Silver Lake

A small wooden cottage in the middle of the forest next to a large frozen lake. In front of the cottage, there’s a Tree House built on a huge ancient live oak hiding in the fog. There’s a soft light coming from inside the Tree House. The trees exhibit a rich range of colors from deep greens and dark reds to bright oranges and intense yellows. The sun is going down and the last rays of light are touching the ice water, the tree leaves are softly casting a shadow from the darkness that is slowly but surely taking over. A sudden crack is heard coming from inside the tree, it’s getting louder and louder. Then, a scratching sound fills the trunk from the inside and echoes in the riverside. The door of the Tree House opens slowly, a young woman holding a lantern peeks out trying to figure out where the sound is coming from.

“Who’s there?” Asks the woman firmly and loud.

The noises stop. She waits a couple of seconds and then closes the door carefully. The scratching and the cracking start again. She opens the door slowly and goes down the tree silently without any light this time. The sun has gone down and it’s getting darker but the sky is not completely black yet. She stands behind the tree holding a branch, she then tosses a rock into the river cracking the ice with a noisy impact. The scratching stops and there is complete silence for a moment. Then, the cracking leaves display the movement of something coming out of the tree trunk. The woman turns around quickly but all she can see is a shadow speeding amidst the trees towards the cottage. She runs after the shadow but loses it midway.

She stops to catch her breath and hears a shot, glass breaking and falling everywhere. She throws herself to the ground shocked, covering her head with her arms, shaking. She stays on the floor holding her breath for a couple of minutes, there’s only silence. The darkness has covered the forest, there’s new moon in the sky, the only light at sight is coming from the Tree House that is now behind her and is as soft as distant. Suddenly, the cracking of smashed leaves, as something is fastly making its way to her, resounds in the night. She’s appalled, expecting the worst but unable to move her body in a sudden fright reaction. She covers her face with her arms again, burying her face in the fallen leaves on the ground. Her body is shaking uncontrollably when she feels a warm presence next to her. She slowly turns her head to the side and opens her eyes slowly. The piercing eyes of a Red Fox sniffing her causes in her a huge relief. She releases her breath and sits down to caress the fox but before she can even touch him, the fox runs swiftly and hides inside the Tree House trunk. She stands up and walks to the cottage. The window next to the wooden door is broken.

“Argg, hunters. I hate them!” Says as she opens the door and turns on the lights inside the little cottage.

All of a sudden, the loud sound of thunder resonates in the sky. She jumps frightened and throws herself to the ground thinking it was another shot. Raining starts pouring through the broken window along with a strong wind blowing her hair and soaking her clothes. She stands up quickly and runs upstairs to her bedroom sliding into her bed and hiding under her sheets. The storm is getting worse and downstairs the sound of things flying out all over and hitting the walls and the ground are almost as loud as thunder. She stays under her sheets covering her ears with her hands and singing:

“Here comes the sun tudududu, here comes the sun and I say It’s alright.” Suddenly, she jumps in her bed and goes running to the window.

“The Tree House!” Says to herself as she remembers leaving the lights on and the door open.

Through the window she sees a person with a black hooded jacket walking under the rain with a rifle in his hand going towards the Tree House.

“Oh no, the Fox! He’s going to find him.”

She covers herself with her black sheets and walks downstairs with caution. She reaches to the door crawling to avoid being seen by the hunter and opens the door carefully. She steps out and hides behind the closest tree, going from tree to tree towards the Tree House. The man stands on the bank of the river with his sight over the other side for a while. In the meantime, the woman climbs and locks herself in the Tree House using her binoculars to keep an eye on the man. Then, he suddenly turns around and walks towards the Tree House as if he has heard something.

“Leave him alone, you creep.” Whispers to herself as she throws a rock towards him with a slingshot.

She hit the tree behind him. The man turns around quickly firing a shot. The woman jumps frightened, letting escape a gasp that sounded more like a muffled cry. She covers her mouth and hides under the windowpane but the man has heard the cry and starts walking speedily towards the Tree House charging his rifle. The woman peeks through the window and sees him coming. She panics and pulls a lever opening a secret passage to slide inside the trunk. She goes in closing the access behind her. Inside the huge trunk looks like a wooden slide going to the bottom. When she reaches the ground she finds the Fox.

“Shhh, it’s okay. It’s just me. He can’t find us here but don’t make any noises.” Whispers to the Fox trying to make him feel safe.

The Fox doesn’t move. Meanwhile, the man climbs the Tree House and kicks the door open deliberately with rifle in hand but sees no one. He growls angrily. He’s about to climb down but sees the slingshot and starts looking all over the place, throwing things around enraged. The woman hears him causing destruction and starts getting furious as the fear quickly vanishes from her body. The man throws a wooden box, exasperated for not finding who almost hit him with the rock, and hits the lever revealing the secret passage. He looks down and the woman realizes he opened it as the light enters the inside of the trunk.

“Oh shoots!” Exclaims the woman in a loud whisper.

The Fox heard him and ran away expeditiously. The man heard the leaves cracking and goes inside the trunk holding his rifle ready to shoot. The woman hears him coming and tries to get out of the trunk but her pants got curled up with the tree. The man is slowly going down as he is bigger than the slide on the trunk. The woman starts to get desperate and tears her pants in an effort to free herself, the Fox comes and releases her biting off her pants. The man sees them and looks for his rifle but he’s stuck and can’t move to reach it. The woman and the Fox get out of the trunk and run away towards the river. The man climbs down from inside the trunk but loses his rifle. He sees the woman and the Fox at the river bank and hurries to get out of the trunk to get them, unfaltering. The Fox runs away by the riverside deep into bushland.

The woman stands stupefied, immobile while the man runs to her. A beautiful tall white stag comes out of the blue rushing in from the woods and stands before her, indicating with his head for her to jump on him. She’s astounded by his beauty and hesitates for a moment but comes to her senses quickly and gets on him. The man runs to the stag infuriated but the stag throws him to the lake with his antlers and runs away with the woman into the woods.

The man hits the river landing on the ice that the woman cracked before with that rock and the water starts flooding in, breaking the ice around him very fast. The man tries to get out but his weight quickly pulls him down into the river cracked open. He struggles for a while and then crawls pulling his chest out of the water holding onto a piece of ice. He’s slowly getting himself out of the water when suddenly, a huge dark creature appears swimming below him. The man sees it and screams terrified, slipping back into the water.

“Help! Someone! There’s a monster here in the lake! Help!”

But the forest is desolate. The man gasps and screams desperately trying to crawl back but the piece of ice breaks in two and the hole gets bigger leaving him kicking and screaming frantically as he swallows water in his despair. The creature surrounds him and swims below him in circles.

“No, please! Please!” Begs the man sobbing.

Then, in a flash, the man is swept away by the creature into the waters of the river.