I’m a Deep Sea Cave Diver. The Safety Line Led Somewhere Impossible | Part 1

In today's story, a deep sea cave diver swore he'd never returned to the underwater system off the coast of Mexico, where his father vanished eight years ago. The last thing he saw was a cloud of silt and his father's light going dark. The body was never recovered. Then four divers go missing inside that same system, and the Mexican Navy calls in his team, forcing him back into the one place he swore to never return. But before we get into it, if you enjoy scary stories like this, be sure to like and subscribe so you never miss any of our weekly uploads. Now, let's get into today's story. Part 1. The cave that took my father. We'd long since left any residual daylight behind, our flashlights providing the only illumination in the underwater labyrinth. As always, when it was our first time in a cave system, Dad took the lead. He swam toward a narrow portion of the tunnel. His neoprene shrouded form made bulky by the two tanks of trimics and various other pieces of essential equipment. Dad slowed as he negotiated the squeeze, adjusting so his equipment wouldn't snag on the stalactites jutting from the ceiling. I waited, carefully treading water so as not to disturb the silt along the cave floor. When Dad was through the upward slanting squeeze, I saw the tunnel took a sharp downward turn beyond a jutting ridge. The yellow guideline we'd been following disappeared over the crest. Dad glanced back at me and then navigated over the jutting rock. I started toward the squeeze. A moment later, I lost him from view as he descended, giving me plenty of room to make it through. As I eased my way into the gap, a cloud of silt shot up from the other side of the ridge, as if Dad were violently thrashing. The glow from his flashlight backlit the sand-colored cloud as the current brought it toward me. A heartbeat later, his light went out. I expected it to return. We each had three flashlights on us, but it didn't. The other side of the ridge remained dark. Panic had me gulping trimics through my regulator. Knowing something was wrong, I jammed myself through the gap, but I got stuck. The silt cloud reflected the beam as I aimed my flashlight ahead. A moment later, it engulfed me, obscuring my vision in all directions. My breathing grew frantic, and the knowledge that I was now burning through my trimics faster than normal, only increased my panic, creating a feedback loop made worse by my immobility. The walls closed in like a giant fist. Kicking my fins and scrabbling with my arms, I stared ahead, even though I could see nothing but silt. Hope scratched at the back of my mind. Hope that Dad would come back through the silt to help me. Hope that this was a false alarm that I was freaking out for nothing, but hope dwindled along with my trimics. He never came back. I've started every dive the same way since I was 19 years old, and this time is no different. As soon as the boat stops a few hundred yards off the coast of a small, tree-choked island, I jump over the side and into the water with my wetsuit on, but no equipment. Trading water, I close my eyes, take deep breaths, and try to get my mind right. "What the hell is he doing?" a man on the boat says. "We don't have time for this!" His name is Calderon, and he's a member of the Mexican Navy, the organization that is asked for our help. "This part is just as important as checking all the equipment," my sister Robin says. "Getting your mind right isn't something you skip, unless you want more dead people in the cave." "We don't know they're dead," Calderon says. "You're right, but with this cave system's reputation, I wouldn't hold your breath." Despite how many times I've revisited this cave in my head, I haven't actually been inside it since I was 19. So many people have either died or disappeared in this cave system that the Mexican government has stopped allowing people to enter. The four divers who have illegally entered the Sistema de los Muertos are several hours past their return time, which means they're out of breathing gas. For most cave systems, especially those with mouths, 315 feet deep in the ocean, this would be a mission to recover their bodies. But this system is different. After navigating a treacherous series of caves and tunnels, there is reportedly a steep percent that ends in a dry chamber. The journey is so dangerous and takes so long that only a handful of people have ever made it to the chamber where porous rocks allow some amount of oxygen in. We don't know whether any of the divers are still alive. All of them might have made it to the chamber without enough gas to get them back, and there's no other way out. Then there are the stories. Divers who've reported seeing people with no gear in the cave system. Not just dead bodies either. Several people mentioned being beckoned down dark tunnels by these people. Others insist they were chased by giant sea creatures. It's all ridiculous. Either outright lies, hallucinations caused by high pressure nervous syndrome, or overactive imaginations. Regardless, we still have a job to do. On the off chance that any of the divers have survived, my team is bringing extra trimics tanks, which will slow us down. Especially since we'll already be carrying two tanks each for our personal use. During the boat ride over, under the bright summer sun, my team and I checked and rechecked our equipment. Now, as the chatter from the boat dies down, I know Robin and the other two members of my team, Dale and Leon, are doing their own pre-dive rituals. Focusing on my own, I step back in time. Back to the last time I saw my father alive. After becoming snagged in the squeeze, I somehow managed to get free. I moved over the ridge and searched for my father. By the time the silt settled, I had barely enough trimics to get back to the surface. I had been diving with my father since I was 15. By the time we ventured into Sistema de los Muertos, I'd been on dozens of highly technical dives. And dad, as safety obsessed as he'd been, always made me promise that I wouldn't take any stupid risks if something happened to him. Knowing I would die if I stayed any longer, I made my way out of the cave. It was the hardest decision I've ever had to make. When I got back to the boat, on which my 14-year-old sister Robin waited, I told dad's brother, Uncle Curtis, what had happened. Curtis, an experienced diver in his own right, refused to let me get back into the water. Instead, he dawned at the spare tanks and went down to search for my father, only after tying me up with ropes I wouldn't follow. He knew me too well. Robin, who had only done a few open water dives, clutched me and cried as we waited for Uncle Curtis to return. He did, but without any notion of what had happened to our father. Rescue teams were called in. They searched as much of the cave system as they could, but found no evidence of him. It wasn't the first time a person had disappeared into the cave system, and it was far from the last. It had earned the name System of the Dead. The rescue divers chalked it up to the plethora of tunnels, branching off from the cave in which I had last seen Dad. The guest, he'd become disoriented and swam into one of those tunnels, only to get lost and run out of breathing gas. No one who knew him bought that explanation. We didn't know what happened, but we knew it wasn't that. Now, as I try to get my mind right, I'm about to head into that cave system for the first time in eight years. Imagine setting your makeup, then forgetting it's even theirs. Meet new groupie setting mist from Mavily New York. Gel to mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours, with flexible all-day comfy grip. No tightness, no stickiness, no residue. Just plump, dewy, hydrated skin that still feels like your skin. Try new groupie setting mist from Mavily New York. If you're into horror with a heavy dose of sci-fi, classified experiments and things humanity was never meant to understand, check out my other podcast, the SCP experience. Each episode pulls you into the hidden world of the SCP foundation, where dangerous anomalies are studied, contained, and sometimes unleashed. These aren't just scary stories. They're classified nightmares. Click here to listen now, or search for the SCP experience wherever you get your podcasts. I'm barely into the cave mouth when my veins turn to ice, and my limbs start shaking. It feels like the beginnings of high-pressure nervous syndrome, which I've experienced before. The helium and the trimics we breathe can have strange effects on the mind and body at certain depths. Muscle trumbles, mental fog, bouts of micro-sleep, decreased spatial awareness. Some people even hallucinate if it gets bad enough. As much as I want to believe this is HPNS, I know it's not. We're not deep enough for that. And we've descended as slowly as possible to prevent such issues. I recall the final moments on the boat's deck, positioned next to a large decompression chamber. We leaned our heads together in a circle, arms thrown over each other. We all know how dangerous deep sea cave diving is. It's part of the attraction, the danger, the fear, the mental challenge. So, aware of the real possibility that one or more of us could die on any given dive, we'd created a little ritual. We called it happiness. And it was always the last thing we did before a dive. We would go around in a circle, saying something we were thankful for or mentioning some memory that we would latch on to if we ran into lethal trials. trouble during the dive, but this time was different. This time, all the focus was on me." "What's the thing you always say?" Robin asked me. "Diving is 90% mental and 10% preparation?" "I smiled. That's what Dad used to say." "Well, he was right. So if you're not feeling up for this, then it's a good thing to hang back, safer that way." "Yeah," Dale said with a smile in his voice. "No biggie, dude. We can handle this one." "What about the extra tank I'll be carrying?" "I'll take the extra one," Leon put in. "I considered it. Just as I was about to agree, I thought of Dad disappearing in a cloud of silt, pictured the same thing happening to Robin." "No, I'm good," I said, breaking the circle and pulling my goggles on. "But now, 20 feet into the cavern. I'm shaking like a Parkinson's patient. I can't do it." I signaled to Robin in the lead by putting my hand over my flashlight three quick times. She turns around. There's plenty of room in this initial cavern for us to gather. I raise my wrist, slate, and grab the graphite pencil. I'm confident they can see my hand shaking as I write. "You are right. Not safe for me. Going back. Be careful." Leon, Dale, and Robin all nod and give me a thumbs up. It takes me a minute to detach the extra tank of try-mix from my gear. Leon takes it, which means he's carrying four. This will make navigating more difficult for him. Dread and embarrassment battling with relief in my chest. I head toward the cavern's mouth, while the rest of my dive team follows the guideline into the cave system. I know I've made the right decision, the smart decision, but I still feel like I've abandoned them. As soon as I exit the cavern, seeing the sunlight dabbling the ocean surface 300 feet overhead, my trembling stops. I'm partway through my slow ascent, when a memory hits me with the force of an attacking great white shark. The relief I felt last time I came out of this cave mouth, and how that relief turned to poison in my blood. I've used that day as a reminder that I can never be too careful, but not a dive goes by that I don't think about what I could have done differently. Turning, I look down at the cave mouth. I glance up at the dabbled sunlight once more. I imagine sitting on that boat, waiting for my team to return. My stomach turns at the thought. I turn around and swim back to the cave system. Once the craggy ceiling is overhead, the tremors return. Struggling to ignore them, I follow the bright yellow guideline. The deeper I go, the heavier I breathe, burning through the try-mix. I try to get it under control, but all I can think about is Robin going over that ridge of rock and then disappearing forever. Moving faster than is safe, I press on, trying to catch up with them. Through another cave, and into a long passage. "This is how divers make bad decisions," Dad's voice says in my head. "Come down!" I can't calm down. Not until I get to Robin and make sure she's okay. I come to a squeeze, although not nearly as tight as the one I got stuck in last time. I'm moving so fast, I barely notice the clusters of green, spiky plants or coral growing around the restriction. As a general rule, we try not to disturb plants or animals on our dives, but the panic driving me makes this a minor concern. As I navigate the restriction, I become snagged on a stalactite. I lose myself, thrashing around as I try to push through. My primary flashlight is tethered to my wrist, so when I drop it to scrabble at the silty cave floor, the beam tilts downward. That's when I feel it. A single, powerful current that sweeps into me from the head, kicking up a wave of silt. Thinking one of my fellow divers caused it, I grip my flashlight and aim it forward. Mostly obscured by the silt, I glimpse something moving away from me, much faster than a human. Terror crawls under my wetsuit and seeps into my flesh. The flashlight beam jitters. I huff-try mix, flinking behind my goggles, staring at the now fully obscured tunnel, wondering what the hell I just saw. Before losing sight of the thing, I got the impression of a single, powerful tail, similar to that of a lobster, only much bigger. This thing was colored like the rocks of the cave system, perfect camouflage. And beyond the tail, I swear I saw a dozen crustacean-like legs, which it used on the tunnel walls to propel itself away from me. On those legs, I spotted two arms, human arms. If you're into horror with a heavy dose of sci-fi, classified experiments, and things humanity was never meant to understand, check out my other podcast, The SCP Experience. A small number of divers who've experienced high-pressure nervous syndrome have reported hallucinations. After freeing myself from the snag, I continued down the winding tunnel, telling myself it was a hallucination, nothing more. But my flashlight beam stays fixed ahead, along with my eyes. Every time I round a band in the tunnel, or swim through a deep cave, I'm sure that thing will be there, waiting to attack me, like it attacked my father all those years ago. No, it's ridiculous. I tell myself, you hallucinated. That's all. It doesn't seem to help. I'm still swimming carelessly, faster than I should. Following the guideline, I finally reach the place where it happened. My beam picks out the restriction, and the upward jutting rock just beyond it. That's as far as the beam reaches. Thankfully, there's no cloud of silt. Since it takes a while for it to settle again, I'm confident my team didn't run into any issues here. I can't be that far behind them, after all. Shaking is if I'm having a seizure, I swim ahead. As the tunnel narrows around me, I'm transported back to that day. Dad's swimming ahead, cresting the stone, the silt out, the panic and terror that followed. This time, I force myself to slow down, making it through the squeeze without issue. I frog kick my way to the top of the jutting stone, and shine my flashlight around. Heart beating so hard, I feel like I might pass out. But the cave is empty. No sign of anything nefarious. Nothing but the guideline stretching across to one of the many tunnels branching off the cave. For the first time since coming back, I calm down a little. I follow the guideline into the tunnel, remembering how far I went looking for Dad that day. The tunnel is wide enough that I don't need to navigate any squeezes. But as I round a bend, I notice something strange. The yellow guideline is thrumming like a plucked guitar string. I gaze ahead at where the line disappears into darkness. Then the line starts shaking, as though someone is jerking it up and down. In cave diving, this is the universal sign for an emergency. My panic multiplies as I dart through the tunnel, imagining robin in trouble, or Dale or Leon. The line angles sharply upward into a vertical tunnel ahead. The shaking continues. I reach the vertical portion and shine my flashlight up. At first, I think I'm looking at a cloud of silt. But I've never seen red silt before. The roiling cloud obscures the tunnel. But whatever is causing the thrashing continues. A familiar face juts from the maroon cloud. Dale swimming toward me. But his goggles are gone, along with his regulator. His eyes bulge with tear as he flails away from the cloud. Behind him, something else becomes visible as it scuttles from what I now know as a cloud of blood. The face comes first, a human face, sickeningly distorted, but also familiar, also missing any gear one would need to survive for long down here. Then the rest of him comes. A bear torso and arms, discolored, deformed, and bloated. Underneath the arms, segmented appendages sprout along the sides of his abdomen. Any human likeness ends at the waist, where the body turns decidedly crustacean, featuring more of those crab-like legs. The sand-colored shell segments seem to have fused with the skin at the waist. This bottom portion of the body is long, and although I don't see it, thanks to the cloud of Dale's blood, I'm positive there's a fan like tale at its end. The creature looks like some demented combination of human, centipede, and lobster. But what happens next is like none of those things. As Dale swims toward me, I see that one of his legs has been severed below the knee. That's where all the blood is coming from. His remaining foot has no fin, like the rest of his gear it's missing. But even if he had fins and two intact legs, there's no way he could escape the creature. The thing scurries along the tunnel, rearing up and puffing its chest out as it closes in. The chest splits open down the middle like a huge vertical mouth, revealing a torso full of sharp teeth and dozens of strange, warm-like organs the color of spoiled beef. Prepelled by those scurrying legs, the creature closes in on Dale. The two human arms reach out and snag is one good leg, although they don't move like normal human arms. They bend in the wrong places, and only some of the fingers seem to work. The creature yanks him backward and shoves him into the massive mouth up to his hips. The mouth slams down like a bear trap. The force of the movement, sending a current of bloody water toward me. Dale's arms keep churning the water for half a dozen heartbeats. What's left of him, pulls away from the creature. Bloody intestine streaming up behind him, from where his hips used to be. Then his eyes go glassy. His arms stop moving, and a handful of pitiful bubbles escape his mouth as he exhales one last time. Despite the heart-crushing terror of the scene, I can't help but look beyond Dale to the creature, which seems momentarily preoccupied with digested its meal. I can't help but peer into its face, bloated in somehow, stretched. It's a face I know too well, even though it has been eight years since I've seen it in person. It's my father's face, but the eyes are different. Black, bulbous things, like eight balls protruding from his sockets. Although they have no pupils, there's no doubt in my mind that they're suddenly focused on me. It's more than enough of a warning. I spin around, swimming frantically back the way I came. I don't dare look back, even when I feel the displacement as it rushes up behind me. I wait with sickening expectations for its mouth to snap shut on my legs. I'm not sure how long I swim for. Panic obliterates my sense of time, and it only ebbs when I realize I'm in a long vertical tunnel. It's not possible. There were no vertical tunnels on my way in, but the guideline is here, so I keep following it. I'm too panicked to pay attention to the slightly different color and texture of this portion of the tunnel. It's smoother in a shade darker than the other tunnels, unlike any other rock I've seen before. Finally, I glance back, shining the light down the length of my body. The tunnel is empty as far as my light reaches. Facing forward again, I see my light reflecting off the underside of the water's surface, as though I'm approaching a dry chamber. That can't be right either. I check my depth guide, surprised to find that it says I'm near the water's surface. It's not physically possible. There's no way I swim that far. Knowing I need to conserve my trimix and hoping, I might be able to defend myself better against the creature out of the water. I swim up toward the surface. The guideline disappears into a crack in the tunnel wall, which is odd. I focus on getting into the chamber. Maybe Robin and Leon made it here. God, I hope they did. My head breaks through, and I lift my flashlight out of the water to shine it around the chamber. What I see is impossible. No tightness, no stickiness, no residue, just plump, dewy hydrated skin that still feels like your skin. "Maybe it's Mabelane." Terror follows hope as I shine my flashlight beam around the chamber, even though there's already some limited light in the space. Light coming from other flashlights. I spot Robin and Leon, which accounts for the hope. They're lying slumped against the cave wall, still in their wet suits and equipment. I can see their chests rising and falling, and the rise are open, but they stare at nothing. The flashlights attached to their wrists are still on, shining along the odd looking uneven floor. The terror comes as I shift the beam to the other side of the sizable cavern, looking toward the source of chittering and tearing sounds. A slightly smaller version of the creature that killed Dale is perched over what must be one of the four divers we've come to rescue. I stare at its side on, mouth open and shock at its appearance, and what it's doing to the person lying on the floor underneath it. A scent of peedled body, ending in a fan-like tale, 16 crab legs, jutting from its sides. Only, instead of a humanoid torso, like the one I saw with my father's face, this one's upper body looks like that of a deformed squid with only two tentacles. The squid portion of this creature is badly rotting, ragged holes are visible in its flesh, and the color is sickly. This squid torso is hinged open. The creature's vertical mouth angled over the naked man lying underneath it. Several long, warm-like tendrils that appear to have sharp, bony protrusions at their ends are busy slicing through the naked man's skin from his belly up. Like Robin and Leon, the man's unblinking eyes stare at nothing. The creature's upper limbs, which appear to be more dexterous than its lower ones, assist in the surgery, spreading the skin as the warm-like protrusions slice it open, careful not to go too deep. There's very little blood, but I can see the gentle rise and fall of the man's chest. He's not dead. Maybe whatever paralytic that's been used on him helps prevent bleeding somehow. It takes moments for me to process this grisly scene. The creature suddenly stops its work. Aero-shaped squid head turning toward me. Two black, bulbous eyes glimmering in the flashlight beam. The abdomen warms whip back inside the creature as the mouth slams shut. The beast scuttles toward me.