The Lake Baikal Serpent

## The Lake Baikal by unknown author

(Note: this creepypasta was originally posted on 4chan's /x/ board.)

I was debating if I should post this story, but after a few weeks of nothing happening, I decided to say fuck it and post it. So first, some context. I work as a ranger in the Bargunzinsky state natural reservoir near the lake Baikal. Over the past years I've come to find out that lake Baikal is a very fucked place. So here's a few of my experiences

I'll start off with a few oddities

Aside from the usual ice rings, Baikal zen, vehicles/animals/people stuck in ice, there are oddities like unknown ships appearing on foggy days. I remember spotting a few unidentified ships in my time and I've heard stories of really old looking ships appearing in the fog. Another creepy thing that happens is dead animals washing up. Now that's nothing out of the ordinary, but some of the animals wash up completely hollow. Anything from fish to birds to even seals.

So onto the interesting greentext worthy stuff

>Be me

>Be around 9 or 10

>Me and friends go hang out

>It‘s the winter

>During the winter lake Baikal freezes up completely

>So me and my friends are walking on the ice

>We‘re hanging out and one of my friends calls us to him

>He‘s crouched and is staring at the ice

>He points and tells us to look

>Two prints are pushing against the ice

>They looked like suckers, but with fingers

>They start moving so we follow

>We keep following until we hear a crack

>Mostly Baikal is pretty safe to walk on, but it‘s better to be safe than sorry so we stop

>The prints keep going

>Then the ice cracks open

>Two massive limbs come out of the ice

>They suck onto the ice and a creature rises up from the water

>This thing looked like a cross between a lobster and a mosquito

>Thing only walked on two legs

>It was like 3 or 4 fucking meters tall

>As soon as we see it we run like hell

>Slip on ice like a retard

>Friends abandoned me

>Thanks

>Think I‘m dead

>Thing just walks by and keeps going

>I come back home balling my eyes out

>Try to explain, but can‘t

>Parents slap me and tell me to not go on a frozen lake without supervision

>People commonly report seeing something similar in the north of the Baikal

>Dark color, two legs, straw mouth, crustacean

>I think I‘ve gotten around 7 similar reports

>On watch duty, I might‘ve seen it on a few occasions

>But it was always too far to really make out

>First creepy thing that happened on the job

>Boat goes missing

>It shows up like a week later

>We go to investigate

>The boat is completely empty

>So we dock it while the search party looks for survivors

>So I'm hanging out

>Guy watching over the boat calls out through the radio

>"Uhhh there's is an intruder on the boat."

>We go check on it

>There's a dude with a hat just hanging out on the boat

>Guys really weird though

>It's like he isn't even fully solid

>Co worker tries to get near the guy

>The dude fucking splits apart into a few pieces and they all jump into the water

>Big wtf moment

>In the past 20 years there have been these two strange cases

>In 2001 and 2013 bodies were found washed up with very strange markings

>Their blood vessels were very dark

>Their eyes were grayed out

>And their muscles were very tensed up

>In the first case forensics came back telling us it was just drowning and exposure

>Second time we struggled to even contact them

>Eventually they came back with the same result

>Drowning and exposure

>Thing is though

>These people were incredibly experienced in their field

>Another thing was that the second guy was reported missing two weeks before we found him

>Yet his body was in prim condition

>So about two months ago we get a report of a washed up body

>We came to check on him

>It was an old person who hit his head somehow and drowned

>His skin was pale and his vessels stood out

>I could tell he didn't die like the other two, but the look of him reminded me of them two

>Just to preface he did NOT die the same way as those two, clear differences were signs of decomposition, his body being relaxed and his eyes having color

>I brought up the similarity to my co-worker

>He didn't know about it so I promised to tell him later

>We met up at a local café afterwards

>We were talking about the cases

>Then we got interrupted by this old dude

>We call him Staryk

>For the longest time I assumed he was just some schizo

>Dude is very dirty

>Mutters to himself

>Has no friend or family

>Spends most of his time on the shore taking notes

>He's not violent, but most people consider him a nuisance

>So he intervenes and instantly asks if their eyes were grey

>I tell him

>Yes.

>Staryk jumps in excitement

>This gets awkward so we get ready to leave

>Staryk chases after us and asks us if they were decomposing

>Now I'm intrigued

>So I give him the benefit of the doubt and tell him to go off

>Staryk then starts lay it out

>I'll relay his words in bullet-points

>The thing that is responsible for those two deaths is called a "crawling jellyfish"

>It can filter oxygen both from air and water

>It's tentacles produce an adhesive which let's it crawl on land

>It also produces an insanely strong poison

>It works by completely destroying blood cells and the slightest concentration of it can have disastrous effects on the body

>The poison this jelly uses is 84% pure

>The effect of the poison darkens the blood and destroys the pigmentation of the eyes

>It also works as an amazing antibiotic which can preserve the body for more than a month

>The chemical reaction between the poison and water tenses up the muscles

>And they are exclusive to the lake Baikal

>They used to be a huge problem during the first half of the 20th century

>Post WW2 the government decided to use Cyanide to kill off their populations

>This poisoned the water supply, but it was covered up

>He predicts their current population to be at the double digits

>After this I'm a bit taken a back

>While Staryk was going off, some guy tells him to shut up and fuck off

>Staryk leaves, but I'm really interested if he's got more to share

>After a week, I kind of forgot about the whole ordeal

>Then I spotted staryk taking notes while on my patrol

>I approached him and asked what's up

>Dude almost jumped out his skin when I did so

>I asked is everything ok

>He told me "yeah" with a shaky voice

>Then I asked him about the dude that kicked him out the other day

>Tells me that it's nothing

>So I ask if he can tell me more about that jellyfish

>He apologises and tells he has to leave

>I think to myself

>How can a fucking hobo be busy

>I start following him around and try to get him to talk

>Staryk just gives me the silent treatment

>Keep following him for thirty minutes

>Have to stop 'cause job

>After work decide to go ask around about staryk

>Nobody really knows much about him

>Hes always just been a part of life

>No one really knows when, where or how he got here

>He's just always been here

>Decide to ask the dude from the cafe about staryk

>"You shouldn't hang around with that guy anon. Hes probably unhinged"

>Asked why he kicked him out

>"The guy smells like shit anon"

>True

>So in my travels I find out only one thing

>The guy fucking loves chess

>Damn good too

>Sometimes he challenges the other old folks

>Next day buy a chess board and wait in the park in the after hours

>Bait worked perfectly

>Staryk comes out of the bushes, beer can in hand and asks for a game

>Try to get him to chat

>Fucker is really focused on the game though

>I'm shit and get beat in like 3 moves

>He comes back for a rematch a few days later

>Came up with the idea to give him something stronger

>Russian standard

>Works like a charm

>He talks about how bad the pollution in the Baikal is and so on

>Ask him how does he know so much

>"Oh I was a biologist"

>Elaborate

>"Did research on the lake for almost 30 years"

>What happened then?

>"Quit"

>Why?

>"Didn't have a choice"

>How come?

>He looks at me

>"Hey anon, you wanna see something cool? "

>Uhhh

>"Come on, I'll show you something that'll blow you away"

>Agree

>Don't wanna get raped in some crackden so get knife just in case

>"You know anon, you're a good kid"

>I'm in my thirties

>"Who cares you're still young, thats why you have to see what I have"

>ok

>He gets to his makeshift home

>Inside is a fucking VCR and two tapes

>They're labeled «бaйкaльcкaя миccия 1988» 1 and 2

>What is this

>"Cool eh? You kids probably never seen it before"

>Ask him if he's got a TV from the period

>No.

>Ffs I have to get an adapter

>No local stores have one so I have to ship it

>Fucker cost a leg and an arm

>After 4 days it's finally here

>When I get to Staryk's shack hes not happy

>Tells me that I used him

>We get into a heated argument

>Eventually he breaks

>"For God's sake.Fine if you want to watch them so bad then let's go already"

>Told him that he's not gonna get near my apartment without a shower

>Eventually he convinced me to let him use mine

>After him the shower, no joke, became a fucking gas chamber

>So we finally hook up the VCR

>It's insane how much care he put into maintaining it

>We boot up the first tape

>It's 2 hours long

>Around a third of it is just the inside of a sub with nothing happening

>While this is happening I ask staryk to explain how and why he has these

>Here's what he told

>Turns out staryk was an important researcher during the soviet era

>The reason for this mission happening is because while making topographical scans the soviet union discovered that the lake is actually deeper than previously thought

>The scans showed that past the 1600 metre bottom the lake continues

>This is because stronger sonar can penatrate "the false bottom"

>What is the false bottom?

>He explained it as a layer of a dense, viscous underwater brine

>Past this false bottom the lake continues another 1200 meters

>It is located at the center of the lake

>The problem is that the lake Baikal is a freshwater lake and such a thing should be impossible

>So the mission was supposed to retrieve samples, geological data and maybe explain the oddity

>The actual video finally begins and three men enter the sub

>One of which is our man, Staryk

>They descent and the tape shows the usual shit you'd find in the lake

>Fish, seals etc.

>The weird shit starts towards the end of the first tape

>Passing 900 meters our first oddity pops up

>Every creature shown in the tape was given an in depth explanation by Staryk

>First thing the camera catches is a huge fucking Jellyfish

>And I mean massive

>This fucking thing's body was about as big as a bus

>The tentacles were definitely longer than a blue whale

>Pic is the closest to it by looks

>Staryk walks up to the TV and points at it's body

>It's body is actually a separate ecosystem in itself

>While feeding the Jellyfish filters water so well that it actually creates a separate environment inside the creature

>The concentration of water in the jellyfish differs from the outside by about 6 or 7 percent

>This is enough of a difference to create a completely alien environment

>Its size provides a safe home for many smaller creatures

>The ecosystem is so advanced that there is a food chain inside

>There is a plankton that can produce energy with a very limited amount of light which is provided by the luminance of its host

>They get eaten by a shrimplike creature which gets eaten by an apex predator

>Then the predators waste is used to feed the plankton and so the cycle goes on

>These creatures are not only exclusive to Baikal, but the jellyfish too

>The men in the submarine don't seem all that surprised about it

>So I ask Staryk how long they've know about it

>"Ever since the 50s, they started washing up in mass after the extermination of the crawler jellyfish"

>As they go deeper the lake bed is covered by whale bones

>The thing is Baikal isn't home to any known whale species

>One of the whale skeletons begins to move

>Holy shit

>Its the fucking ghost fish

>I remember the few reports of a massive see through fish swimming near the ice

>Here's how Staryk explained it

>It turns out that the bones are reanimated by a single celled organism

>This organism begins to build a colony by mooching of the minerals in these whale bones

>Eventually they construct a membrane around the skeleton which vaguely resembles a whale

>The inside of this colony is filled with an acidic sugary solution which keeps the entire organism buoyant

>It then travels in the lake it's new source of food being microorganisms that it digests using the solution

>Though after a long time the solution will damage the whales bones to the point where they cannot support the construct

>The organism most likely dies here, because at this stage it can't filter water without moving

>As they descent deeper weird things keep appearing

>Crabs with legs the length of cars

>A giant centipede like creature

>Huge eels

>Tentacled creatures that connected in rings

>What I think might've been trilobites

>And more that I couldn't make out

>Once they go down past 1600 metres life becomes more scarce

>Eventually they reach the false bottom

>It is a massive brine pool

>There is zero life around it

>1 or 2 dead fish surface from the brine periodically

>Staryk said that they took samples of the water above the brine

>Said that the only life there were a few species of extremophile bacteria, but even they were struggling to survive

Ok this is the part I was debating to post. Looking at what happens next fucked with my mind so hard I had to move away. So here's a content warning, I don't know if there really needs to be one, but here it is. Read at your own risk

>They penetrate into the brine layer

>At this point staryk stops the tape and tells me to stop watching

>I ask why, but he ignores me and goes to take the tape away

>I try to stop him, but he takes the tape and only that tape and runs off

>For a week I ask him to let me finnish it

>He constantly shoots me down

>My curiosity got the better of me

>I knew that staryk wasn't a vigilant guy

>So when he went for one of his regular walks around the shore, I went to his shack and took the tape

So last warning, proceed at your own risk

>They descend 300 metres below the brine

>Their sonar picks up something massive

>They approximated it to be almost 2 km in length

>Then it comes on screen

>This fucking serpent

>Serpent isn't even a good way to describe it shape

>It just being there fucked with sonar, the cameras and the crew

>The entire crew spent like 10 minutes just screaming and raving

>It's eyes stared straight into the camera

>And no matter where I was it's eyes followed me

>While watching I felt this weird sensation

>It's like I knew that whatever I was looking at was fucking evil

>Everything about it was wrong

>In time one of the crew managed to get a grip and sent the submarine upwards

>After the tape ended I could hear it

>It was this feeling in the back my head

>It was beckoning towards the lake, toward it

>Fucker didn't even speak a word and I knew what it wanted

>I couldn't take it and I went to talk to staryk

>As soon as he saw me he punched me in the jaw

>Get called a fucking retard

>He takes the tape from me and snaps over his knee

>"This is why I didn't want you to watch these tapes"

>I begged him to tell me what's going on

>After he calmed down he sat down

>And he asked me a question

I have one

>be me

>270 pounds

>at least 100 pounds of this is just the meat of my feet, I have a genetic condition that gives me giant swollen feet like blown up balloons and I cant wear shoes or put on normal legwear

>sit on the toilet

>start to shit

>tons of shit comes out

>flushing 7-8 times but still more poo

>notice my feet get smaller

>poo is splashing everywhere

>the toilet is barely refilling fast enough for me to flush the mounds of poo away

>shit even splashes on my velcro fastened kilt hanging on the back of the door

>really displeased because I need that kilt due to my disability

>but my feet are now normal size

>turns out they were just filled with shit

For the first time I managed to walk like a normal person, I didn't even care that I was covered in shit. I can wear normal legwear now, so I burned the kilt.

>dancing in the garden as I burned my kilt

>really creepy humanoid monster appears from the bushes with no eyes and skin like a starfish

>suddenly he screams

>REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

>hes rapidly jacking his huge wang as he runs towards me

>I kick out at him and my loose foot skin collides with his head, killing him instantly

>the skin was an inch thick and leathery from how toughened it had becomes over the years, basically it was like being slapped with sheets of soft lead

>the monsters corpse turns into smoke and no one believes me, think that I'm just delirious from the sudden change of my condition

The moral of the story is that god doesn't make mistakes

>Here's what he told me

>Back in the cold war the soviets were planning to use lake Baikal for proponganda purposes

>But their scientists could never figure out why exactly this kind of diversity was exclusive to the lake

>And its not like the Americans had something to hide

>If they couldn't hide the nuke, then everything was on the table

>They cross refrenced every sea, ocean, lake, river and puddle and found that over 60% of lake Baikal's life was not found anywhere else

>Why's that?

>Staryk believes that it's that thing that lures life to it

>For whatever reason it attracts life to itself

>Though the better question is

>Why is that thing there in the first place

>He says because it's supposed to be a prison

>Think about it

>Why has the baikal not changed in over 25 million years?

>Why is there a kilometre deep layer of brine in a freshwater lake

>Whether it's aliens, gods or some natural phenomenon, that brine is keeping it in and everything else out

>After the mission went bust staryk decided to quit and stole the only existing footage of that mission

>He tried to get a job, but since then he was blacklisted from getting one

>So he remained here

>I don't know why he chose keep that tape, but at least it's destroyed now

Eventually I couldn't take it. That thing fucked with my vision, senses and even speech. So I was forced to move in with my sister in Chelyabinsk. It seems like proximity to the lake is what affects me. I still get nightmares and shit from time to time, but I don't know if it's some psychological shit or that...thing.