Estimated reading time — 9 minutes

September 17, 20–

To whoever is reading:

Please pardon my recollections and remembrances, as the events that have occurred in the past 24 hours have been the oddest, most appalling, and most confusing that I, and perhaps any other man, have experienced.

The consistent knocking and banging on the other side of the steel door only adds to my frustration.

My name is Robert Leng, and I am—or was, knowing my likely fate—a deep-sea marine biologist studying the phenomena, fauna, and any other peculiarity that lies at the bottom of the sea floor. To be more specific, I worked and conducted my research in a small, obtuse research facility located deep beneath in the Mid-Atlantic, alongside a dozen other colleagues.

My troubles began when our research leader, Dr. Cousar, assigned me and two other researchers—odd, I thought, as our ROVs usually require only one person—to conduct a routine mission collecting samples from the seafloor. I vehemently accepted, as I take great pleasure in piloting our ROVs for specimen collection. As luck would have it, however, it was going through repairs, so I would have to man our heavily modified Pisces-class sub with my crewmates to conduct the mission.

Our descent was the only seemingly normal part of this story, our crew experiencing no difficulties during this period. It was when we actually reached the sea floor that things became abnormal. During our last expedition, where thriving deep-sea ecosystems once existed just days before, now in front of us, the multitude and monotony of dead coral, the hollowed-out shells of crustations, and an unmoving seafloor. “What should we make of this?” and “What could possibly explain this?” were common phrases said by all three of us at this moment.

During further investigation, the decayed surface still unchanged, I saw the bright bronze glow of some object in our sub’s lights. “Ah! perhaps this sea floor isn’t as dead as we once thought, and that some semblance of life could be found in a once-mysical, dark paradise of aquatic civilization!” I thought to myself.

I steered our vessel—slowly, but ever closer—to the odd object that, out of the lifeless and deceased ocean floor it inhabited, had the light of life yet still in it. Using the mechanical arms of the sub, I carefully and thoughtfully brought the object out of its solitude, the glowing bronze hue further exhibiting this thing’s beauty. When removed fully from its sandy confines, we realized, with great confusion and curiosity, that beheld in the arms of our submarine was the diving helmet of an old deep-sea diver, presumably, from my research, from the 19th century.

We had stumbled and excavated a marvelous artifact—a treasure!

But my—and perhaps their thoughts—were also one of questioning, of who this article of marine apparel belonged to. What surprised us, too, was how new and shiny it looked, as if it were just recently plunged into the ocean’s depths. We had no time to think of it, however, so our objective was to secure the specimen, go back to our facility, study it, and report it to Dr. Cousar.

We arrived back at our post shortly, unloading both ourselves and our mysterious cargo. Dr. Cousar, in particular, was very interested in not just our reports of a dead ocean floor but also in the diving helmet itself. Thus, as a researcher of all things relating to and found on the ocean floor, the Dr. instructed me to study and examine the antique, while the rest of the crew surveys and hypothesizes the reasons for the degradation of the sea-bottom.

I thus hurried to the lab, where I would be deep in seclusion, to parse over our find. The helmet was very large, certainly to support any man who dared enter its unnerving character. Yet, it was still so very beautiful, its form still harboring the curiosity of the man who wore it must’ve had, and its legacy being one of melancholy, as its master was likely himself at the bottom of the sea’s darkest depths, slowly eaten by the unknown creatures that inhabit an unknown part of an already-explored world. Indeed, even under the scrutiny of a microscope, very few, if any, blemishes were present on the artifact—a fact that shocked me. What I did see, however, was text near the base that said, in simple terms, “Siebe Gorman & Co. 1889.” I had stumbled upon such a gem! A piece of lost history now found by a layman, in the scheme of things!

Then, a series of noises sounded through the corridors of the facility. Bang, bang, bang, bang, the sound of a continuous banging was ever-present. I briefly left the lab after putting the helmet in a safe, sanitary container, where I would go to confirm with my coworkers that I was not just hearing things. They said they had not heard such a sound, and that either something natural was clinging to the haul, or that I was deprived of rest due to my non-stop study. Both possibilities unnerved me, as the former was unlikely to occur during our research, and the latter meant that perhaps I was going a little mad. But is there nothing that a little rest couldn’t fix?

Rest, then, was my chief objective, exhaustion holding me within its dense grasp. But alas! when I tried to sleep, the mysterious banging echoed throughout the hall and, having no one else to relate to me during this troublesome experience, I was left in total loneliness, in an isolation that very few of our species could comprehend. I tossed and turned, I remember, covering my ears with my pillow, curled into the fetal position (oh, to be a child again, in total ignorance!). At some point, though, as if Providence had allowed me to fall into idleness, I fell asleep into obscurity and peace.

I woke up in a haze, unaware of the horrors that must’ve transpired during my slumber. Peaking my head out from my door, I saw that utter chaos enveloped our small, inconsequential station. Flickering lights and broken-down doors littered the hallway as I slowly walked down, stepping with caution and uncertainty. A primal fear inhibiting my senses, I entered into the lounge area, where the cushions of couches were destroyed, brown coffee on the table spilled, the latter apparently mixed with the red blood of my coworkers. I had not seen any bodies, however, so perhaps those colleagues of mine had bested whatever beast was the origin of this devastation.

A fire axe was clung to the wall in an adjacent hall, still kept in its glass capsule. Not knowing what threat I may face, I seized the axe from its confines, my hands clenching the long wooden handle in anxious desperation. All the while, the faint banging of the night’s previous loud cry reverberated throughout the halls, as if to mock me and my pitiful situation. Bang, bang, bang, bang. Is this my purgatory? A hell undeserved?

Suddenly, a noise was heard in an adjacent hallway, not the thump heard reverberating through the station, but more like footsteps—loud, hulking footsteps. Could this possibly be one of my missing colleagues? A vanished friend? A sense of desperation, doubt and anticipation filled my heart, as it was beating out of my chest, similar to the cryptic drumming resonance echoing through the facility. There was only one way to find out—to venture into the abyss.

As I progressed down the narrow corridors, the wretched smell of seaweed–ironically, a noxious odour I have always abhorred!—filled my nostrils, as those soft, yet heavy footsteps could be heard in the near distance. An oddity I noticed was the footprints, a dense, wet trail of saltwater leading towards that dreaded chamber; could this yet be hope of rescue?

Stepping into the metal archway of that loathsome hallway, the one that the trail inevitably led to, I looked down the gray hallway, as in the dim, fluttering light, I saw a silhouette of someone—or something. I was stunned immediately, frozen in fear at the creature stalking me from just mere meters away. Standing in the hallway, an apex predator staring and taunting its inevitable prey, was a large, bulky man—so I thought—stagnant and unmoving, the stench of seaweed ever more present, and horrendous. I dared not move, but this creature took two mere steps before it was many feet nearer to me. But it was this time—this dreaded time!—that I was able to see the beast to the best of my ability, as it stood in a fluorescent light. I am moved not to tell of its figure, but for the sake of a warning and evidence for my horrors experienced, this cadaver was the most foul, ghastly thing that I have ever encountered.

But oh! I beheld the tanned suit that it was wearing, fixtures of patches, belts, and antique equipment stuck headfirst on a torso so soaked in saltwater and ocean chaf, with the addition of trailing tubes for breathing. But what was I looking at? I knew in my heart what I was witnessing, but I dared not entertain that idea in the moment. It was its face, however, that was the most frightening of all, bequeathed with sores, scars, leading eyes, a concave cranium—a melting, gangrenous, gelatinous horror. If this thing were a man in a previous life, then he is a man no more. Indeed, this beast made an Ancient Egyptian mummy look like a gentleman in the midst of the decadence of Sodom and Gomorrah!

Clutching the axe with maximum force, I hurried myself into a defensive stance, ready to combat the creature from Lucifer’s lair. It inched closer to me, closing the gap between the moral and immoral, its awkward, gawky strut further accentuating its supernatural composition. Just as it was mere feet away, I held up the axe to strike in self-defense, just as Thor would plummet his hammer upon those mythological giants of old. But before I could make contact with the edge of my weapon, a large, slimy tentacle—like that of the great Kraken!—protruded from the side abdomen of the monster, clutching to the head of my axe. A great struggle ensued, a grappling of a tool between that which was alive and that which was undead. Unfortunately for me, my opponent was able to seize the axe due to its enormous strength, almost taking me with it into its abysmal vacuum of a perverted body.

The beast, beholding my only physical line of defense, snapped it in two, as primitive man would’ve done to the weakly-branched weapon of his adversary. Having no other means to counter the hostile mariner who had seemingly raised from the dead—“it’s alive!” as Victor Frankenstein once so presciently said—I could only turn and run, trying to avoid flailing tendrils. My pulse faster than the thumping of a cottontail, lightning circulating through my veins, I dashed through the tight, narrow corridors of our facility, intermittently jumping over the metal door frames flowering from the bottom of the haul. From the few, erratic turns over my shoulder to see my pursuer, I saw that it was using not just the one tentacle from our scourge, but multiple, to propel itself through the halls (like an octopus!), barreling like a bullet towards me.

Though I was under so much duress that I couldn’t discern which location I was in the facility, memory-consciousness moved me to turn right down another hall, hopefully affording me a couple of more seconds of life to live. Even in the monotony of the ever-countinous, silver, steel-doored halls, I was able to discern the hall that I turned into—that which held our scientific laboratories. Was this to be my mortal preservation?

Then, with the last desperate breaths my body could produce with my exertion, I jumped into the room where I did the bulk of my research—and thus knew the best. I swung my body back around, only able to see the shadow of that diver clinging to the hall walls like a cancer, before I slammed the metal door and locked it with its mighty bolt, proving that, yes, this place was my preservation. I was saved, protected! Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, was heard from the other side of the iron wall, the walls shaking around me, lights flickering like a lightning storm. As my body shook, my nerves shocked, and holding the door so that it couldn’t get into my refuge, the banging on the door suddenly ceased, as if there had been no commotion to begin with. Perspiration lining my face, savoring the moment that the havoc stopped, I quickly looked around the room, the bronze shine of the helmet, those hollow blackened eyes stared back into me, into my very soul.

As I write this, the banging on the steel door, though inconsistent and erratic, still reverberates throughout the hall of the facility—Bang, bang, bang, bang. No matter how often I turn the helmet away from me, it always, as if it had a consciousness and autonomy of its own, turns itself back to stare at me, in mockery. I cannot help but think that it was my colleagues and I, after commandeering the artifact from its original habitation, who awoke some old, ancient curse, that of a deceased mariner, one who is so repulsed with his own heinousness that he would do whatever to get back the one thing that shielded him from judging eyes—his diving helmet. And yet, I cannot open the door to return his capital, for I know what my fate would be—the same damnable one as my former colleagues! But the time must come when a man must face his inevitable fate, that he shall no longer hold to the burdens of morality and will be released from his natural state of existence—the only existence he had hitherto known.

So this burden had been transfixed upon me, Robert Leng, a man who only wanted to explore the unknown, study that which most cannot understand, to see those small, minute things that Providence has made that have gone unnoticed through the annals of history. My last wish, though, is not for another chance to live, but for the work, the livelihoods, of not just myself, but also that of the likes of Dr. Cousar, and my most amiable colleagues—those who sacrificed themselves, unwittingly, because of the innate curiosity of the human experience, and of the mere benign state of the finding, resulting in their deaths. No, I wish this message to be heard by whoever may read it, by anyone who can spread the word that there are things that are better to be left alone down in the depths of Davy Jones’ Locker.

The incessant bang, bang, bang, bang is the only constant companion I have left with me—and the puppet master that controls its strings…

Credit: Walker Ramspott