In the lake

It was a dead-quiet weekday night, and I was safely tucked in my single- room dorm bed, scrolling through my phone. A while before, I shut all the lights off, only to leave the flame-colored desk lamp as the only source of light in the room. It was a comfortable setting after a day of hard work and a busy college schedule. The phone screen shone bright directly into my face while I checked the last late night posts on my social media feed before bed. Suddenly, the door to my balcony flung wide open, sending the curtains reeling uncontrollably into the room. My heart thundered inside my chest as I stared, frightened, at the gaping space between the inside of the room and the outside. Nothing had alerted me of a brewing storm in the middle of spring; nor had my weather app. I posed the phone on the nightstand and reluctantly got out of bed.

The fear eventually condensed away in a matter of seconds and I decidedly walked towards the door to shut it. My eyes erred quickly in the dimness of the room, and I turned my head to the door again: a ghostly figure had appeared and stood by its fringes, only just enough for me to faintly recognize the familiar frame of its body shape.

It was an eight-foot tree at the least. Or rather it was a live humanoid tree creature, and it was slim, and mobile, and staring directly at me. Its skin appeared to be made of tree bark from the head to its legs. For eyes, it had two villainous sunken holes as black as ebony and, where a mouth or a nose would have been, were a set of deeply cut slashes, much like the work of an axe on dry wood. Its legs were long, think and branch-like, similarly to its arms. It bent its head to reveal the top of its head and the top was covered in an ensemble of thinner branches sprouting with half-dead shaky leaves.

It invited itself inside the room, moving at a slow pace, almost like a shy child. A gasp of air drew close to my lungs but stopped midway until my heart started pounding heavily once more against my chest. This time more so violently than before, that a rush flushed up into my skull, nearly causing me to swoon in shock. It was too late when I gathered my spirits back and turned towards the main door for an escape. Its long ragged fingers clung to my arm with titanic might, pulling me backwards, and restraining any efforts of movement on my part. A second hand enclosed my chest—just around my left breast, and abruptly jolted me off the ground. I wanted to scream but the thoughts in my head only grew into a ringing between my ears.

It turned and took off; running towards where it came from, and I regressed a bit more towards unconsciousness, when I realized it had jumped off the fifth floor balcony, and we were both midair; myself tightly held onto under one of its arms, against the hard wood of its armored body. The creature landed surprisingly almost softly, and I reopened my closed eyes as my limbs and head rocked back-and-forth against the air and my skin scratched against its try brown bark. It ran rather quickly, in no particular direction I could recognize, and sweat drops began forming on my forehead and neck. The blood stream in my dilated arteries and pounding just numbed my resolve to let a scream out and buried it even deeper down my dry throat. I was paralyzed.

‘Surely,’ I thought deep inside myself then, ‘someone— anyone—wandering around the campus however late it is at this time of the night, should have witnessed a horrific scene and would come to my rescue or call for help?’

I saw no one around; heard no living soul. I was quickly losing hope. I could have pleaded to its sympathy, asked for help, but no language or strength of will seems enough to be heard by a monster who has already decided on the worst for me.

It kept on running. I closed my eyes again.

Just as I was finally coming to accept my demise, a familiar noise reached my ears: the light lapping sound of the lake water being lulled by a soft night breeze. If my mind wasn’t playing tricks on me; if I was right, it meant the demon would have crossed the small wood behind my dorm building and continued along a narrow uphill walking path to the lake. We usually have water sports and events on it, or picnics and hangouts around its grassy shore on the weekends and holidays; sometimes, even way into the night until the next day’s morning light.

A quick scan of my surroundings confirmed my suspicions once I had opened my eyes. We were by the lake, and it hadn’t stopped in its tracks until we reached the shore a few more meters ahead. Only a lone sailing boat with a big white sail, stood still on the water on the other side of the shore facing the woods and hence us. It was likely empty. Something told me at that moment that it could be my chance. A strong sense of panic took over me; electricity flew down my nerves, and my throat popped open as I drew on air, filled my lungs and attempted a last desperate shot at salvation.

‘Help! Help!’ I shouted on top of my lungs.

Nothing.

The breeze had suddenly ceased blowing, my whole body started shaking voluntarily and, like an animal aware of the blade held on top of its head, ready to be swung down right at the neck, my eyes went up to gaze one last time at the face of my executioner; then it’s moved slowly, unfazed, into the lake, and judging by the tightening of its deadly embrace, the sudden contact with freezing water; it hit me: I was being drowned. My head was secured in the depths of my last resting place, my body fully immobilized my eyes tightly closed; but, to my own surprise, my spirit refused to go without a fight and I began swinging my head violently underwater from left to right, as if shaking the reality of my impending end off my mind. I held my breath as long as I could, but time simply dragged the inevitable a few more seconds away; until my lungs filled up with cold liquid and I, unable to bear anymore, would soon drift away. It was no use: I fast grew tired, so I stopped resisting; gave myself to the arms of sweet death.

In an instant, my eyes were wide open, and I wasn’t inside the lake anymore: it was morning, and I was laying in bed, panting heavily, with sweat drops dewing on my neck, and a wide pool of urine growing wide by the second on the sheets under my blanket. It was all just a bad dream, and it had earned me a rather embarrassing and ridiculously visible surprise. However, I turned my head towards the balcony door and felt glad to see the sun shining again. I took a moment to compose myself, to remember that I was a 25 year-old man, and wholeheartedly let out a loudly audible laugh.