Rusalki

It was early June 1982. I was a young biology student and amateur photographer in excellent physical condition and one of the best divers in the Russian Navy, which sent me and six other divers to Lake Baikal in southeastern Siberia. Our mission was to photograph any creature—animal or plant—underwater. One of my colleagues also carried a fishing net to catch some larger species if he had the opportunity.

It was my first time in Baikal, and I was impressed by the beauty of the place—a vast strip of ice over fresh water surrounded by mountains. From time to time, we heard a humming sound produced by the wind scraping the icy crust. Someone said that the sound we heard was the melancholic singing of people from the lake, people from old stories told by the villagers living around the Baikal.

Obviously, I did not believe the tale, but, truth be told, because of the frigid waters, we knew little about what lay beneath the ice sheet.

At first, everything went as planned. We dug a hole in the ice above the deepest part of the lake and descended, connected to the safety cable. We were ready to face the low temperature and the sense of disorientation produced by the clear and bluish water, but we had no preparation for what we were about to find many feet below.

I thought my imagination was playing tricks on me when I noticed lights at the bottom of the lake as we reached 150 feet down. Could the lights originate from bioluminescent creatures? I tried to draw my colleagues' attention to the phenomenon, but I soon realized that the lights were not the only strange thing. Likewise, I had the impression that someone was watching us.

That strange feeling of fear and imminent danger forced me to turn to a spot where no one was looking. My colleagues became aware of my frenzied reaction and turned in that direction.

There they were, immense humanoid beings about nine feet tall, with silvery skin, and a fish face with round and inexpressive eyes. Their feet caught my attention because they were ample and resembled the tail of a beta fish. Their hands were white and had membranes between the thin, bony, long fingers.

For a moment, we stood still, just watching them. They also studied us as if uncertain of what to do next. However, the expedition member carrying the fishing net had the worst idea of all: to catch one of the creatures. I gestured to him not to do this, but it was too late. The creatures reacted when they saw the man extending the net toward one of them. A wave of force propelled us to the surface at great speed.

The researchers outside the lake rescued my team. All of us were in bad shape because of the instantaneous decompression. We had two decompression chambers, but one of them was broken. So, only four of us received treatment inside the machinery. The other three divers died on the spot.

We were taken to the hospital and received intensive treatment for the next few days. I barely survived, and as soon as I was able to stand up and say a few words, the government sent people to interrogate me. The conversation went on for hours. They repeated questions with different words, asked me to recount what I had just said, and made insinuations that I was not cooperating with the investigations. It was as if I had committed a crime! In the end, they instructed me never to talk about the incident. Their subtle threats against my family and me gave me the creeps. I knew that they would carry out these threats if I opposed them.

I went on with my life, finished college, got married, and had children. I earned the Captain 3rd rank in the Navy. During all this time, I never mentioned the incident at Lake Baikal to anyone, not even my wife. But the encounter with the aquatic people never left my mind, and I used my spare time to research. I needed to understand what they were.

I never found any mention of such creatures in books about the aquatic fauna of the Baikal or any other marine environment. My research pointed in one direction only, that of the legends.

Rusalka.

Slavic folklore featured several narratives about a mysterious and mischievous entity associated with water, resembling the mermaids or water nymphs from other stories around the world. In Russia, the rusalka were also known by other names: vodyanitsa, vodyaniha, vodyantikha, kupalka, shutovka, loskotukha, shchekotukha, shchekotunya, mavka.

According to legend, the rusalki (plural of rusalka) were most dangerous in early June, when they would leave the depths and approach the shore, from where they dragged humans into the water. It was the reason swimming was forbidden during the first week of June in the past.

I have always been a rational man, but after that encounter in the lake—and having researched those beings for so long—I began to wonder if there was a connection between the creatures I saw in Baikal and those of the legends.

Another piece of information regarding strange occurrences at Lake Baikal caught my attention during my research.

Lights!

For instance, in 1977, two researchers in a submersible vehicle spotted a luminosity at a great depth. In 1987, a group of 13 people witnessed purple phosphorescent lights many feet above the lake's waters near Shida village. In 1990, people from Kudara-Somon village saw golden lights in the air. Another incident happened in 2009 in Buryatia when a father and his son observed glares above the lake just before dawn. In 2010, people saw similar luminosity in the Irkutsk region.

Something told me that the lake creatures and the mysterious lights were connected. I just didn't know how.

My greatest desire was to return to the lake, but I knew that I would be in trouble if the government found out. So, I never tried it.

One day, the vice admiral called me to his office. I couldn't imagine what she might want with me. Anxiously, I saluted when I entered her office and stood by the door, awaiting her orders.

The woman, sitting at his desk, looked at me with an indecipherable expression and said:

"Sit down, Captain Volkov. We need to talk."

I sat at the chair on the opposite side of the desk with the formality that the occasion called for. Then I saw a file with my name on the desk. That made me even more curious—and also nervous.

"I just read your resume. I'm impressed with your Navy career," she spoke, drumming his fingers on my file.

"Thank you," I replied, although I knew she didn't call me there to praise my professional accomplishments.

"It also says that you were at Lake Baikal in 1982."

I swallowed dryly and confirmed.

"You've been investigating something. How come?" she continued.

So that was it! They knew that I hadn't dropped the subject of the lake beings. I found it odd that I was there instead of at jail.

"I never commented to anyone—"

She held up her hand, ordering silence. "I want to know the reason for the research."

"Well, on that occasion, we encountered life forms unknown to modern science. I am a biologist, and my curiosity led me to try to find an explanation for the existence of such beings."

"And what conclusion did you come to?"

I sighed. "Legends. My research points only to old stories of aquatic beings compared to melusines. There is no citation anywhere about any real creature of the kind that we saw in the lake."

"I know those legends very well, as I have researched such beings for several years."

The revelation surprised me, and I must have shown it in my expression, for the officer across the table chuckled.

"The beings from Baikal?" I managed to ask.

"Yes, and I believe they’re intelligent and possess sophisticated culture and advanced technology."

The information was astonishing. "How do you know that?"

She opened the drawer and pulled out a 9 x 12 envelope, and passed it to me. "I got the idea to use our satellites to investigate the bottom of the lake after learning that Egyptian archaeologists use this method to find tombs under the desert sands."

From inside the envelope, I took satellite images of circular structures surrounded by luminosity at the bottom of the waters. I immediately remembered the lights I saw in the dark depths of the Baikal.

"A city!" I muttered, perplexed.

"I believe so."

I felt my hands tingling, almost numb.

"No human ancestor built those structures. Baikal is more than 25 million years old!"

My superior nodded and continued, "Not only the oldest lake in the world, but the deepest and the largest in volume. We don't know even half of the creatures that live there. It’s easy to imagine that a species had enough time to evolve and became as intelligent as ours, or maybe even more. Most likely, those things have been in the lake long before humans existed. That is my guess."

"Without proof, all we have is pure speculation."

"Exactly. There is only one way to know the truth."

I'm sure my pupils dilated because of what I heard next.

"You, Mikhail Volkov, will go to the depths to contact those beings. You’ll bring back the answers we need."

I swallowed hard. "It will be my honor, but—why not send a remotely operated submersible first?"

"It was done years ago, after we received these images, but the vehicle failed 600 feet down."

"What happened?"

"The beings destroyed it." She pulled another envelope from the drawer and handed it to me.

I shivered when I saw its contents. Pictures of the creatures, just as I remembered them, fishy faces, bony hands, fin-like feet, and great stature. The images showed ten or more approaching the camera, but I suspected many others surrounded the machine, beyond the lit area.

"So they are hostile as the legends say."

"Perhaps—We will only know for sure if we have direct contact with them," the vice admiral replied, and at that point, she ended our meeting.

I had an intensive preparation the following days. I was tense, imagining everything that could go wrong.

My wife and two children knew nothing about my mission, but they noticed my altered state of nerves the day of my departure, and asked questions. I refused to answer them, but explained that I was embarking on a risky mission from which I might not return. The terror on their faces weakened my resolution a little. To avoid further suffering, I said my goodbyes and got into the car waiting for me outside the house.

A bad omen in the deepest of my heart marked my return to the lake. It was mid-summer, but thick clouds darkened the day. The wind blew like a lament across the thin surface of ice.

The submersible was on the platform of the ship. I watched the small transportation for quite a while, feeling my stomach contracting and a chill down my spine.

When I finally boarded the small underwater craft, I sat in the control room with an unnerving claustrophobic feeling. The place was cramped. The life support systems, batteries, and motors were mounted behind my seat. The ballast tank was under my feet. At least I would have an excellent field of vision thanks to the aircraft-style canopy.

With everything ready, the cables lowered the submersible into the water. I had learned to handle it very well in a training replica before I got there, but now I was nervous and forgot for a few seconds what to do next. I suddenly laughed, realizing that the onboard computer had the coordinates already. All I had to do was try to relax for the next hour and a half, the estimated time to descend the 5,387 feet to the bottom.

The visibility at that time of the year was not as good as in winter or early spring, but the submersible’s powerful lights illuminated everything around.

I soon noticed bright spots. I dimmed the headlights and could see them better. They were as beautiful as the first time and now had an even more special meaning because I knew that they were not produced by bioluminescent beings, but by some artificial mechanism. Just thinking about it made my heart race.

"Captain Volkov, are you seeing this?" asked the officer who was on the ship. His voice resonated with excitement. He could see everything ahead through the cameras on the submersible.

"Affirmative."

The bright spots grew large and wide before my eyes. They were phosphorescent spheres in various colors. I never imagined staring at such a beautiful thing, so magnificent and rare! At that moment, there was no more fear and doubt in my heart, only excitement for what I was about to see. It would be the greatest discovery in mankind's history.

Suddenly, all my excitement evaporated. A round, glowing shape was coming toward the submersible.

The distressed voice of the same military man echoed in the cabin, "Captain, divert! The impact will happen in a few seconds."

I tried, I swear I tried, but the impression I got was that the luminous globe came after me. When the collision happened, the orb projected my submersible many feet upward. The watercraft's lights flickered and went off, as did the turbines, and I was now in complete darkness.

My hands moved frantically in the dark until I found the emergency LED flares and activated one of them. Now able to see the control panel, I pressed the communication button and called the ship, but had no answer. I tried to reactivate the thrusters, but again, nothing. There was no power to empty the tanks and have the necessary buoyancy to ascend. The vehicle was inoperative.

My hands trembled. My whole body shuddered. The only way to survive was to use the escape immersion equipment. The suit was on the back of the seat. I barely had enough room to move, and the dim light wouldn't help either. It would be hard to put the apparatus on, then go up many hundred feet alone, surrounded by darkness, but it was my only chance.

Before I could move to the back—and despite the diffuse lighting—I discerned many beings around the submersible.

"Rusalki!" I whispered, stunned, and stayed in the same place, petrified. I didn't even care about my escape plan. There was no escaping from those beings.

What to do then?

I tried to remember all the instructions I had received from psychologists and communication experts during my training. It was necessary to establish positive contact through gestures and facial expressions. Very well. This was what I had come for, wasn't it? Time to make friends.

I smiled with my mouth closed (showing my teeth could be interpreted as displaying aggressiveness), raised one hand, and waved slowly.

They didn't respond, but didn't ignore me either. That was good, wasn't it?

I heard noises. Were they scratching the hull? The submersible then started to descend further and further. I understood that the vehicle was being pushed down by the creatures. They wanted me to visit their city after all. That was good too, wasn't it?

Soon, I no longer needed the LED flares because the closer I got to the bottom of the lake, the bigger the lights grew. And when I got close enough to distinguish details, I saw translucent domes connected by tunnels. The place was gigantic! Almost as big as Moscow!

The creatures that held my submersible maneuvered it into an enclosure in one of the large domes. The gate opened and closed, and the water got lower and lower until the chamber was empty of the water.

I then heard the hatch opening above me, and I hasted to put on the mask connected to the oxygen tubes. The hatch opened, and a fish face appeared above my head. I wanted to scream, but I couldn't find my voice.

Its immense arm reached into the vehicle and grabbed my shoulder, pulling me up. The mask was ripped from my face by the force of the jolt.

Despite applying force, the rusalka didn't hurt me.

My legs faltered. I couldn’t stand, and fell to my knees at his feet. Nine feet above me, his head tilted in my direction, but his fish eyes remained empty and dark, devoid of expression or emotion.

I heard laughter coming from the other rusalki. Laughter? Was I imagining things? I looked around, and they seemed as impassive as the one in front of me.

With a gesture, the one who dragged me out of the submersible dismissed the others. They turned and headed for a tunnel, disappearing from my sight.

By that time, I had realized I would not die of asphyxiation. My airways were not burning. There was no discomfort in my throat or lungs. What I was breathing was oxygen.

The fish shook off its right fin with vigor and kicked it away. To my surprise, it was an artificial fin, just like the one scuba-dives use. He did the same thing with the left one. I saw two feet—different from human feet, all right, but no doubt feet they were. A pair of long white feet, with bony toes, topped by dark claws, but there were no membranes between the toes. Surely this was the reason they needed to wear fins.

He then brought his hands to his head and turned it to the side. I heard a click, and, shocked, I saw the huge head detach from the neck and drop to the ground without much care. It was not a head at all, but a helmet.

His true face was as white as his hands and feet. That was his real skin color. Wait! So, his silvery skin was—Oh! It was a suit!

He was no fish-man, but a man—better saying, a being extremely similar to a man. His face was angular, his nose was broad and flat, and his eyes were larger than ours, yellow, almost golden, with vertical pupils.

"What is he, so similar to a human, yet not human?"

He planted his hands on his hips as if reading my mind. "Here is your answer, puny human. That's me, in all my splendor."

I got up slowly so as not to startle him. Then I realized it was a ridiculous thought. I couldn't scare him even if I tried. I was much smaller, had no weapons, and was in his domain. Even if I hurt him, others would come and kill me. In fact, why would I even try to hurt a being like that in the first place?

"You are right. You could never hurt me,” he replied, and that's when I realized he was talking to me—not with his voice, but his thoughts.

"Do you understand my thoughts?"

"Yes, I'm glad you finally realized we can communicate in this fashion."

"I haven't come to harm your people. I want you to know that."

"That is a lie. Your people have horrible intentions toward us, and they use idiots like you to fulfill their plans."

"They do? Do you mean others have come here before?"

"Yes, but I'm not just talking about this lake. We live in other deep places on Earth."

"Are you at the bottom of the oceans too?"

"Yes, we arrived here long before humans and formed our colonies."

"Where did you come from?"

"The new generations are born here, so we are as earthlings as you are. If you want to know where our ancestors came from, ah—they came from a planet similar to this one, but in another dimension. Our original world was too populated, and we could damage it. The solution was to start colonies in other worlds. You might imagine we possess the technology to go back and forth as we please."

The lights. He was obviously talking about the lights so many people saw throughout the years. They were spaceships!

"My people live here for millions of years," he went on. "We first arrived after the asteroid impact that disseminated the dinosaurs, when the planet became stable and full of life again, of course. That happened long before your species came to be. You see, we have the right to live here undisturbed."

The more he spoke, the more I could feel his irritation. "I did not come to disturb your people—"

He interrupted me, "Your mistake. The land people always find a way to interfere with the water people. Humans even sent bombs. We don't comprehend the reason for the attacks. We never act with hostility, except when we need to defend ourselves."

"I give you my word that I did not come to attack, nor did I bring weapons."

He laughed, and this time I saw his mouth move, and the sound echoed in the empty room.

"Your vehicle has a bomb, all right. It would be triggered after they received detailed images of our habitat."

"What? I-I didn't know, sir! I swear it!"

"I know that. Usually, the idiots they choose to come to us don't know the real intentions of their leaders."

I looked at the submersible, trying to locate the bomb, although I imagined that the military would not attach the device in such a way that it would be obvious.

"But if you know it carries a bomb, why did you bring it to your city?"

"We completely disabled the equipment, don't you remember?"

"Oh, yes, that blue light."

He nodded.

And my final question could not be any other, "What will happen to me?”

THE END

Bio: Lu Evans; "I have a degree in Journalism, and currently attend the Liberal Arts course at Central New Mexico Community College. I am a playwright, anthologist, editor, translator, and writer of the Fantastic genre having 13 books published. Some are in English, others in Spanish and Portuguese. "

E-mail: Lu Evans

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