I had heard tales of an untouched treasure at the bottom of the lake, so I drove 6 hours into the middle of nowhere to scuba dive in it. The lake was smooth as glass, not a ripple in sight, as I, Timmy III, descended alone. It got darker with every meter, and the water was a dull green-brown color and quiet, the kind of quiet that could drive you insane. My bubbles rose for what seemed like an eternity until reaching the murky surface.
As I neared the bottom, I noticed a pattern of stones on the lake floor. When I reached the bottom, a realized that these were headstones. I was in a cemetery! I felt an eerie chill run down my spine.
I swam closer, as some seemingly supernatural force drew me towards one gravestone. I brushed away a layer of silt and algae and leaned in to read it.
Timmy III.
For a moment, it seemed as though my heart had stopped.
The ground under the headstone suddenly collapsed. The stone fell forward, and it dragged me down as the mud gave way. Everything went dark. In the struggle, my regulator was hit out of my mouth and disappeared into the dark.
The crushing force of the stone held me down as I tried to get away. The cemetery was gone now, hidden behind the silt I had kicked up. I knew my lungs would soon force me to take a breath of the water. It was then that I realized this would be my final resting place.
As my strength faded, my thoughts drifted away from the lake. I thought about my wife at home—How she always asked me to call when I was done with a dive, and how she always worried even when she said she didn’t. She would probably never find my body or know what went down on this seemingly uneventful day.
The lake above stayed calm and quiet, as if nothing had happened at all.
