The Lake at the Bottom of the Ocean ┃ Creepypasta

Just last week, I was diving one of these lakes in the depths of the Gulf of Mexico as part of an expedition to survey any lasting damage done to benthic ecosystems following the Deepwater Horizon incident.

The bottom of the ocean is often overlooked in the immediate fallout from an incident like this.

But oil will eventually sink, and it's arguably a worse problem when it does.

because it begins to work its way into the food chain.

This starts with filter feeders, so a huge mat of mussels had to be high on our list.

We were running a tandem operation, two one-man subs surveying either side of the lake and looking for any signs of disease or die-offs in the mussel beds.

Deep sea science is surprisingly boring work most of the time.

You're stuck at the bottom of the ocean in a tiny little sphere, looking at an awful lot of mud.

Or, in this case, endless fields of mussels, punctuated by worms and traversed by spindly-legged crabs.

It was eerily beautiful, but tedium setting quickly.

I had been sweeping the field for quite a while when I noticed a definite dead patch spreading from the edge of the toxic lake.

Green mussels were blackened and cracked, their shells no longer fed minerals by the organism within.

Towards the lake itself, the mollusks were caked in salt, as though the lake itself was splashing over them.

That was strange.

Whilst lakes like this definitely have waves, this one was quite deep and calm for the most part, and the effects of the salt were confined to a small area.

It was as though the water was only sloshing out of the lake in this one particular spot.

There was a fair swath of dead mussels, enough that I felt it was significant.

So I set off in their direction and started digging out samples.

I started at the very edge of the patch which, on closer inspection, spanned a good 50 square meters or so.

I was so engaged with operating the delicate arms of the submersible that I didn't notice the waves at first, but they caught my eye as they lapped over the edge of the mussel bed, disturbing the crystallized shells on the lake's shore.

It was strange.

There was no real reason for there to be waves at that point.

The sub was holding steady, and the currents were weak.

For a moment, I wondered if the other submersible was coming over the lake for some reason.

But the lack of light made that seem unlikely.