The Antiquarium of Sinister Happenings - Lot 121: There’s A Ladder In The Middle Of The Ocean

Episode Date: April 16, 2026

Lot 121: There’s A Ladder In The Middle Of The Ocean Consigned by The Crooked Boy Starring Jarret Griffis Dee Quintero Trevor Shand Produced and Engineered by Kevin Seaman   Unsought Goods **Much obliged for using the Rocket Money and Mint Mobile link below. It lends a helping hand to our little shop, and we’re truly grateful for the support. Rocket Money: http://rocketmoney.com/SINISTER Shopify: https://www.shopify.com/tash   https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/oy7miw/theres_a_ladder_in_the_middle_of_the_ocean/   Theme music by The Newton Brothers   Additional music by CO.AG ([e-mail])   Clement Panchout   Vivek Abhishek   SUBSCRIBE to them on YOUTUBE: / vivekhsihba   LIKE them on FACEBOOK:  https://rb.gy/nhgn0i Follow them on Spotify/ iTunes/ Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/rxdcjqt Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

For an ad-free experience, visit the obsidiancovenant.com. I knew it. Call it a hunch or call it what you will. But I just knew you'd be here. And right on schedule. I've got something fascinating for you today. Yes, a section of ladder. Recovered from open water. No vessel claims it.

No structure is missing it. And yet, it continues. The metal is dull, pitted, barnacles fused into it like old scars. Be careful where you place your hands. There, you see it? The marking, cut directly into the rung, not scratched, deliberate. We've compared it against known languages, archived symbology. Nothing aligns.

You are about to descend into, there is a ladder in the middle of the ocean. Before we begin, I want to point out some of the customers whose names have been etched in brass on this beautiful plaque I had made above the front desk. These are some of the members of the inner circle of the antiquarium. We go by the Obsidian Covenant. Recent initiates include Robert Powell, Chelsea Carroll, Cheyenne, Dominic Hernandez, Andy Monroe, and Devon Cantrevis.

We are ever appreciative of your devotion to The Order. Go to The Obsidian Covenant.com to receive the sacrament. Sounds harmless enough, right? Welcome to the antiquarium of sinister happenings and odd goings on. There's a ladder in the middle of the ocean. It was discovered 25 miles off the coast of Maine by a lobster fisherman. The tip of a rusted rung ladder, patinated and crusted with barnacles, jutting up through the ocean's glassy skin.

You haven't heard about it on the news. You wouldn't have. The Navy buttoned it down faster than you can say Semper Fortis. Sonar scans showed the ladder descended in a vertical line for eight miles. That's six miles past the ocean floor, disappearing into a newly discovered trench that made Mariana look like the shallow end of a pool. Okay, I'm being facetious, but it goes without saying that the higher-ups were concerned. Who the fuck had built the ladder in the middle of the ocean?

Where'd this trench come from? Aliens? Russia? That's where I came in. I was a Mitoch officer in the Navy's oceanography program, working on experimental... Never mind. Not that it doesn't matter, it does.

But if I talk about what I did, who I am, and why I'm here, I'd no doubt wake up on a trap door with a noose around my neck and treason charges being read to me by a guy in a starched uniform. I figure there's a damn good chance that might happen anyway. Still, I'm compelled to document this because people deserve to know what I saw. The things that haunt the back of my eyelids when I close them at night. I'm in a military hospital right now laid up in my own private suite. I'm trying to heal, but without rest, it's proving impossible.

I figure getting this out of my system might help. I hope it will, at least. But what do they say in Shawshank? Hope is a dangerous thing. Anyway, I was never great at beginnings, but I guess I should start with the dive. We called it a submersible, but it was really a suit. This was no Jules Verne, clunky, cumbersome,

sink like a rock diving suit. It was a lightweight, pressure-resistant, and equipped with all the bells and whistles, that lent it its not unfamiliar nickname, Iron Man. That's not to say it was one of those skin-tight jobs you see that scuba divers wearing. It looked more like those suits, guys diffusing bombs and war zones wear. That aside, I was thankful there wasn't going to be a 60-pound oxygen tank misaligning my spine. The Iron Man was equipped with an electrolysis filter, which converted ocean water into breathable oxygen. The whole shebangs,

was invisible on enemy radars and could supposedly withstand a descent of this stature. Not that it had been tested, of course. Basically, I'd be crawling down an ominous eight-mile ocean ladder in an experimental suit that had only been tried in navy swimming pools. My colleagues seized on this predicament, jokingly calling me Lyca in the hours leading up to the dive. In case you're not familiar, Lyca was the dog Soviet shot up in distress. space in the 50s, the dog who died. So as I stood on the hem of a small Navy vessel, also experimental, don't even ask, looking at the first few rungs of the ocean ladder, which sat 20 feet off the starboard,

I wondered if this was my last taste of fresh air. I hope your lunch wasn't too risky. My colleague Matilda, joke with a smirk. Blowing gas in that thing, you'll probably suffocate. I smiled, but behind my smile were nerves. Raw, tingling nerves. I think she saw, because her hand landed on my shoulder. You'll do fine, Jones. This time I smiled for real, hoping she was right. A nearby tech asked me if I was ready.

I nodded, and the bulky submersibles helmet descended me like a meteor. It really was Iron Man. The big window visor on the front of the helmet doubled as a screen with oxygen, and depth readings, as well as direct comms to and from my people above the surface. There was a POV camera which fed them my perspective as well, so they could monitor and record my descent, which had started an hour ago. I climbed down, rung after rung, daylight fading as I descended into the murky depths. Fish darted past, a little twist of seaweed rolled.

by. It was all very pastoral and oddly existential. The ocean, I'm talking the vast, naked depths of it, is huge and never-ending. Look both ways and you see nothing but bluish green water and swirling walls of sediment. A reminder of how incredibly small and inconsequential never much bothered me until the climb. Now I'll never touch ocean water again. You good, Jones? Matilda's voice in my ear Yeah, hon, I'm hunky fucking Dory My deltoids are screaming Should have put in those hours at the gym

Where the hell are those taxpayer dollars going If you don't look good on a recruitment poster I felt a smile creasing my face The budget we got, they use models for that kind of thing What, you're telling me that strapping young stud Saying forged by the sea isn't a real seaman? What the hell? Did I join up for?

I laughed. If I'd known I'd get this much one-on-one with you, I'd have been on Iron Man a long time ago. Hate to break up the party, but I'm here too, guys. Bradley's voice. I imagine a drone operator. A gangly, pimply kid raised on call of duty. Yeah, that's Bradley.

What do they say about three being a crowd? They say you're closing in on 500 meters. Jesus, already? I looked around. It had gotten darker, the ocean around me fading into a deep, dark blue that bled into a murky cloud. I double-checked my tether, secure. It was a thick steel cable feeding through a pulley, a thing on rollers about the size of a brick, which ran along the right outer bar of the ladder.

The tether was there in case, for some reason, I lost my grip on the narrow, rusted rungs. Because if that happened, well, anyone seen gritty. Gravity? I shuddered at the thought of sinking down and down with nothing and no one to save me. I was breathing. I smiled at the concern in her voice, looked up with the little black eye on the top right of the visor, a camera pointing down at me. They could see my face. I could, in theory, see them too, had they decided to beam some footage onto my visor screen. But this was no time for screwing around. and my visor was filled with the numerical readings.

On the left side set a little map detailing the ladder and my position, a red dot on it. Just fine, darling. The reason we weren't using a pod submersible, a single-man coffin connected to the above by a steel cable, was because I was on the lookout for any markings that might be etched into the ladder's metal skin, anything to denote its origin. So far, there'd been nothing but barnacle. acrabics of skeleton, and a thick patina of algae. When can I ladder slide?

Or can you throw a movie up on my screen? This is getting tedious. I was half joking, but not really. It was boring as hell. One rung after the next. To make the descent faster, I was going to ladder slide. Hands cupped around the outside rails, feet on the outside for breaks. But I couldn't do that unless I hit a certain water pressure.

Some geeky nonsense. about how it would be easier to control the descent. The tether would be a problem here. The pulley was built to eat through rocks and had been satisfyingly crunching through barnacles the whole way down. Once you hit a thousand meters? You guys pick that number out of a hat? The deeper you go, the greater the pressure bearing down you is.

Makes it easier to control. Shit, you must have skipped that day in school. I joked. Partly. Except for the fact it was in the orientation. Bradley said, trying to hide his irritation. I think he must have been jealous of my rapport with Matilda. I skipped that too.

I smiled again, even though I hadn't been joking. Closing in on 750 meters, Leica. Matilda said, calling me that goddamn dog. Better hope I've got a little more luck in my bones than Ruski canines. Secretly hoping I was right, I'd hate for you guys to fish me up and just fine. my naked skeleton. Eesh. You've got charm.

That's got to be worth something. Is it worth dinner next week? God, you guys make me sick. Don't get blue, kiddo. You can carry rings at the wedding. Dinner first. Where? I know a great place called the base cafeteria.

Eight o'clock Friday? It's a date. Continuing down into the abyss. I'd worked up a killer sweat by the time I'd reached the midnight zone, which sat just past a thousand meters. Murky blackness crushed in. It was suffocating. Erie. I clicked on my shoulder-mounted floodlights.

Two powerful beams of light blasted forward and... Wham! An ugly deep sea fish with a mouth of fangs went whizzing right by my head. I barked a pathetic yelp and jerked back, nearly losing my grip to... on the ladder. What's wrong? You okay? Fine. Satan's spawn just caught me off guard. Deep sea life? Oh, the deepest. You are gopher slide. I hesitated. Suddenly not sure how I felt about plunging down at speeds unknown into the deep, inky blackness beneath me. Wish me luck, kids. I sucked a deep breath, moved my hands and feet off the rungs and to the outer rails. And then I slid.

It wasn't as exciting as I thought, but it was considerably faster and less draining than climbing down. My eyes watched the ladder blur by, still on the lookout for any markings. Once or twice I skidded to a stop, thinking I'd spotted something, only to discover it was nothing but deep sea gunk caked to the metal. By the time I did see any markings, I was too far gone for anyone to care. I stopped Not sure what I was looking at A strange symbol Edged directly into the middle

of the rung in front of me Cross between Arabic and Chinese Guys You see in this No reply Hello I'm fine Is this getting through

Silence No reply Jones, you there? What are you getting us? I'm cool. Buddy, you get us? Just fine. Can you hear me?

I felt panic squeezing at my lungs. Was the comm system fucking up? My screen began to flicker, glitching out. Buddy, you get us? I was growing concerned. I reached up to my visor and gave it a smack. The readings on the screen momentarily realigned, before spazzing out beyond control.

Now my colleague's voices were warbled, words were lost, full of static. Guys, I can't hear you. can't hear you. Fear in my voice. A low home built in my ears and then silence. That's the moment.

You felt it, didn't you? The urge to lean in a little closer, to go further. I think it's time we gave pause, just to give a little space. That's all. You stayed back.

He didn't. Let's continue, shall we? What are you getting us? I said I'm cool. Buddy, you get us? Just fine. Can you hear me? I felt panic squeezing at my lungs.

Was the comm system fucking up? My screen began to flicker, glitching out. Buddy, you get us? I was growing concerned. I reached up to my visor and gave it a smack. The readings on the screen momentarily realigned before spazzing out beyond control. Now my colleague's voices were,

What do you get? Warbled. Words were lost. Full of static. Guys, I can't hear you. Fear in my voice. A low hum built in my ears and then... Silence.

No voices. Bast in the glow of the flickering screen. I'd lost contact with the world above. I froze. Not sure what to do. Split between this symbol on the wrong and the disconnect from my safety. connect from my safety net. Well, that's not completely true.

Remember the tether connecting me to the wrong ladder? There was a little button on the pulley box beneath a loose-side case. Punch that button, and the pulley box would zip me back up to the surface. Okay. Fuck it. I was going back up. None of this was worth a damn if I didn't have my crew watch in my back. I fumbled out an underwater camera stashed in the pouch of my chest.

snapped a photo of the symbol and began the ten-foot climb back up to the pulley box. That's when I saw the mermaid. It flitted out of view, the silhouette of a man-sized fish. I froze, not sure what I'd seen. It had only been there for an instant, etched in the beam of my floodlights, and it was gone.

Had I really seen anything? My breath was shallow. cold in my helmet. I looked to my right. The water was black and murky. First, I didn't realize what I was seeing. Wall of bodies. Hundreds of mermaids surrounded me.

Their eyes glowing pinpricks in the light. Their needle-sharp teeth jagged and yellow. They were awful, deep sea things. Their tails yellow and scaly. Their torso is pale and emaciated. Instead of arms, they had straw-thin appendages with hooked. When my light hit them, darting off into the darkness in a cacophony of shrill chitters. Jesus Christ!

I whispered. My voice hoarse. My throat like sandpaper. I looked up and saw the pulley box. Five rungs away. The button taunting me. The button would save me. Or maybe I was already past the point of saving.

I didn't wait. I climbed. Fast. Fast as I could go. One rung after the next. Four rungs. Three. Two. A shrill chittering split through the water. I looked to my left as a mermaid shot towards me. Its hooked appendages plowing at my suit. I grunted and threw up a defensive arm. A razor shredded through my flesh. Blood plumed out of my ruined arm. I cried out. My suit beat, screaming warnings in my ear. The fabric instantly sucked together, automatically sealing the breach as the mermaid flew off. And in came another. I threw the button box on the pulley open, about to slam it down when... A freight train barreled through my midsection. The horrible, twisted face of the mermaid filled my visor. I floated, entangled with this awful creature. It was undulated as it chittered in my face.

A great ear-sreading sound that could cut up. bolt of fear through my stomach like an icy dagger. I grunted and jammed my fingers into its gills, hating the way its flesh crackled as I twisted. Now the mermaid was struggling out of my grip. I was winning, rounded into the ladder, jarring the pulley box, and something else hammered into my back. It was like being caught in a trash compactor. A dozen of these things crushed me in on me. I screamed, flailed, fought for my life.

Then suddenly The mermaids dispersed Tales flickering as they flew off into the depth I was alone Through the water Ten I assessed the damage My suit was mostly okay

Except for my arm Blood plumed through the fabric Fenneled out and into the ocean Each section of Iron Man was isolated So if one part got damaged It wouldn't compromise the integrity of the whole outfit so water wasn't flooding my helmet.

It very well could be soon. There was a crack in my visor. I quickly reeled myself in, closing in on the ladder and the pulley box, which was my last and final hope. Then I saw it. My heart sank. My stomach dropped.

The pulley was nearly hanging off the ladder's rail. It was close to breaking off. If that happened, I'd simply drift. die in this oppressive darkness. I moved slowly, surely, reeling myself in on the cable, which rattled the box with each pull. I was lassoing the excess cable around my elbow as I went. My hands reached out, fingertips skimming the wrong ladder. That's when I saw the shark.

At first I thought it may have been a mountain that slid off the land some long year ago, left to float these murky depths eternally. But no, it was a shark. The biggest living thing I'd ever seen in my whole life. It must have been twice the size of a Boeing 747. A great pale monster outlined in my floodlights. Eyes as biggest swimming pools. Its mouth.

I couldn't bear to think what might be in its mouth. Oh my God. But that didn't seem to be enough. Oh my fucking God! It filled my horizon, moving closer. I was paralyzed by fear. My heart jackhammering my rib cage like a manic construction worker. My hand reached out for the ladder, grabbed the rung, started to pull myself up.

When the pulley box broke free of the outer rail, I looked up and slipped. My other hand shot out, grasped the ladder, and then a rush of water blew me a way. way. The shark was passing, was sinking, propelled downward by the force of the shark's movement, displacing impossible tons of liquid as it swam. I flailed, grunted, screamed. The readings on my visors still flashing mornings. It was being sucked down into the decks. The shark continued. The ladder slowly, painfully pulling away from me until it faded from my trite calling to my people above. screaming into my helmet. At some point I stopped, realizing they were long gone.

So was I. I sunk for years. I felt that way, at least. Left to die, a prisoner of the ocean, stranded in a world of pertinent. After a while, still sinking. I blacked out. I jolted awake at the bottom of the trench in the ruins of a great city. Pillars of rock spires a stone.

The husks of incredible mausoleums and coliseums rose around me, greenish in their eon old patina. The city filled the trench as far as I could see, which was oddly far, seeing as a strange glowing orb filled my horizon. It was an impossible sun, a green ball of light pulsing and bubbling with heat, hovering on, in the distance, bathing these alien depths in ethereal light. I stood up. A thin tindrel of blood trailed up through the fabric from the gash on my forearm. I knew it wasn't a mortal cut, but it was nasty and left me feeling woozy. I sensed it tight with a Velcro strap and looked around.

There was nothing but dead building stretched endlessly. Sea fish cut through vacant windows and doorways. I wondered the city for a while, looking for signs of life or any vestiges of the ladder that had brought me here. I found neither. I walked for a while. Hours. Days, maybe. I slept some.

I awoke and walked more. Time must have worked differently down there. The atmosphere felt languid and disordered. I'm not sure how long I spent wondering. I found sprawling pictographs on the inside of a domed building. They depicted an aquatic people that once ruled this underwater world. I saw a hundred-foot effigies of a multi-headed, dragon-like beast with a multitude of claws, legs, and a variety of gills spread out across its form.

Among them were other smaller statues of the beast rolled into a bull, Some time during my interminable sentence spent in that Psycheon kingdom, I realized the ball statues were depicting the beast's likeness as an infant, curled up in an egg. That gave new meaning to the glowing green orb on the horizon. Sometimes, after staring at the green sun for hours, I thought I could decipher the outline of the fetal beast wrapped in on itself, pulsing with life, waiting to be. born. Eventually my mind slipped away from me. I heard voices, Matilda's, Bradley's. A barking dog, I thought might have been like it. Sometimes I spoke to them. My other times I didn't, just grateful for the

company. And then, after a long, long while, I was brought back to life on a lobster boat. Two grizzled manors with accents like molasses found me floating lifelessly. They scraped off my suit and resuscitated me on the fish-gut-strung-drawn deck of their little lobster tug. They thought I was dead. My skin was cold, pale as a fish belly. Then I blinked to life. I took a rattling breath of fresh air, savoring the salty taste on my tongue. I looked up at the real world, at the two men around me.

All I could do was cry. I was brought to a hospital, then airlifted to the one I'm in now. Matilda came to visit me immediately. She asked me what had happened. I told her, I could see in her eyes that she didn't believe me. I wouldn't believe me. I was gaunt, my hair long, my beard, scraggling. I looked like I had survived a lifetime on a desert island,

except for the fact that I was ghostly pale and not sunburned to a cracking brown. But it was good to see her, until she looked me in the eyes and told me I'd been missing for eight months. Military man after military man came to visit me. Higher-ups and crisp uniforms weighed down by medals. I was interviewed until my head spun. My story never changed. I told them to check my handheld camera.

I learned it was never recovered. Whether they didn't believe me or didn't want to, wasn't entirely clear. I had my scar to back up my story and my time spent missing. I told them to send another man down. But they gave me some bureaucratic word vomit about how the risk assessment, blah, blah, blah, blah. Apparently that suit I'd taken down wasn't cheap. Who would have thought? In the end, none of what I said seemed to matter.

Perhaps they figured me for a deserter who took their top secret tech and defected to God knows where. Chauphlamador, maybe. All I know is that at some point or another, I was declared insane and ordered to a stint of convalescence. Where I remain. I've tried to make sense of it all, but I can't. I wonder about the ladder and whether it was built as an invitation to that underwater place or as an escape.

Since I've gotten back, there's been a hollow ache in the center of my chest. A low hum in the pit of my soul. It's constant. Dread at what might be growing in that green sun. Dread at what might be growing in that green sun. might become of the world if that thing ever rises to reclaim its kingdom. I've come to the end of my tale, and I still don't feel any better. Every time I close my eyes, I see the green sun.

I see it pulsing and flickering with life. And now I know for certain it's an egg. Thank you for your patronage. Hope you enjoyed your new relic as much as I've enjoyed passing along its sordid history. It does come with our usual warning, however. Absolutely no refunds, no exchanges, and we won't be held liable for anything that may

or may not occur while the object is in your possession. If you've got an artifact with mysterious properties, perhaps it's accompanied by a history of bizarre and disturbing circumstances. Maybe you'd be interested in dropping it and its story by the shop to share with other customers. Please reach out to

Antiquarium Shop at Gmail.com. A member of our team will be in touch. Till next time, we'll be waiting for you whenever you close your eyes in the space between sleep and dream.

During regular business hours, of course, or by appointment, only for you, our best customer. The Antiquarium of Sinister Happenings, Lot 1-2-1, there's a ladder in the middle of the ocean, consigned by the Crooked Boy, starring Jared Griffiths, D. Quintero, and Trevor Shand. Featuring Stephen Knowles as the antique dealer. Produced and engineered by Kevin Seaman. Theme music by the Newton Brothers. Additional music by Coag, Vivek Abyshech, Clement Panchout, Nicholas Redding, and Conan Freeman. The Antiquarium of Sinister Happenings is created and curated by Trevor and Lauren Shand. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter at Antiquarium Pod.

Call the Antiquarium at 646-481-7197.