Tainted Waters

Slowly the lake consumed her. Slowly I embraced the nature of her suffering.

A dome of light surfaced, surrounded by the unknown. The spotlight of the moon projected a spherical glow that accented off the rippling lake, full of dark murky water and drifting bodies of fungi and leaves. I watched the pieces float over waves, the fungi seemingly slower than everything else, as if it was being held back by something unseen above water.

I looked at her, my body shivering while she stood motionless. Her white sneakers sunk into the mud as I stood behind her, a coward, afraid. I called out her name, but she didn’t budge, her mouth as still as the rest of her body.

The wind wrestled the leaves on the trees violently back and forth, but the water remained at a steady pace. The light from the moon slowly dimmed as if I was standing in the middle of a nightmare. I stepped farther away from her, each step succumbing the lake in another layer of darkness.

I called her name again.

She was the least liked by all our friends, and I thought maybe it was because she was quiet, but now, I can begin to see why. She abruptly pulled her feet out of the mud and for a moment I thought she would turn and follow me behind her, tell me how it was getting dark and we should leave. Instead, she took a step forward. Her legs splashing through the grime, her white floral dress soaking the brown tainted water up like a sponge. She stretched her arms out toward the sky turning around to face me. Her blue eyes replacing the moon's light. She smiled, her arms shaking.

Slowly the lake consumed her.

I continued to step back, a blanket of unnatural darkness covered my vision. My hands grasped for anything behind me. I felt like I was trapped under the rippling waves of the lake with her, drowning to the bottom, with no way to swim back up, my soles eventually hitting, sinking into the lake floor. I was flailing, struggling in the darkness to breath, as the air turned dense with some type of occult phenomena. As if I was the fungi, held back, slowly being pulled by the tide into a trap.

My back hit a tree, snapping me out of my anxiety filled delusion. The bark scratched through my shirt, pulling my skin off my body. I reached back and grabbed onto a branch, ripping it clear off the trunk and feeling it’s shape. The branch was small, no more than two feet long, the end sharpened where I teared it away.

A weapon.

I held it out in front of me, gripping onto its center, my hands slimmed with sweat. Suddenly something in the air shifted. The rippling sounds from the lake went still and the wind instantaneously fell flat, as strays of hair now stuck to my face for dear life. I too was immobile, my eyes peering every which way into the darkness, frightened. There was shuffling and I promptly pushed myself off the tree and away from the noise, until I hit yet another tree.

“You should of escaped when you had the chance,” her voice grazed my ear.

I sucked in a large gulp of air spinning around and swinging the branch. It hit the tree, snapping in half. A giggle surfaced and I quickly felt around, grabbing a hold of the sharp end of the broken branch, running again further and further away from the lake.

“I’ll watch you suffer now,” her voice was distant this time.

I closed my eyes, catching my breath, stopping myself from breathing heavily. I took a step forward, the ground underneath me grabbing a hold of my shoes, sinking my feet deeper into the dirt like quick sand. I panicked, pulling my feet back and groaning out sighs of distress.The mud too strong to tug at.

And then, as if all had been a dream, the layers of darkness were pulled away and the light of the moon painted its image across the lake. I was standing at the edge of the water where she had been minutes before. My feet succumbed in the mud as the wind once again breezed my forehead echoing a sound that resembled the pronunciation of my name. I quickly pulled my feet out of the mud, turning around still grasping firmly onto the stick. Everything seemed normal and yet nothing had been. I bolted for it, but once again the blanket of black re-clocked my vision. I began to move backwards and like fog, the blackness evaporated.

“Nature is a powerful thing and yet everyone fears it.”

I turned to the side, face to face with her once again. The air pressed into my throat making it hard to breath. The putrid smell of death causing me gag. She was standing beside me, her dress dry and white, her sneakers brand new. I stumbled away from her watching as she stared out at the lake, mesmerized by its image. I caught my breath, and with the branch I drove it forward, stabbing her in the side of her stomach. I staggered away, watching as she calmly look down at the scene, the branch barely a quarter deep. And in a blink of an eye she was gone.

“I’ve embraced my nature, therefore your nature can’t hurt me,” her voice surrounded me.

I looked around, having trouble telling which way it began and which way it ended. I backed away again, my foot twisting on something stuck in the ground. I looked down seeing the branch near my feet, no trace of blood.

“Follow me.”

Her white shoes perfectly appeared directly in front of me. I looked up at her, her eyes like headlights. She moved forward taking my hand.

“Embrace your fate.”

She slowly dropped my hand, moving backwards into the lake, her eyes never leaving mine. I gazed toward the lake, pulling myself up and taking a step forward. The light from the moon glowing brighter, as my heartbeat quickened and the wind howled out a melody.  

“Come with me.”

Another step forward. I was hypnotized. The moon echoing its spotlight, a spotlight made just for her, where she now floated in the middle of the lake. The trees began dancing as the water growled to the beat of the wind. One more step and the water would trap me. Time began to slowly pass. My feet sunk back into the mud. Deeper and deeper, burying the branch with me.

I was reminded of the time seven years ago when my dad took me fishing. For hours we were stuck, with little to no leg space, only the grumbling sounds of my empty stomach and my dads low murmurs of acknowledgment to entertain us.

I pulled my mind out of the fog, struggling to pull my legs out. I always lost the fish when I reeled it in, I was too quick, too frantic, nervous for my dad's approval. I took a deep breath, the air singeing my lungs, water seeping through the sand soaking my feet. This time instead of wasting my energy, getting nowhere by distraughtly yanking at my legs, I slowly lifted each, shaking my feet through the mud. My legs instantly were easily freed, like they had been buried in dry sand. I quickly moved away and without even thinking twice about it, raced back toward the woods, toward the road, toward civilization. The blanket of darkness rapidly lowered, masking my senses. I continued running, ignoring the abrupt sounds my breathing made, and focusing on how fast each leg fell in front of the other.

Clumsily I hit something and falling back and once again everything emerged into view. The lake, the moon, the woods, mere inches away. She stood right above me, slowly lowering herself to sit on top of my stomach, her hands tracing my upper chest, pausing over my lungs, my heart.

“This is all your fault.”

Her head leaned forward, closing in the space between us. Her lips planted themselves on mine as I pulled away outraged and nauseated. She squeezed my cheeks with her hand, opening my jaw wider. A grimacing smile appearing on her face. She opened her mouth and again leaned closer. My eyes dilated, watching as brown water began to stream out of her mouth and into mine. I struggled underneath her, but everything overpowered me.

Nature had a pulse.

The ground seemingly pulling my body back to it’s surface every time I began to muster the strength to tackle her off of me. The stream became a current, pressurizing inside my body. I couldn’t move, couldn't breathe, my lungs soaking in fluid, collapsing, failing. The blanket of darkness surrounded me as fate took its course and I gave up, drowning in her waters. Slowly, I embraced the nature of her suffering.

Author's Note

I originally wanted to create a poem about toxic love, but instead I did something more creative. Sorry if my mind is hard to understand at some points, lots of hidden symbolisms.