The monster in the lake

By Sadie Rounds

I sat shivering in the back of an open ambulance, voices coming from every side of me, but the words weren’t making sense.

“What day did you go out to the lake?” an officer asked, and as I opened my mouth to respond, my thoughts raced too quickly for me to comprehend and no sound came out, even as I tried desperately to form a coherent thought.

The crinkly, foil emergency blanket wrapped around my shoulders did nothing to warm me. Freezing blood raced through my veins as dread sank deep to the pit of my stomach, my heart broken in a way that felt too far beyond repair.

The water had looked so clear, so inviting. The trees surrounding the lake were deep green and so full, they formed a barrier of sorts around the water. They loomed over the lake, and I could understand how people saw them as menacing, in a way. They were beautiful, though, and I could see them reflected off the surface of the bright water.

How could a place so beautiful have something dangerous lurking beneath the surface? I could see my hand clearly when I reached my arm out of the canoe and dipped it in the water. It was warm and silky against my skin. I pulled my hand back and instead prepared myself to jump in, drawn in by the smooth, glistening ripples in the water.

I heard the warnings in the back of my mind as I put my feet in and pushed myself out of the canoe. The water was just so crystal clear. Surely, I thought, I would be able to see it if it were true.

I felt something brush up against my leg, and I startled so suddenly I hit my head against the side of the canoe. “Ow,” I whined, rubbing the back of my head as I looked down into the lake. I couldn’t see anything in the water from where I was, only my body and the floor of the lake that was further down. The longer I looked into the water, the more drawn I felt to it. I ducked my head under without willing myself to and felt the pressure of the water in my ears, engulfing my head. I kept my eyes squeezed shut but tried to feel around for whatever touched me when something wrapped around my wrist and yanked me further down.

“No, absolutely not. You are not going to that lake. Girls have been going missing down there for the past few months. I am not going to let you be one of them,” my best friend Natasha had told me just a couple days prior as we sat at our favorite park, playing double solitaire.

“Aren’t you curious why, though? Nothing else ever happens in this town. It would be fun to explore, don’t you think?” I had said back, but she just shook her head and moved one of her cards over.

“No, I don’t, and I don’t understand why you do. Please, just promise me you won’t do anything stupid,” she had responded, and I agreed sullenly. It was the only promise I had ever broken.

I didn’t expect the monster to be so pretty. Everyone talked about the myth as if the beast was supposed to be scary, with its sharp teeth and claws and horrifying eyes. But he had gorgeous skin and hair and piercing blue eyes and looked more like a mermaid than a monster.

I was only scared for a moment when he first pulled me down. But I was transfixed, staring into his eyes as he slowed down swimming, and I think I immediately fell in love with his shiny scales and his bright smile as he looked at me with a wonder and admiration that I had never seen before.

It could have been minutes or it could have been hours before we got to his cave. There were other girls there. They looked like me, each around my age with similar hopeful eyes and an obvious desire to please him. I didn’t know how long they’d been holding their breath, but they didn’t look like they were struggling, and I didn’t feel a burning in my lungs, no need to fill them with oxygen. It must have been one of the many spells he put on me.

We only stayed for a little while. He watched me as I looked at each of the girls sitting around. There were three of them, and two of them were looking at me with narrowed eyes, seemingly sizing me up. The other had her eyes downcast, melancholic, and almost… absent.

He suddenly grabbed my hand, and I forgot all about the other girls, all about my life outside of that moment. He pulled me along the outside of the cave to a large pile of rocks. He began pushing them aside, and I watched as they slowly sank to the bottom, clouds of sand erupting around them as they hit the ground.

He pulled me closer to the rocks, and I noticed a collection of beautiful shells and stones that he had accumulated. I recognized some of them as shells I had seen on different snails up by the lake shore. He pulled up something from the top of the pile, and I realized that it was a necklace made of the shells and grass. He pulled it over my head and watched as it dangled from my neck. I smiled as the weight of his attention sunk into me.

We returned to the cave, and the girls looked at me again. They had to notice the necklace. I wore it as a symbol of pride; I was his favorite in the cave. I was the most valuable.

We went deeper into the cave, and I turned to him and jumped slightly. He was looking at me intently, and while it was slightly unsettling for a moment, the longer I stared, I realized it was love that made him look at me like that.

“Beautiful,” he said, and it was the first time I had heard his voice.

I felt emboldened by his love for me, confident in our relationship. I wasn’t sure if I even could use my voice, but in a moment of excitement, I tried anyway. I said, “What if you came to see my world with me? I would love to show you around.”

He recoiled immediately as if my hands had burned him, and his eyes darkened like they were filling with ink. I looked around and saw the faces of the other girls in the cave looking at me with horror and pity, eyes wide and brows raised. I jumped back and screamed bubbles into the water as I turned to see his teeth turn razor-sharp and his smooth skin turn green and bumpy. I watched in terror as he grew in size and claws popped out of his fingertips.

My voice disappeared into the waves, and I felt the sudden urgency to take a deep breath of air, but when I opened my mouth, I could only breathe in water. The monster grabbed me by the neck, his sharp talons piercing my skin, and dragged me out of the cave. He pressed the shell necklace into my skin. I had to close my eyes as the passing water stung them.

We reached the surface and the monster threw me to the shore. The sand and grass broke my fall only a little, and I felt fire race through my body as pain and soreness burned everywhere. I looked out to the water just in time to see the monster’s tail disappear under the surface.

What hurt more than the aches and pains all over my body was the weight of the rejection overtaking my body. I wasn’t good enough for him. I tried to share my life with him the way he had with me, and he rewarded me with broken ribs and a broken heart.

The longer I sat staring into the asphalt, blue and red lights flashing around me, the more awareness I gained of my surroundings.

“I can’t believe there was another one,” I heard someone say, and I looked over to see two bystanders talking far enough away they must have thought I couldn’t hear.

“I know. When will they learn? Just because something looks pretty doesn’t mean you have to jump in head-first,” the other responded. I looked down at the broken shell necklace in my hands. You couldn’t keep to yourself, huh? You couldn’t keep him happy. I felt my heart sink and eyes fill with tears as the realization fully kicked in.

He didn’t choose me, and it was all my fault.