text: Hello! This one's not really fantasy, I don't think. Maybe it's more "speculative fiction", I don't know my genres very well here, I'm afraid :( It's shorter and pretty different from what I usually write. Undoubtedly rough in places. Let me know of any sentences that could be reworked. I know they're there, but it's hard for me to notice sometimes. I do know the very first sentence needs to be changed, but no matter how much I shift it around, I can't seem to get it to flow better. Enjoy! &#x200B; &#x200B; Monster of the Lake By Thomas Bradford In a forest of tall trees there is a clearing, and in this clearing is a lake, and on the surface of this lake you float. The forest is quiet, the lake still. Your body gently lifts and falls on the water’s surface, divided between the black depths and the cold air. This division is not equal, with your body’s greater half belonging to the depths. Your ears are submerged, the sounds of the world muffled and distant, beyond reach. The sky is gray, dark, with the threat of a storm that never comes, a promise of rain that is never fulfilled. Everything is perpetual dampness, leaving your bones cold, your soul left with the longing for fire, and warmth. There is no one besides you. You are floating alone. Yet that is not entirely the truth, because there is something else. Something down below, at the end of the darkness. Something that lives in the depths of the lake, with its eyes eternally poised, searching for you. There’s something in the lake. It wants you down there with it. At times such as now, when the waters are still and nothing disturbs the mirror of their surface, when your thoughts are content, there appears an object rising beneath you. A coil, unfurling from the black void beneath the surface. A coil of metal. A hook, rusted and dull, rising at the end of a serpentine chain cast by a corpulent hand. All is quiet, peaceful, and you never suspect the chain’s presence. Taken unawares, like the prey of a stalking animal, you are hooked by this chain. With no chance to cry out, you are pulled beneath the surface without a sound. The waters are undisturbed by your departure. Gently they ebb and flow, their reflection of the sky unbroken in your absence. More perfect. Spiraling, descending, you watch the daylight recede. First it is at arm’s length, and you can still reach for it, then the moment has passed and it is beyond your grasp. With each tug of the chain, it drifts further and further away, as you sink with the hook that has caught you. Darkness covers you, the Stygian world closing in, smothering your sight, severing your hope. You cannot breathe. The darkness is not empty. Certain things dwell there - misshapen things, not living, but neither dead. Aspects of yourself, the dark reflections that exist in you. Thoughts, memories, once forgotten but now remembered in terrible flashes. Like ghoulish specters they rise from the deep, one by one to greet you like old friends, each with a smile on its face. Smiles which bare many teeth. There is no air to scream, no chance to free yourself. Your only recourse is to cry, the tears flowing into the water around you, joining with the lake, making it stronger as you are pulled down. Down. Your only company are the phantoms of time, the things you never wanted to remember, but will never fully forget. The daylight has disappeared, the surface gone from you so completely that you are uncertain it was ever real. The world below becomes your reality, the dark water and grinning faces your nightmare, and your mind is filled with the terrible certainty that you will never get out again. Everything is distorted, all clarity lost. You become convinced that if there ever was a world above, somewhere free of this dark place, that that world is not for you. That you belong out of sight, in the darkness. As you think of giving in, of stopping your struggle to let the chain pulling you take its course, one last flicker of clarity does emerge, and you wonder how many times this has happened, and for what reason it continues to happen. What is the purpose of this lake, and why are you there? The chain pulls and pulls. You’re close to the bottom. With no air to breathe, surely you should be dead by now. And yet you live, trapped in this state of suffocation, desperate and denied the salvation of a single breath. Revolving slowly, your eyes catch a glimpse below of the thing that has ensnared you. Just a glimpse, a vague outline of the monstrous creature. Something that looks human. Eyes searing with hatred, a loathing that can never be undone. It grasps the chain, a murderous intensity in its eyes, in that grip, in every movement of it. This creature wants you dead. It wants nothing more than for you to end. This thing exists because you exist. Its life is tied undeniably to yours, and yet it wants you to die. It does not care, for its sole purpose in being is for you to suffer, and ultimately cease to be. To meet this creature, to descend to the bottom of this lake and stare into its pale face, is to mean your death. Until then, all your efforts will be distorted, reshaped into ridiculous failures unworthy of note. All your dreams will be taken from you, smothered in their cribs while you watch in silence. Perhaps you will fall to the lake’s bottom one day. Perhaps the monster will win in the end. But today the hook’s hold on you isn’t strong enough, and you slip free. Terror takes hold as you flail, scrambling back to the surface, to pull yourself out of this nightmare. The monster remains where it is, for it is patient and sure that one day it will have you. Your ascent from the terrible deep seems never-ending, and you are afraid the surface might have been something you dreamed a long time ago. Or that perhaps the darkness has irreversibly changed you in some way, spoiled you, and now you can never return. You don’t see the surface appear before you. There is no long and ardent journey towards some far-off light. One moment you’re still mired beneath, with the voices and whispers from the past pressing around your head, each getting its final say in before you pass from their domain. Each phantom grinning and chuckling at your pathetic motions. And then you are out, once again floating at the surface, without a splash or a loud gasp for air. You’re just back, like nothing had happened. The chill air drying your face is the only indication you ever left. No relief at your escape, no thankfulness to still be alive - your mind runs with one terrible certainty: It will happen again. Sooner or later there will be another hook, another chain, and you will be pulled under again. True escape will never be possible. You are trapped in this place, trapped in this cycle without end. No. A cycle with one end. The quiet is broken by your screams, the peaceful air filled with your wretched cries. There are people standing at the edge of the lake. You didn’t notice them before, but you see them now. How can they not see you? How does your screams, your thrashing, not get their attention? But they do see. They are not blind. All around the lake’s perimeter the people stand in silence, watching as you struggle, listening as you wail and cry, unable to save yourself. Some of the people have never swam these dark waters; others know the dangers. None can help. They’re all preoccupied, they have their own problems, and dreams. They don’t have time for yours. Some of the people leave, disappearing into the fog and the trees, perhaps to wander into lakes of their own one day. The others look away, and hope that your cries will end soon.