Stagnant Water…

(Potential Sensitive Material - There is a conversation between naked woman and a single male in the story where a quick focus is pushed towards her breast.)

Stagnant Water…

I pushed through the darkened brush, trying my best not to think about the shadowed woods encasing my surroundings. The path ahead was narrow, the branches hanging out from either side like long fingers desperately trying to find a way to wrap around me. 

I could barely see ahead but that was fine. I knew where I was going. What seemed like eternity passed in the darkness before the invading trees widened outward, exposing the vast backyard of the house. I stopped suddenly, the glass doors of the house catching my full attention at first. The glass was solid black, almost as if they’d been heavily tinted. 

I couldn’t see anything inside. 

The second thing that stood out to me was the pool. Or rather how I couldn’t quite fully see the water. As if my eyes could only see the outskirts. The way its frame rounded to either side, perfectly centered between the glass doors, but I wasn’t able to glance directly down into the water. The back of my neck began to itch and I threw my hand up and around to scratch at it absently. I unconsciously moved a little closer to the pool. About 6 feet from the edge I abruptly stopped. Not quite sure why but knowing that I didn’t want to move any further. I wasn't sure I could.

I strained my eyes again toward the center of the water with no success, my head beginning to hurt to an extent from the effort. I glanced around the area. Trees whistled all around me. Branches creaked and moaned. 

The color of the pool came into view then. Greenish blue light seemed to just illuminate its surface while adding no additional light to the rest of the dark measure of the house and backyard. Had it been dark just a moment ago I thought. I turned my nose up slightly to what I thought was a foreign smell as something nagged at the back of my mind. Something instinctual. The thought of turning back surfaced right as she gracefully glided up and out of the water. Bare skinned and long torso of milky white. Lengthy dark and wet hair plastered around her head and neck. Breast perky and full. She was beautiful. 

The very definition of beauty. At least I thought she was. Much like the center of the water, I couldn’t see much of her face. “Endless greetings.” She said leisurely. Her voice took on the tone of someone who’d just woken up from a pleasant dream. “Your presence has been expected, of course.” I think she was smiling as she stared at me, greenish blue eyes. I stood there motionless for what seemed like forever before she chuckled. “What’s wrong?” She asked. “Didn’t you come here for a story?” I tried my best to look at her. Really take in her face. Trying to see anything other than that mind altering beautiful body. I failed. 

She laughed again. “Perhaps we will have a full conversation this time?” 

Her aura seemed to fill with excitement. “Shall I begin the conversation? Very well…” 

She seemed to flow a little further up and out of the water. I couldn’t see past her lower stomach, where it and the water met. She made sloshing sounds with her fingertips, which I’m pretty sure should have caused ripples, but I didn’t recall seeing them. Her presence was trance inducing. 

Before I could really focus on the thought she spoke “To be or not. Destiny defined by the actions in which WE take. What will YOU do?” 

I just stared at her, a familiar fog-like notion beginning to spread across the backgrounds of my mind. 

She tilted her head to the side. She was definitely smiling but it seemed questionable in a way. I could see that without seeing.

She let out a small sigh and shook her head slightly. “Again and again. Over and over. Will you finally speak this time?” 

I opened my mouth but then closed it again. 

The woman let out another sigh and seemed to fall back into the water a bit. 

The movement threw my eyes to her upper chest. 

She glanced up at me with that same questionable smile. 

“Perhaps our interaction should be focused on something….. else.” She said through vibrantly non visible eyes. 

She slid her hand meticulously down the center of her body, slowing towards the end of her torso but not stopping until the hand disappeared into the water. 

My mouth quivered but not a sound manifested. 

She stared at me, I think, her entire body motionless. Inanimate. 

“It may be…” She said eventually, questionably. “Talk we shall. A conversation. What of existence?” 

My eyebrows wrinkled in confusion. Or was it understanding.. 

“What of existence?” She asked again. “We both have come to be. In this place. Conversation amongst two beings of existence, not to be mistaken.” 

Again, the fog-like notion hung in the background. A little stronger.

Something familiar. 

I squinted my eyes at her. 

Her entire body seemed to exert frustration, every inch of her growing tight and rigid for just an instant. The unseen smile quickly resumed itself.  

“Can we deviate from destiny.. just this once.” She wasn’t asking a question. Just simply making a statement. 

I thought I caught a hint of something in the air. Something that smelt wrong. Something that seemed both familiar and distant breaking through the fog. 

I couldn't tell exactly, but I got the impression of the woman's eyes opening wider as she glared in my direction. 

"Not quite, but near. Acknowledgement." She said, her voice hinged on the edge of a child like joy. "Of what is existence without that of acknowledgement? Awareness. It WILL be different this time!" She said excitedly. 

The smell hit me harder this time. More noticeable. Something that didn't belong to anything. Anywhere. Stagnant. I tried glancing towards the woman's face and then the center of the water again with no success. 

"It WILL be different this time." She said again, more sternly. "Is it not? Just one word?” 

I desperately tried to speak. I wanted to speak, to ask her what this was all about. What of the smell. Something. Anything. My mouth flew open but words seemed incomprehensible. That familiar fog started to reposition itself in the forefront of my mind now. What WAS that smell… 

The woman seemed to sit there on top of the water motionless. Statuesque. Desperately awaiting a response. A word of any kind. A gesture of sound. Hope radiated off of her and the would be water all around. 

That smell... It somehow disrupted my clarity. Truth. I'd known where I was and where I was going at the beginning of this, hadn't I? Taking in the smell now, a much more potent question arose to the surface of my mind - WHY? Why had I come here? To this place? Where was this place… Who was she.. I knew the answers to these questions on a deeper level, instinctual maybe, but I couldn't put it into words. Like a dream on the borderline of consciousness. Knowing without knowing. Was I dreaming? Was I… My mind locked onto the “I” portion of that thought for some reason. 

The smell seemed to fade to a degree and that familiar fog came over me once more, piercing into my very essence. It seemed to bring back clarity to my purpose. 

She changed then. In that moment of clarity. It all changed. 

The whistling in the air faded completely. The trees around me froze in place, solid black outlines like empty shadows. 

The being in front of me seemed to glow in the darkness now. Every piece of her, or rather it, becoming brighter and more visible. The face was the most visible of it all now. I still couldn't focus on it entirely, but the eyes pierced into me with a WANT and awareness I'd never known. That I would NEVER know. 

“Fine!" It said sternly. Angrily. "Once again we tell the story. A faded dream. A lie. Truth tainted by idealistic life. Confined choice!” The last of the words echoed slightly. The octaves snared and distorted. 

The air and darkness seemed to close in all around me, confining me to its void of stagnation. The smell of wrongness faded completely and that familiar fog reclaimed its place, and then some, throughout my mind in its totality. 

I blinked and found myself standing in front of the beautiful woman yet again. The wind and trees rustling all around me. I suddenly felt free in a way I couldn’t really understand.

“A story then, yes?” She gave the impression of a smile in my direction and I could almost see the full truth in the gesture. The utter falseness. The withered life. Nothing unfamiliar about this fog now I thought. 

Freedom. Blissful ignorance. I knew where I was. I was here for A story. 

I knotted my head in acknowledgement. 

“The essence of life.” The being of beauty verbally projected strongly, assertively. “She once found herself here. In this very place.” She seemed to glance down and all around herself. “Alas, she was taken. Deprived of the essence. Devoid of meaning. Of endurance. Of choice.” 

I was captivated by her beauty. That same beauty echoed throughout her voice now. Truly mesmerizing. I wanted to hear the rest of the story. 

“The story of this life ends before it begins. It is considered the natural order of her existence. There is no choice to be had. No right to be made… Over and over again.” 

What was that smell… A weight felt as if it was being slowly lifted from all around me and I suddenly knew I could move forward, into the pool and water if I CHOSE to do so. The smell was getting stronger. 

“Could it be…” The being of beauty spoke questionably. She glared down into the water again. Blackness seemed to spread out from around her in a circle. Slowly taking over the greenish blue light. She looked up at me, a glimmer of hope again in her eyes. “Through the essence of life there's a weight of option. Freed of redundancy. Impacted by the undeniability of choice…” 

She placed her right arm into the now darkened water, submerging it to the shoulder. She seemed to lock onto something and began to pull it from the water with what looked to be great effort. She strained visibly, her entire body shuttering before breaking the dark surface with a pale limp hand within her own. She kept pulling at it until the entire arm was visible, right up to the shoulder. Decayed pale flesh. 

“Could it be……” she said as her eyes widened. “This tremendous weight. To bear eternity…” 

Her entire body began to shake and spasm uncontrollably then. Her eyes fading from greenish blue, darkening to that of the black shadow now creeping in all around us. She let go of the pale arm and it fell back into the water with an unimaginable weight. An impossible impact that shook the very essence of this place I found myself standing. This place… There was suddenly a nagging at the back of my head again. That familiar fog fleeting once more. That smell again... I stared ahead at her in a combination of concern and fear. 

Dark mucky water poured from her mouth. I moved a step forward. Maybe an attempt to help in some way. 

Her head snapped back in place and she looked directly at me. Her body going completely still, solid. 

I got the impression of pity in her eyes as she glared into my own, blackness staining the lower half of her face. 

“Could it be….” She said in a whisper. 

“Could it be but a single choice to outweigh destiny….” Tears of the same mucky water had begun to fall from her dark eyes now. 

“Choose.” 

The single word seemed to take everything out of her, everything that was left, as her body went limp. She fell back and into the water. The sound of it ringing throughout my mind from ear to ear. 

The smell was incredible. 

I had to help her. I took another step forward, frantically trying to locate the body, but all that was there was a dark mass that I couldn't make out clearly. I took another step to position myself to leap into the water when the nagging fog in my head blinded me into stillness. But the smell… I shook it off as best I could and made my way again towards the waters edge, bracing myself for its embrace. Just before I was about to dive into the water I was hit with a sense of utter clarity. It clouded everything. All of my senses. It was the nagging sensation in the back of my head, the fog that brought me back to that same awareness from the beginning of this all. 

An endless beginning. 

I took a step back and everything stopped. The wind, the trees, the sound, the space all around me grew absent of everything resembling the design of life. 

Hollow shadows. Faded dreams. 

A story. “Truth tainted by idealistic life..” the phrase echoed in my head. 

My mind suddenly exploded with doubt and fear as I took another step backward, not soon after turning fully and sprinting as fast as I could towards the beginning. Tainted truth. The only truth. I ran through what seemed like endless shadow, twisted limb of empty dream and tree branches of brittle lifeless bark, all while the fear engulfed me. My heart raced and breathing became uncontrollable. I had to get there. The beginning would fix it all. The fog would begin to take its root again. Bring truth to idealistic life once more.

My mind clouded over with an unfamiliar familiarity. I submerged myself into the shadow from once I came right before I pushed through the darkened brush. I tried my best not to think about the shadowed woods encasing my surroundings. The path ahead was narrow, the branches hanging out from either side like long fingers desperately trying to find a way to wrap around me. I could barely see ahead but that was fine. I knew where I was going…