In the pond

You stare forward into the pond, ripples dancing across its surface. A creature looks back at you, with algae for hair and shells for a torso, twisted and inhuman.

As you tilt your head, frowning, the creature twists to mirror you. It's nothing like the creatures you've imagined, not some childhood monster under the bed. Your lips curl up at the thought of it hiding under your childhood bed, dripping water all over the carpets, and your smile widens in the hopes that it'll stop frowning and smile back at you.

It does.

But the smile is wrong, as if a song from a broken record, its mouth twisting into some terrible fate, and its eyes like murky waters. Your hand rushes out as if to wipe the smile off from her face and you watch as her smile drops. Relief, you think. That's what you're feeling, to see it look impassively back at you, smile clean off her face.

She stays silent, eyes locked on you, as the water ripples across her face.

Without you willing it, your hand lowers. Slowly and slowly, until you can almost feel the spray of water on your hands. It hovers there, bare inches from hers, outstretched in return.

And you pull your hand back, suddenly afraid of her claws extending past the water, grabbing you and pulling you in—

—but you’ve misjudged the shore, wet where your feet stand. The water beneath your feet makes the ground slippery, and you quickly find you have nowhere to stand. One foot slips out from under you, finding air where there should be ground, and the other is quick to follow. Scrambling, you reach for the rocks, the moss, the grass covered in the morning dew, but you find that nothing holds you.

You gaze down at the pond as you fall, as in it your face is reflected, full of—