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The lake’s surface was like a mirror. It always was. Still and unmoving like a sheet of glass, reflecting the sky and the mountains behind it perfectly on its dark surface. There was ever any wind blowing here to ruffle its placid surface, the air as unshifting as the lake itself.
Sehyoon came here often. Sometimes to paint or sketch, but a lot of the time he came here simply to sit and enjoy peaceful silence. Nobody ever came here, even in the heights of summer. He enjoyed being able to get away from the noise and pressures of daily life. Here, he could decompress.
It was a little hard to get to, off the beaten track and over a dilapidated fence with plenty of sigs along the way warning people not to swim there. Also, a friend once warned him he heard it was haunted or something… Sehyoon didn’t believe in ghosts and he wasn’t superstitious, so he found that pretty hard to believe. Probably just an urban legend.
That said, there was a certain eeriness around here. Perhaps it was the silence which made it feel so strangely sinister, or the dead air. Sehyoon didn’t mind any of that, he easily got over the slight chill sitting in his bones after his first visit and he was the kind of person who had a slight affinity with all things strange.
He could say he’d been compelled to return frequently, in a way. It was as though the lake was calling him to come back again and again.
Sehyoon wandered along the lake shore, the seasons were heading into late autumn, a coolness in the air which warranted a light jacket but the sun was shining. It was pleasant weather, not a single cloud in the sky. The trees had been more or less bare for a couple of weeks now, aside from a few leaves still clinging onto branches here and there.
The shoreline consisted mostly of dark grey pebbles, but at the western end there were some trees overhanging at severe angles which often made him wonder how they came to be like that. Sometimes, Sehyoon walked around to that area because it was a nice place to sit in the shade during the warmer months.
Thinking about it… he’d been coming here for longer than he realised.
But anyway, there was no need to talk all the way over there today. There weren’t even going to be any satisfyingly crunchy autumnal leaves to childishly kick around, as whatever leaves were left to fall landed on the surface of the water because the trees were leaning over so steeply. They’d simply pile up there like false land since there was no wind to push them along the lake.
So, today he walked to the edge of the waterline instead, letting his feet stop just short of the water.
A quiet hum began in in his ears. Tuneful and lamenting. He only ever hear it while up here, but he blamed that on it being as silent as the grave up here. He reasoned that he probably simply didn’t notice it in the city alone the noise of traffic, people and chaos.
He rubbed at his ears, trying to rid himself of the phenomenon. It wasn’t unpleasant, just strange. Nothing to be concerned about, surely. He’d googled it and had diagnosed himself with tinnitus. If it got any worse he would possibly consider mentioning it to a doctor.
Other than the surrounding area, the lake itself was rather featureless, like a void in the world. So Sehyoon wasn’t even sure why he was so drawn to it. The only thing breaking up the emptiness was a single long pier, extending out into the water for a fair few metres. It happened to be his other favoured sitting spot out there.
Some of the wooden boards were missing and a there was some degree of rot setting in, but the boards which remained were still fairly sturdy and easily took his weight. There were more than enough solid planks for him to lay out at the end where he’d either watch the sky or sit and scribble in his sketchbook.
Scribbling was something Sehyoon fully intended on doing today, settling himself down and digging his battered, crumpled sketchbook out of his bag and rummaging for a pencil. He was certain he’d thrown one in there, but his bag was always such a cluttered mess of the detritus of life that it was hard to find just about anything in there. He made a mental note to sort through it when he got home.
Amidst a frustrated sigh, something caught his attention, movement in his peripheral vision. When he turned to look, he was greeted by a leaf floating by.
Strange. The leaves never drifted out this far.
He kept a fixed gaze on the leaf as it altered course, drifting toward the pier.
Even stranger.
He laid on his stomach, reaching downwards and nudging it slightly in the other direction. To his surprise, it disappeared abruptly into the deep waters a second later.
A fish perhaps? Not that he had ever seen a single fish in this lake nor had he ever seen so much as a bug around here, come to think of it. He hadn’t even heard a bird’s song. Maybe that was why there was this atmosphere of deadness.
Sehyoon squinted down into the lake to see if he could make out the sheen of a carp’s scales.
Nothing.
He kept staring for a long collection of seconds until he saw something which startled him. He jolted back, drawing in a sharp breath and a spike of adrenaline coursing through him.
For a moment, he could have sworn he’d seen a face peering up at him from the gloomy, inky waters. He blinked and focused his eyes harder, this time met with his own face reflecting back at him.
Thats all it was, his own reflection and nothing more. Not a mysterious lake ghost like his friend alluded to and not the markedly more horrific option of a dumped corpse in the lake.
He huffed a laugh at himself as his heart rate steadied. Afraid of his damn reflection, how ridiculous. Maybe the stress of life had been getting to him more than he thought.
Before he could dwell on it any further, the leaf resurfaced.
For some inexplicable reason, his curiosity got the better of him this time, finding himself reaching out and plunging his hand into the water to grab it as it sank down again.
What happened next was so rapid, that his brain couldn’t even register what was going on. There was something cold, on his wrist and suddenly he found himself submerged under the surface of the lake.
Instinctively, he tried to swim upwards, but something icy had become attached to his ankle. The same thing which caught his wrist? Maybe. He didn’t know what it was which had insnared him, an old fishing net or something? It didn’t matter. What mattered was it was stuck fast and he couldn’t free himself.
This was where the panic fully kicked in.
No matter how much he thrashed and struggled, the grip of the thing on his ankle was too strong, keeping him there unable to fight his way to the surface.
His heart was beating wildly, pounding so hard it felt like it kept crashing against the inside of his ribcage with each thud. His chest was burning already, lungs begging for air and screaming out for him to take a breath. He clawed at the water as if doing such a thing would help, grabbing at nothing.
He resisted that urge to gasp, knowing it would be all over if he allowed his airways to be filled with water. He looked down, seeing only darkness and managed to kick off his shoe, hoping it would allow him to slip his foot free.
It was useless. He was still stuck fast. The urgency rose in him even further, his own pulse deafening in his ears. He tried to feel his way around his ankle in an attempt to remove the thing. Whatever it was, it certainly didn’t feel like a net while he clawed desperately at it, agonising for even the hint of a breath.
Sehyoon’s brain was rapidly burning through its oxygen reserves, robbing him quickly of his ability to think clearly.
His chest was agony now. He needed air. He needed air or he was going to die. It was becoming harder and harder to—
His body took over and he exhaled, pushing the spent air out of his lungs and drawing in the cold lake water before he could stop himself. Something in his throat tried to clamp shut and his body jerked violently as he coughed, trying instinctively to push the water out. But it only let more in. It was like choking and being smothered at the same while his entire chest cavity was crushed from every angle.
Heavy and terrible.
This was it. This was really the end. This is how he would go. Would they ever find his body? Did he tell anyone this was where he was going today? Would anyone know where to look? God, they’d have to ask his family to identify his body… they’d see him like that. Maybe it was better if he was never found.
The pain began to ebb away, dissolving into an all-consuming coldness to his very core. He wasn’t struggling anymore. He couldn’t. The crushing weight of the water was pushing in on him from every angle.
There was a calm futility now. Inevitability. Acceptance.
He didn’t notice when his ankle was released until he was gazing up at the shimmer of the sunlight on the water’s surface far above, so out of reach. The shadow of a person obscured the light for a moment, swilling overhead gracefully and dipping down to him.
Sehyoon could just about make out the features of the face which appeared in front of him, eyes adjusting through the gloom. The face… it was pretty. Pretty with soft features and silvery hair with shades of purple. Small pearls were dotted over the person’s cheeks, as if growing from the surface of the skin itself. Skin which had an iridescent sheen to it hen it caught the light from above. They looked ethereal, soft eyes and a gentle expression. Like an angel come to rescue him from these cold depths and the water pressing on his body and filling his chest.
He still couldn’t move, caught and unable to reach out to the person.
“I was going to eat you…” Came a voice, resonating strangely through the water and into his skull. A soft voice, but chilling none the less. It was the man in front of him, but his blue tinged lips didn’t move.
Sehyoon put all his effort into trying to reach out, but still nothing happened. He noticed a small smile on the other’s face, the glint of small, sharp teeth there.
“But you’re handsome, I’ve had my eye on you for a while.” Icy lips pecked his own, strikingly cold, even compared to the cold water around them. “So I think I’ll keep you. We get ever so lonely here…”
We? There were more of them?
The person… no, this thing couldn’t possibly be called a person. It couldn’t be human. The creature drifted away and swam around him in a circle, nimble and graceful in the water.
Sehyoon felt its freezing hands come from behind and hold his jaw, tilting his head back to look up at the shimmering light above again. “Don’t worry. You’ll be able to move again in a few days, it just takes a while.” A laugh. “I’ll sing to you to pass the time.” The thing mused, beginning to hum a gentle melody, lulling the darkness in from the edges of Sehyoon’s vision. Body numb, senses drifting away.
“Can’t wait ’til he wakes up. Has his heart stopped yet?” Another voice rang from somewhere.
A third voice joined them, but Sehyoon couldn’t make out what it was saying.
There was only the song embracing him, swaddling.