>I moved cautiously, feeling my way with ungloved hands toward the starboard bulkhead in the compartment, which was my starting point. What I would find I had no inkling. Eventually, it would severely draw on every ounce of courage I possessed. As I looked up, I saw a light that glowed dimly, flickered, and disappeared. It must have been phosphorescence in the water, I thought as the blackness enveloped me once again. I shrugged as I thought: I would settle for just enough light to be able to see the end of my nose.
>Suddenly, I felt that something was wrong. I tried to suppress the strange feeling that I was not alone. I reached out to feel my way and touched what seemed to be a large inflated bag floating on the overhead. As I pushed it away, my bare hand plunged through what felt like a mass of rotted sponge. I realized with horror that the “bag” was a body without a head.
>Gritting my teeth, I shoved the corpse as hard as I could. As it drifted away, its fleshless fingers raked across my rubberized suit, almost as if the dead sailor were reaching out to me in a silent cry for help.
>I fought to choke down the bile that rose in my throat. That bloated torso had once contained viscera, muscle, and firm tissue. It had been a man. I could hear the quickening thump of my pulse.
>For the first time I felt confined in the suffocating darkness and had to suppress the desire to escape. “Breathe slowly, breathe deeply,” I commanded myself. I must stay calm, professional, detached. The dangers from falling wreckage, holes in the deck, and knife-sharp jagged edges were real, formidable hazards. I must not succumb to terror over something that could not harm me.
>>1213011
>I felt my way through the darkness toward the door to the machine shop, accompanied only by the sound of the air hissing into my helmet from the air hose trailing behind me.
>At the shop doorway I hesitated and drew my lifeline toward me. Then I got the eerie feeling again that I wasn’t alone. Something was near. I felt the body floating above me. Soon the overhead was filled with floating forms.
>Obviously, my movement through the water created a suction effect that drew the floating masses to me. Their skeletal fingers brushed across my copper helmet. The sound reminded me of the tinkle of oriental wind chimes.
>This time I did not panic. Instead, I gently pushed the bodies clear and moved through the compartment. I shuffled through the workshop area, threading my way around lathes, milling machines, and drill presses. I stopped and again found myself surrounded by ghostly bloated forms floating on the overhead, all without heads. This shop had been the damage control battle station for one hundred of the crew. The violent explosions from bombs and torpedoes, plus the forceful impact of water, must have thrown the sailors like rag dolls against bulkheads, breaking their necks and severing skulls from spines. Voracious scavenger crabs had finished the job.
>It was not something I wanted to think about, and I pushed it from my mind as I moved forward again. That is when I stumbled over what felt like a torpedo, the object I had come down here to find.
Read this in one night, interesting as fuck and only about 200 pages. Thought I'd share.
https://mega.nz/#!hcRHHbAB!p-esyI33F2zgivJhaUqu1yGhiL81dHu_q2pIn8qU_cc
Why was he down there?
>hey guys I read a book plz recognize me senpai
>>1215576
>sharing books is bad
Please leave /his/.
>>1215520
an undetonated japanese torpedo was keeping salvage crews from working, he was ordered to find it and put a lock on the propeller so it couldn't arm.
while in complete darkness.
while 3 decks inside a sunken battleship.
Pretty crazy how well preserved some of wreck is, since some rooms were closed off to circulating water.
https://youtu.be/q0TpsfxGDdo?t=252
>>1217213
I'm always surprised at what can survive. The Turkish baths on Titanic looked pristine.