The Cursed Lake

The water was eerily calm, so tranquil that the monstrous atrocity that took place here seemed so unfathomable that he could almost trick his mind into believing that everything that happened here was just a figment of his imagination.

A sudden tremor overtook his body; he bent over and almost retched as a wave of nausea crawled up his throat.

Don't think—don't think about it—you're okay—you did nothing—no, no, please stop. An incoherent ramble consumed his mind until his mind split into a kaleidoscope of cracks, like a glass shattering. The primitive and all-consuming fear was a tangible creature, wrapping its ice-cold spindly fingers around his throat until black seeped into his vision.

He was so convinced that a blaring shriek of police sirens was going to go off and they'd come to clasp his hands in handcuffs and throw him into prison.

After all, what else did a murderer like him who'd dumped the dead body of this girlfriend over the edge deserve?

Lila—Lila—I love you—Lila—Lila—I despise you—how could you do that—you deserve this.

Another mad and murderous peal of laughter racked his body. His knees crashed into the plank, and he curled into a fetal position.

His surroundings—the gentile ripples of water in the lake, the serene breeze, the cheerful chirps of birds—seemed so utterly wrong that he wanted to scream and scream and scream. Until his throat was raw, until all the anguish and turmoil poured out of him and infested this cursed place. It didn't have the right to be so utterly peaceful.

His mind was spiraling, spiraling, spiraling.

He'd drowned someone, yet he was the one drowning, drowning, drowning.

If only Lily could've behaved. If only she had eyes just for him. If only she didn't go around talking and laughing with other men.

All of this could've been avoided.

If only, if only, if only.

He took a step. Then another and another. When he gazed down, the lake greeted him as he stood at the edge of the plank.

The world blurred and reappeared as tears slipped down his cheeks. Lila's dead face bobbed up from the water—all hollow cheekbones and dead glistening eye sockets. Her sickly green complexion sickened him.

"Come with me," she beckoned, her voice a guttural screech of metal against bone. "You belong with me."

Her mouth stretched into a grotesque agape, revealing rotten teeth and midnight-black darkness.

Was it real? Or a figment of his imagination?

He didn't care. Closing his eyes, he let his body go slack and embraced his fate, embraced the cold bones wrapping around him.

He fell down, down, down.

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