Link: https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1tllf1j/i_dove_into_a_pool_and_got_lost_inside/

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/virgil_verne on 2026-05-23 16:41:16+00:00.

I used to be an Olympic track diver, one of the very best. It's not that I was talented or uniquely graceful, I was just obsessed. I dove every single day, no matter what, sanding down a rough edge or minor flaw every time my fists slammed into the water. I analysed my form, perfected my technique and sculpted my body until I could practically slip into the water with barely a ripple. I was exceptional to everyone but myself. By my own standards I wasn't good enough, this was a religion to me and there was no such thing as attaining half nirvana. I wanted to be able to dive so flawlessly that the water embraced me like a lost disciple, let me pass right through without a single shudder. And I did it.

It was about 6 months ago, my father's funeral was interfering with my training and I was restless. The monotonous minutiae of a burial ceremony seemed utterly pointless compared to the one thing I cared about. I didn't care that the person who had first taken me swimming was gone, I didn't care that my coach had dropped me because of "psychological instability", I didn't care that my fists and palms were constantly bloody and in bandages from being scoured raw, or that I was on unprescribed painkillers from the splints and micro fractures in my forearms. I didn't care about any of it, I had to dive.

And so on the night of my father's funeral, I broke into the city's indoor public pool. I climbed over the fence and found an unlocked emergency exit. I flipped on the only light switch within reach, an old filament bulb that gave off a dull yellow glow right above the pool. The smell of freshly chlorinated water was all it took to get me in the zone. I stripped down to my underwear, tossed aside the ugly suit my mother had forced me to wear and climbed up to the high board, skin tingling the entire time. I was at the edge of the board in a few moments, breathing it all in. I flowed through each motion like a clockwork marionette, jumped, then jumped, then dove.

The rush of wind, contact, then the euphoric embrace. Perfection. I waited to ascend in rebirth and complete my 735th baptism but nothing changed. I kicked a few times and reached out but I only grabbed handfuls of water. Then I opened my eyes, and it was pitch dark, I couldn't even see my own hands in front of me.

I assumed the bulb must have gone out, I kept kicking towards what I assumed was the surface, but I couldn't even tell if I was moving, there was no sign of a surface or a floor, there was just nothingness. Cold, apathetic nothingness. No sound, no light, no sensation but the frigid water sapping away my body heat. And then I saw a light.

"The bulb", I thought to myself, a cold blue glow in the distance. I could feel myself running out of air so I swam and I swam as hard as I could. The strange light seemed to get mottled and uneven as I got closer. "Is this the moon?" I thought to myself before I swam right into what felt like a telephone pole. I groped around it and it was smooth, curved and far taller than I was. To the left and right were others just like it and beyond them I began to experience tendrils of heat and cold emerging from some sort of abyss. I lunged away and looked up at the "moon", and watched as it dropped and illuminated an mottled wart filled drooping surface the size of a building, then a pair of protrusions each terminating at a glassy frosted globe, and then I saw them. Teeth. 2 intersecting rows of massive spiked teeth. I could not scream and I could not move. I floated and listened to my heart pound away at my ribcage.

The creature drifted closer and closer, brushing up against me with its cratered skin and examining me with its frosted globes. Then it rapidly swam further out, tossing me about in the wake of its massive fins. It was once again darkness save for that single light in the distance. As I righted myself, I felt my feet touch the ground. I was elated, I could push up against it and swim up. But the ground was so soft that my feet were practically sinking into it. Then it began to move. It moved laterally like a treadmill, and I ran to keep up, vaulting over boulders and craters that kept appearing right in front of me. Soon it was moving so fast that I couldn't keep up, and all I could do was tumble and roll. At this point I desperately wanted to breathe, I was on the verge of passing out when the strange floor grew smoother and smoother until I rolled right off the end and began to drift again. What I saw made me try to drown myself, but I couldn't open my mouth.

An eye the size of a stadium well stared back at me in the glow of the distant light. I was falling towards it and the "floor" off of which I had been flung was only one of several, one of which was approaching from the left like a ghostly freight train. I couldn't move to brace myself, its wake was enough to bowl me over and set me spinning before the slam hit me like a bus.

I woke up besides the pool coughing up jugfuls of water onto the floor. There was noone else around. The bulb was still on, flickering intermittently, and the pool was perfectly still, as if it had not been disturbed for thousands of years. I still had my funeral suit on and I was perfectly dry. Not a drop on me anywhere except what had just come out of my mouth. I looked at my watch, the glass was cracked inwards, as if it had imploded, but it was also perfectly dry.

I quit diving that day, and swimming altogether as well. I have never gone near a body of water larger than a fish pond since then and I never will. I don't know where I went, or what it is that happened to me, but I break out in cold sweats every time I fill a glass of water and I had a panic attack when I walked past an aquarium at the mall. I don't know if I can continue to live like this. I desperately need help.