered any injury to the rest of my body since I was born, but I've never suffered any injury to the rest of my body. I've never suffered any injury to the rest of my body since I was born, but I've never suffered any injury to the rest of my body since I was born, but I've never suffered any injury to the rest of my body since I was born, but I've never suffered any injury to the rest of my body since I was born. Then a niggling voice in the back of my head pipes up, telling me to think about what the depth gauge said when I last checked it. It said I was at sea level. I thought it was broken, but now I know better. Although I've never experienced it before, I know the symptoms of decompression sickness, also known as the bends. During a deep dive, nitrogen builds up in the bloodstream. If you ascend too fast, the nitrogen can form bubbles in your joints. This can cause severe pain, headaches, paralysis, dizziness, neurological issues, and even death if not addressed in time. But how? How can I be at sea level now? It's physically impossible. My hands start trembling again. There's no telling how much time I have before things get really bad. I have to make this quick, or we're all dead. Gritting my teeth against the pain, I limp over to the creature. At a safe distance, I circle around, hoping to come at it from behind, but it scuttles in place, turning to face me. After taking a moment to break myself for the pain, I dart toward the creature as fast as my legs allow. It scurries back, keeping several feet between us. I look down at the burrs on my suit. Letting my flashlight dangle from its strap, I rip one of the spiky balls off and toss it toward Leon and my sister. I've already attached a few to each of them as part of my plan, keeping some for myself, but it looks like I'll need to take this chance if I want to get us out of here. Soon, I only have one burr left on me. Watching the creature, I remove it and toss it away. I'm not sure if I can get it out of my suit, but I'm not sure if I can get it out of my suit. - Yeah. darts toward me. I take two quick steps forward and then throw myself into a slide like a runner stealing third. The pain in my knee flares, but I ignore it, jamming my dull tech knife into the creature's undersides as I travel under it. The sharp blade scrapes harmlessly along its shell until it sinks into a fleshy area about the size of a dinner plate. The creature shrieks as cool liquid pours from the wound, drenching my hand. As it scurries away, I get to my knees, expecting it to turn around and come after me. Instead, it flees down a tunnel, shrieking as it goes. Surprised at how well it worked, I quickly sheath the knife and scoop as much of the liquid as I can into my cupped hands. Luckily, the cave floor is covered in little divots, a few of which have collected much of the cloudy, foul-smelling liquid. I run over to Robin and dump the stuff on her face. Without waiting to see if it works, I fetch more liquid and toss it on Leon's face. Robin blinks. Hope battles against my constantly increasing pain, I smile. Soon, Leon blinks as well. While I wait for them to come fully around, I grab the burrs I threw and attach them to my wetsuit again. By the time I'm done, Robin and Leon are sitting up. Those creatures, Robin says groggily. They came out of nowhere. I thought I saw Dad. Where's Dale? Leon asks. Dead. They killed him. Do you guys think you can walk? Jesus, why is my skin so itchy? Robin asks. My legs are killing me. The bends. Somehow, we decompressed too quickly. I don't know how. Can you walk? Leon winces as he gets to his feet. Where are we? I have no idea, but if we don't find a way out soon, we're dead, either from the bends or the creatures. The Mexican Navy belt that brought us. They have a decompression chamber. I nod. Yeah, we just gotta get to it. Robin reaches for one of the burrs stuck to her wetsuit. The hell is this? Leave them. They keep the creatures away. Did I see Dad? I swear I did. But he looked. dead. He is dead. And if we don't move, we will be too. Let's go. Home of the Save. Join for just $20 at BJ's dot com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months. Open soon. Limited time offer. New members only. BJ's. Home of the Save. Kelly Clarkson here with Wayfair. I know holiday magic starts at home and Wayfair makes it easy. They have everything from Christmas trees and mantle decor to outdoor lighting and inflatables that I'll use year after year. Head to Wayfair dot com today. Wayfair. Every style, every home. You get free nights every night all year long, plus a 25% bonus toward your daytime use all summer. It's a first of its kind plan created for how Texans actually use energy. TXU Energy. Rep number one zero zero zero four. We hear the first of the awful sounds when we've gone what must be a hundred yards. There's no mistaking them. They're human sounds. A whole chorus of whimpers, wails, screams, shouts, and pleads. They must be coming from the other divers, Robin whispers. There's too many, Leon says. That must be 10, 11 people. How's that possible? Wouldn't we have heard about that many people going missing in the system recently? I can't answer. All I can do is shine my flashlight down the tunnel at what looks like an opening into another cavern. Since this tunnel is the one the creatures went down, I wanted to avoid it if possible. But working together, the three of us quickly determined that this is the only way to go. Robin found a cavern with an odd-looking pillar in the middle, but it was a dead end. Leon only found a massive vertical drop at the end of a short tunnel. His light couldn't reach the floor, another dead end. So here we are. We're wearing all our gear but our fins, which we've left behind. The heavy equipment slows us down and makes our joint pain worse. We're all breathing heavily and groaning as we walk. We come to the end of the tunnel. The sounds are louder here. My heart feels like it's beating in my stomach. Crowded near the edge, on this side of where the floor slopes gently down, we shine our flashlight beams around. The cavern is massive. At first, I see nothing but the walls, which differ from what we've encountered so far. They're a dull pink in color, they glisten, and they appear to be textured with thousands of equally spaced holes, each about the size of a half dollar. "Oh my god," Robin says. I shift my gaze, following her flashlight beam, which illuminates something on the cavern floor, twenty yards from where we stand. What it is doesn't register until the eyes flutter open and the mouth gapes to release a pained moan. It's a person. The state of their body makes it impossible to tell their gender. Not only has their skin been removed from their entire upper body, but dozens of pink-white tendrils sprouting from the holes in the cave floor obscure the bulk of their legs and genitals. Those tendrils are latched on everywhere but the person's head. Horror-struck, my flashlight jitters in my shaking hand. The beam lands on another person, similarly secured to the floor. It's a woman. I can tell because she has all her skin and, despite the tendrils attached to her, she still looks relatively healthy. She must be one of the missing divers. As our beams travel the space, they pick out more and more people, including the man I saw dragged from the chamber. Most of them look like zombies or mummies, their periodic wailing and groaning are the only things convincing me they're alive at all. There are also animals. Sharks, dolphins, squid, and octopus. They writhe and twitch as much as the tendrils allow. "It's the stomach," Leon says quietly. Robin and I turn. "Think about it. These walls aren't rock, they're biological. What you said about the entrance closing after you swam through it? That must be the mouth, or something similar. The creatures that attacked us have a symbiotic relationship with whatever we're inside right now, kind of like the gut bacteria in humans," Robin gapes. "So these people are being… digested?" "Looks that way to me. Some of them have been here for a very long time. Maybe there's something in those… eel things coming out of the floor. Something pumped into the body to keep the person alive as long as possible so this 'organism' can continue to feed on them." I've been wondering why the creature woke the man up before dragging him in here. Maybe the paralytic stuff kills you eventually, which is clearly not what they wanted. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what they want. Some of these people appear to have been here for years. I have to quell an urge to run out in search for my father. If I found him and he was still alive… better not to know something like that. "That pillar I saw," Robin says. "It must be some kind of organ. It was the same color as this floor, but it had slits in the sides, and it seemed to vibrate." "It would explain our decompression, too," Leon replies. "If we're inside a sealed portion of the body, then pressure would normalize." I think about coming into the cavern after seeing Dale die. About how I looked down, and when I looked back up, my flashlight reflected off the underside of the water. I would have noticed it before, unless the tunnel closed at one end and opened at the other. It would be the only way to keep water from rushing in if we are still deep in the ocean. The implications want to drown me in fear. I shake my head. "We need to find a way out. Any ideas?" Leon shines his light straight across the cave, where the darkness swallows it. "Keep going? What about those things?" Robin asks. "What if they come out of the floor and latch onto us?" "That's probably why they strip all the people," I say. "None of them are wearing clothes. Hopefully, our booties will help." I ease my foot out over the low lip and tap it onto the holy floor. Half a dozen tendrils emerge. As they flash toward my neoprene-covered foot, I glimpse their heads, if they can be called that. Like a lamprey, each has a circular mouth full of small, hooked teeth. A stalk with twin barbs, like a snake's tongue, undulates with anticipation in the center of each mouth. I can't help but jerk my foot back as they batter at it. Robin clutches my arm tightly. After making sure they haven't cut through the neoprene, I ease my foot back down. The things poke and prod at it for a few moments before losing interest and retreating into their holes. Looking at my companions, I take a deep breath. "Let's go!" All three of us step out of the tunnel. The tendrils come up, inspecting our feet before retreating. We take another, less hesitant step. "Maybe we can come back for the other divers?" Robin asks. If they have the bends like we do, cutting them loose from those things might kill them. They might be the only things keeping them alive. Robin looks at me. "Death is probably preferable." I can't argue with that. We move faster, and then we freeze. The floor vibrates under our feet. A sound accompanies the motion. Not loud at least, not yet, but… vast. It's coming from straight ahead. We aim our flashlights into the dark recesses of the cave. Only this time, the blackness doesn't swallow them. This time, the beams pick forms out of the darkness. Dozens of the skin-wearing creatures, rushing toward us. Each creature holds something in its two hand-like appendages. As they get closer, I can identify some of the objects. Bones, rocks, sharp pieces of dead coral. "What do we do?" Leon shouts. "Will these green things protect us?" His answer comes a moment later as the lead creatures whip their arms forward. Objects sail through the air toward us. I duck a human skull, but a rock smashes into my chest. Gasping in pain, I fall into my ass. Another projectile strikes me, this time hitting a burr, which falls to the floor between my legs. A handful Full of tendrils, shoot out to inspect it. As soon as they touch the burr, they jerk away from it as though in pain. Leon and Robin help me to my feet. As one, we run back toward the tunnel, each of us having lost some green burrs, because that's what they're aiming for. The creatures pursue as we run on swollen joints through the tunnel. What do we do? Leon shouts. Robin, take us to the pillar! I have an idea! Sheathing my knife, I gather four remaining burrs from my suit and hold them tightly as we run. The creatures gain on us, pelting us with their weapons. By the time we reach the cave with the pillar in it, my legs are in sheer agony. What are we doing? Robin asks as I lead the way to the pale pink pillar, which does look like some sort of organ. It stretches from a wide, curved base on the floor all the way to a similar base on the ceiling. The narrowest part is right in the middle, where it's about three feet in diameter. This is where the fleshy slit is. It vibrates and pulses with incomprehensible purpose. I scramble up the curved base, creatures pouring into the cave behind us. Stretching my arm up, I jam the burr. The burr is inside the slit, feeling cold slime and slick flesh on my hand. When I have them in as far as I can reach, I let go and pull my arm back out, sliding down to the floor. The creatures have surrounded us. Leon takes a rock to the forehead, opening a gash there. He falls to the floor and curls into a ball. Robin cries out in pain as a bone hits her in the ribs. Realizing my desperate plan didn't work, I take my cue from Leon, curling into a ball and waiting for death. But then something happens. The pillar vibrates violently. The floor shakes. An immense roaring erupts from all around, growing louder with each passing second. Masks and goggles! I cry, hoping they can hear me over the tumult. The creatures discard their weapons and scurry out of the cave. The roaring noise is deafening, the cave jittering so badly, I can't stay in one spot as I pull my gear on and let the gas flow. Then the roaring turns to rushing. I glance over to see that both Leon and Robin have donned their gear. What I thought were minor divots all around the cave now open, allowing thousands of gallons of water to crash into the space. Powerful flows jostle me, nearly knocking my regulator out. Pain scythes through my body and head as I'm slammed around. And then I'm completely engulfed, but I haven't stopped moving. I tumble through the water, shoved by powerful currents. My flashlight beam occasionally picks out a stretch of wall rushing past. I don't know how long this continues, but when it finally stops, the world keeps spinning for what feels like minutes. When the dizziness finally fades, I realize there's sunlight coming from somewhere, getting myself turned toward what I think is death, but when I look down, I realize I'm mistaken. I'm facing up, toward the sun-dappled ocean surface some 200 feet overhead. My first instinct is to swim up, but I fight it, peering around for Robin and Leon. As the bubbles clear and the debris settles, I see them. They swim toward me. We all head for the surface together. The decompression chamber is plenty large enough to fit all three of us. It's affixed to the deck of the Mexican Navy boat we debarked from. We've been inside the chamber for only about 10 minutes when commotion on the boat draws our attention toward one of the wide windows. Peering out, I see the uninhabited island lurch up from the ocean. Chunks of it tumble down as it lifts into the sky, pushing from underneath by something massive. Cascading water and falling debris obscure the details of the thing that rises from the depths. But its vastness and irregularity make my eyes want to unfocus. "It was hibernating," Leon says in an emotionless tone as he stares at the thing. "We woke it up." It's rising and rising, stone and sand-shrouded body parts unfurling, sending more debris crashing into the ocean. The first of the waves reach us, jostling the boat as it moves away. Still, I can't help but keep my eyes on the thing even as our angle changes. It continues to rise and unfurl until it blots out the sun, throwing us into shadow. It reaches toward us with one long appendage. Although the window doesn't allow me to see straight up, I don't have to. I know what's coming. I turn and embrace my sister and then pull Leon into the hug. One last time, we put our heads together. "Happiness," I say, and I bring a memory to mind. The first time Rob and Dad and I went scuba diving together. I hold it there, remembering the joy and excitement I felt. And the love. A moment later, the appendage smashes into the boat. Want more? Subscribe and turn on all notifications so you never miss any of our weekly uploads. See you next time. Home of the save. Join for just $20 at BJs.com/Mosquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months. Open soon. BJs. Home of the Save.