Short horror stories

The russians dug the world deepest hole now I know why

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Credit to the reddit user:u/RichardSaxon
On the 24th of May 1970, the Soviet Union started a project that would be known as the Kola Superdeep Borehole (Кольская сверхглубокая скважина). Although it has been long since abandoned the hole still exists today, and measures about 40 000 feet in depth.

Be it for research or whatever claim have been told; The Kola Borehole is not the only time Russia dug further than they should have, and several holes can still be found today, unprotected in the desolate Russian wilderness.

The biggest mistake of my life is going down one of these holes.

A year ago my work took me to a small Russian fishing village located in Siberia. It's a tiny place populated by no more than 200 people, most of them fishermen or hunters.

It wasn't the first time being a scientist had gotten me into strange situations. I'm a geologist, which is not important for the purpose of this story, but I have experience in search and rescue operations back home in the United States.

My Russian language abilities were less than satisfactory, and considering only two people beside my crew spoke English in the village, it was a challenge to say the least. However, with the right spirit and willingness to share a bottle of vodka, they were some of the friendliest people I'd met in my entire life.

I particularly enjoyed the company of the village's only 'police' officer, Vadim, who happened to speak at least a basic level of English. His job mostly consisted of escorting people home after they had a bit too much to drink, although he oftentimes partook in the drinking rather than stopping it. Needless to say, we quickly became good friends.

We rather enjoyed ourselves in such a bizarre world, cut off from civilisation. At least we did until the ninth month of our deployment.

One of the local's seven year old daughter had gone missing.

Her name was Daria, and she had been out playing with her friends around an old abandoned building widely believed to be a soviet era silo. The whole structure had been closed off for almost forty years and forgotten, yet the children loved hanging out in the area.

On that particular day the 'silo' was open. The doors were broken down which revealed a large room full of ancient equipment, and a large, dark hole in the centre.

The hole measured about 50 feet in diameter, and the depth was unknown. There was a basic elevator platform in the centre of the hole, like something used for descending mines. All that could be seen was endless darkness reaching into the abyss, Daria had fallen into it.

I immediately knew in my heart that the fall had killed her. A fall that deep, even if the bottom was a pool of water, it would be lethal.

The other children insisted that Daria had called out for help after falling into the hole, which gave out false hope to the terrified mother.

It was the first time I had seen Vadim efficiently work to put together a rescue operation. Calling for official aid so far out was a hopeless task, even if they sent help they would arrive too late.

Seeing as I had some experience in that field, alongside basic first aid, I volunteered, as did one of my colleagues, Stanley.

While the mechanics attempted to revive the old machinery, Including the elevator, I attached a sinker to a line in hopes of measuring the depth. The line wasn't long enough to determine where the bottom was, even though the longest ropes combined measured almost 1000 feet.

After a couple of hours the mechanics announced that the elevator was ready, but they had found some sort of protective suits. According to the few documents found in the facility, the atmospheric pressure was quite high and the temperatures reached up to 150°F.