Chapter Text
You were always told how the lake where your family cottage sits was owned by a great monster who lurked beneath the surface during the summer months. As a kid, the stories always terrified you but nothing had ever come of them, taming your fears as you aged. Weird occurrences happened around the lake, sure, but no one was ever hurt.
As you got older, you acquired a morbid curiosity for cryptids, researching them for hours and even dabbling in the tales of the lake you had become so familiar with. Despite this, when you were up north in your family cottage, you completely ignored the tales and abandoned your research, opting to spend time with your family, trying to have the best times you could when you had even as short as a weekend getaway.
After years of research and weeks spent at the cottage, you had forgotten that your parents had told you the first stories of this lake's cryptid and had fully separated your research of the lake from time actually spent there.
This summer, you were going down the road in the packed car of your parents, leading to the lake peeking out of the trees with large sand dunes behind it and Lake Michigan behind them, as a 19 year old, being your second time up here this year since Memorial Day. As the car approaches the smaller lake, Lake Michigan disappears behind it, the looming sand dunes becoming bigger and bigger as the car gets closer. Once you reach the bottom of the hill, the car turns right onto a road tracing the lakeside and travels down it for a bit as you stare out the window at neighboring cottages you’ve become far too familiar with.
Finally, the car turns left into the dirt driveway of your cottage. Your family piles out of the car, dragging luggage into the small building. You are tired after the 4 hours drive which could be worse, but you are still fatigued so you sit down and sprawl out on the armchair in the main living area. The rest of your family follows suit, stopping to sit down on the midsized couch for a second, exchanging nothing but looks until your father gets back up to return unpacking the car. The rest of your family follows once again, finishing emptying the car and filling the house with all of your crap. You can now sit down for longer as you make your way to the bedroom that will be yours for the next 10 days.
After you lie down, making the bed you have chosen as your own, your younger sister walks in and sets her things down on a neighboring bed. She tosses her suitcase to the ground and hastily unzips it. She then yanks her swimsuit out.
“I’m going swimming. It’s so damn hot here!” She takes her suit and her sandals to the bathroom to not change in front of you.
Despite you just getting here, your family had left fairly early so it was around four in the afternoon when you arrived at the end of the four hour drive so you decided that a dip in the lake wouldn’t hurt. Besides, some of your cousins would be getting here in a few hours and thought it would be funny if they got here while you were in the water and you wouldn’t have to help bring things inside. Another plus is that you would cool down in the lake so you had made your decision and similarly dropped your suitcase to the ground to extract your swimsuit from it. Since your sister was the only person sharing a room with you and she was already changing in the bathroom, you locked the bedroom door and began to change. You had a neon yellow-green one-piece swimsuit with little openings down the length of the chest and the back of the swimsuit. There was a thick connecting strap on one shoulder but the other was empty as there was supposed to be a smaller, white strap there but you had never seen it as you had gotten it second hand for cheap and was seemingly cut off by the previous owner. Even so, it fit great despite buying it online and only vaguely knowing your swimsuit sizes.
You grabbed your wavy, dirty blonde hair up high on your scalp and tied it into a messy bun the best you could. You knew your hair was going to get wet but the bun was going to keep your hair contained at the least.
You and your sister grabbed towels from the cabinet in the hallway and scurried off to the dock outside of the cottage. You wish you could jump in the water from the dock but after years of erosion, sand has been rising and rising near the shore, leaving the water along the dock sitting only a little above your knees, especially as you grew up and got taller. You set your things down on the wooden bench on the back on the medium dock, kicking off your sandals.
You are about to step into the lake when you realized that you forgot sunscreen so you put your sandals right back on and jog back to the house to grab your sunscreen. You slide open the screen door and see your mom putting things away in the kitchen.
“Hey mom, where’s the sunscreen?” You ask. She puts down a few bags of chips that she was cradling in their arms to point across the kitchen to the living room.
“It’s in that blue bag by the coffee table.”
“Thanks ma!” You walk over to the short wooden table in front of the couch and dig through said blue bag, retrieving a can of sunscreen and a small tube of specialty face sunscreen. You exit the cottage once again, waving the spray sunscreen can in the air as you approach and walk down the dock. Your sister was already in the water and saw the sunscreen in your hand but decided to ignore the fact that she hadn’t put any on.
You set the can on the bench and open the tube, squeezing a bit of the product onto your hand and smearing it over your face. You spray the rest of your sunscreen on and opt to only let it dry while you take off your sandals before getting straight in the water.
Your sister is already at the drop off of the shallow area where there’s a raft that the family brings out every year to mark it and she is already neck deep in the lake, waves splashing her in the face when one hits her and it gets up her nose, causing her to recoil and and come more shallow.
You try to run to her through the water but give up as it pains your legs and you don’t get much further than you would if you walk. You like the deeper end of the lake because things like seashells and sticks that end up in the water get pushed more shallow, leaving the deeper side with less gunk to brush up against your legs and feet, something you despise. You also simply enjoy being submerged in the water without having to be on your knees.
You and your sister splash around a bit, taking turns paddling back and forth to waters where you can and can’t touch the bottom when your cousins get here. You want to get out and see them but don’t want to be dragged into bringing things inside so you make your way to the dock but are deliberately slow in your approach.
It is your favorite cousins that have arrived. The two of them are fraternal twins, one of two sets of twins in the family of six and only a few minutes apart. They’re only a few months younger than you and the three of you have been together since you were babies so you love being in their company. It also helps that you love being in each other's company. You slip on your plastic sandals, dry off with your rainbow polka dot towel and run off inside to greet them.
There’s Jack, the more chaotic of the two, and the older one. You get along better with him as your antics are more in line with each other, always being down to do something together. Then there’s Celia. You like being around her a lot as well but she’s more wanting to go to the corner and visit the stores once every few days instead of messing around in kayaks. Even so, the three of you are always together, almost inseparable, making memories together every year at the cottage even when you’re all adults now. You see them at the back door and approach them.
“What’s up my dude?” You exchange a low high five with Jack. “I’m in my suit, d’you wanna go swimming?” You ask him.
He shakes his head. “Nah, after the drive I just wanna rest. Besides, we’ll be up here for a week, we’ve got time.” You sigh. When you were younger, he’d always be down to swim but this could just be a part of growing up. You then turn to look at Celia.
“You want to swim?” You ask her.
“Nope, same as Jack, just wanna rest.” She takes out her phone and drags her bags to her bedroom.
You spin on your heels towards your bedroom. “Might as well change then.” You quickly close your bedroom door to take off your swimsuit, using your towel to dry your body and dusting off the loose sand that has gathered underneath some spots in your suit.
“Ew.” Some bits of your swimsuit have turned greenish shade from the lake sand sitting there for a while. It’ll come out in the wash, but it still grosses you out. You change into a small cropped brown t-shirt and similarly small black shorts. You liked having cute clothes but were reluctant to spend money on new stuff so a lot of your garments were either too small from you having them for years or too big from being used clothes given to you by your parents from friends and family. You exit the room after adjusting your wet bun but still keeping it up on your head.
You sit down on the couch next to Jack and he shows you some Reels that are pretty funny but you’ve seen a few of them before. He sends a good chunk of them to Celia despite her sitting in a chair perpendicular to the couch. He loves to do this and you cannot get behind it as you almost never send videos that you see to friends or family, only when there’s something about that would cater to a specific person.
After sitting, talking, and catching up for about an hour, dinner is ready early tonight, your mom making spaghetti and garlic bread. You quickly slurp up and eat your large portion of noodles as you don’t tend to eat much at the cottage besides dinner and you scurry outside to look out on the dock for whatever reason, your cousins following suit. You all sit and talk once again, reminiscing on past times at the cottage for around fifteen minutes before getting back up from sitting on the uncomfortable wood of the dock and going inside.
The next few hours are spent doing a lot of nothing, juggling between being on your phone, having snacks, and running into various rooms like the garage, bedrooms and even the bathroom one time with Jack. You settle into bed with your blanket and plushie around midnight, not knowing how you stayed up this late but going to sleep all the same.
The next morning you eat cereal for breakfast, toss your dish into the sink and change into your swimsuit. You alternate them, wearing a white one piece with blue flowers on it and a flowy cut of fabric along the top rim of it today. You locate Jack on the couch in the living room, pointing at him.
“You, me, kayak to the channel. Preferably now but I can wait a bit. Get your suit on.” You command. He pops off the couch and starts to walk to his room.
“Should we ask Celia if she wants the canoe?” He wonders out loud.
“I think we both wanna be in a kayak and canoeing with one person is a nightmare.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” He enters his room and closes the door, exiting in his swimsuit in less than a minute. You wish you could put a swimsuit on that fast.
“Grab a towel and let’s go.”
He turns ninety degrees and walks around the corner to the hallway with the towel cabinet in it and resurfacing with a striped towel of varying shades of blue. You both exit the cottage and drop off your things at the end of the dock and walk back up the dock to the sandbox where the kayaks are resting. Jack hops in the water from the middle of the dock and you enter the sandbox and push the first kayak into the lake. It’s the nicer one, having a soft backrest and actual casing that covers your legs. You always take that one so you offer it to Jack this time. He holds it in place while you push the second kayak in. The one you will be using has no covering, a rock hard back rest, giant drainage holes that let water in more than let it fall out and is much slower than the other. Jack holds both kayaks until you can hop in the water and he pushes your kayak towards you and gets inside of his own while grabbing his paddle from the dock. You hold your paddle as you enter your kayak, water splashing into it and over you.
The both of you begin to paddle left towards the closer channel in the lake. You’ve been to the other but it’s a lot further away so you don’t visit it very often. You enter deeper waters as longer docks push the two of you to steer clear from them. You are about to go more shallow and enter where the channel starts when you kayak violently lurches to the right and goes way deeper than it was originally. You panic, frantically paddling back shallow waters, wondering what kind of current could have done something as strong as that. Jack stops paddling to watch you and make sure you get back over fine but he knows he can’t do much to help. Once you enter the shallow end to the entrance of the channel, you look at the left side of your kayak to see a black, sludge-like liquid that shines iridescently greenish-teal in the sun.
“Jack! Look at my kayak!” You point at the black spot on your watercraft. He stares quizzically at it but shrugs it off.
“Maybe the water kicked that up?” He theorizes. You also shrug it off and dunk the side of your kayak in the water, washing off the glob of it but a small black stain resides.
“Let’s just keep going.” You proclaim.
The rest of the kayak ride is peaceful. You point out every turtle you see resting on logs sticking out of the shallow water, wave to the people on the dune rides that is the main tourist attraction here as they cross the bridge that you kayak underneath, and once you reach the dam in the channel, you and Jack dock your kayaks on a sand shoal nearby and step out to pay tribute to your late grandma who had her ashes spread by the family near here. The lake house has been in your family since your mom was a kid and even before that so it and the land around it has lots of sentimental value to your family.
Similarly, nothing eventful happened on your way back to the cottage after exiting the channel which leads you to wonder what caused your kayak to make such a sudden movement.
The rest of the day is spent doing a whole lot of nothing. Dinner happened, you sat down in various different places in the cottage and you went to bed. You were still thinking about your kayak from earlier while you laid in your bed. You had absolutely no idea what could have caused the shove but you wanted rest so you shunned your theories out of your head so you could sleep. It was hard to push your detective brain to rest but once you could, you passed out.
The next morning you woke to Celia asking if you wanted to go to the convenience store with her and Jack. You tell her you would but have to get ready and change first. You wear similar black shorts to yesterday but wear a blue t-shirt from your high school. You put on your black gym shoes and exit the cottage where Jack and Celia are waiting since they wake up much earlier than you ever do. The three of you walk around a mile to the park side convenience store near the lake campground. After you all get candy and tea, a ritual at this point, you start to walk back.
“Do y’all wanna swim when we get back?” Celia asks you and Jack.
“Sure,” You respond. You crack open your tea and drink it as you walk back while Jack and Celia save theirs in a plastic bag for later. Once you arrive back at the cottage, you recycle your tea can while Jack and Celia put theirs in the fridge for dinner. You once again spill off to your room to change into your swimsuit. This one is mainly black with lots of strings making the shoulders and back with green leaves across the front of it. You take your now dry towel from the table on the back porch from yesterday and put on your sunscreen. You check with Celia to make sure she’s sunscreened and walk down the dock. You set your things down and hop in the water to chase Jack down the length of the shallow area and meet him at the drop off. The both of you get used to the water in some time and begin to simply bob in the water and converse. After around ten to fifteen minutes of talking, Jack exits the water and goes up the dock to grab a soda and was going to come right back.
You wade in deeper waters by yourself as Celia has yet to enter the water, fiddling with her hair in the dock, trying to secure it enough so the product in her hair doesn’t get washed out which never works. You smile playfully at her struggle until you see Jack approach the water with a coke in his right hand. You wave to him, smiling wide. Until your hand is yanked down into the water.
What the hell? Are your muscles spasming? But you definitely felt a weight pull on your arm. You slowly and gingerly lift your arm out of the water to look at it and see the exact same black hue that was left on your kayak on your arm. Before you can make any other connections your leg is similarly yanked by a large appendage and you are fully pulled under the water.
You want to scream though you know you will get dirty, sand-filled lake water in your mouth if you tried so your vocal cords shrilled but your lips did not part. The appendage grabbing your leg lurches to the left towards the center of the lake, dragging you through the water, staying deep underneath the surface the entire time. You are so deep underwater where it is far colder than where you were once wading in. You try to pull against the force but the one appendage is far stronger than your entire being, the extra force of the water against your body, and the cold temperatures almost make you go limp.
You are eventually let go and slowly float to the water’s surface. Your eyes groggily flutter open to see that you were released in the dead center of the lake. You frantically start to paddle towards the nearest shore with your tired limbs.
“I’m gonna die, oh my god, I’m gonna die, what the FUCK? HELP! SOMEONE!” You shriek out for help. Your limbs are heavy from struggling on your way here. Your muscles cramp and you can barely move. Your face bobs out of the water but the rest of your body is weak and submerged. Your arms are still and your legs can barely kick, keeping you afloat but you know you can’t paddle for much longer.
“You’re not going to die.” An imposing voice that sounds right next to you reassures your concerns. The voice is extremely calm towards your panic and almost has a soothing quality to it, feeling like a weight was taken off of your shoulder as it spoke. You turn in multiple directions looking for a boat, kayak, jet ski, anywhere where that voice could’ve come from to sound so close but you saw nothing.
“Who… who said that? Help me!” You shout, still looking for an approaching watercraft and still seeing nothing. As you sight dance on the water’s surface, you briefly see a round black orb poking out of the lake. You jerk back to inspect what you had seen on the water but as you turn back to face it, you are met with a skull. The right eye socket had a cyan light inside whereas the other was covered with a black sludge that similarly covered the rest of the skull. It had an iridescent glow in the sunlight, shimmering green and a similar teal to the light in the eye socket. You stare at it, blankly and wide-eyed.
“Hello.” The skull speaks in the same voice you had heard earlier. The skull spoke. It fucking SPOKE. You are stunned in fear. You want to crane around and swim away but your weak arms won’t let you.
“Hi.” Your mouth involuntarily opens. The skull continues to stare at you, unblinking. The eye contact is unnatural. They stare uninterrupted until you can’t take it anymore and still try to desperately swim away despite your weakness, getting water in your mouth and nose as your head can barely stay above water. The skull does not move and still does not blink when you feel a familiar tendril to earlier wrapping around your waist and pulling you back to the intimidating skull. The skull begins to… stand… up… on the water’s surface… what the hell is going on, and reveals a full skeleton body draped in a turtleneck sweater and sweatshirt along with basketball shorts and slippers. Their entire body is coated in the same material their skull is, sliding and drooping off to splash in the water. The tendril wrapped around you rises with them, showing how it and 3 other similar appendages are protruding from their back. A green shimmer comes off of their slippers as they rest on the lake’s surface, pulsating around them in circles. It’s almost like it’s… magic… could this be the creature of the lake you’d researched? No one had ever seen them before so there were no accounts on their appearance but there were reports on a similar substance being found around the lake as the one that covers their body, one that you had seen just yesterday.
You sit, completely still, no movement to keep you above water as the tendril is the only thing keeping you from drowning. Two other tendrils extend to grab your wrists and lift them from the water, limp as you let them be taken away from the dwindling warmth of your body. Clawed, skeletal hands grab yours and hoist you out of the water, your feet settling on the surface of the lake with the same magic the skeleton was using. They do not let go of your hands. The tendrils retract back to the skeletons body, letting go of your limp body and only being held up by the iron grip of their seemingly frail hands. They grip your hands even tighter and you feel a cold surge flow through your body yet you suddenly feel rejuvenated. Your legs strengthen and regain control yet your reclaimed autonomy causes your feet to slip and slide along the slick surface of the water. You begin to fall backwards when the hand grabbing your left hand releases and grabs you by the back, feeling none of the claws and instead the comforting grip of your… kidnapper? You are caught in a waltz-type position as your right arm and their left are together, pointed at the sky and their other arm at your back. You stare at their eyelight as a cyan dusting appears on their wet skull. You are let go but before you can fall again, both hands are placed on your shoulders, steadying your balance.
“You’re welcome.” They blankly say. You step backwards, the lake's surface having a lot more traction this time.
“‘You’re welcome’? You took me from my family and dragged me through the water! I’ve read about you. All you cause is destruction! I want to go back!” You angrily clap back. Their eyelight sharpens on you. Frankly, you immediately regret what you said. You had said it yourself, all this being causes is destruction, why would they not want to hurt you? All four of its tendrils lurch forward, ensnaring all of your limbs, rending them immobile and suspending you slightly in the air.
“Then you should know,” they step forward and put a bony finger to your chin, arching your head to face them as even when you are higher in the air, their skeletal figure is still taller than you. “…I don’t show my face to just anyone.” You shudder. If others had seen them but there was no written history of what they looked like, who knows what could’ve happened to those this skeleton had taken. You are set back down on the water’s surface.
“I’m going back to my cottage. Thanks for nothing,” you say as you begin to run towards your cottage which you can see in the distance. Suddenly, the water’s surface gives out on you and you fall through the faux floor that was just there. You are submerged underwater and when you pop back out, you can see nothing around you or in the distance but water, waves, and the bastard skeleton.
You sputter water out of your mouth. “Where the hell am I now?!” The skeleton looks down on you, unmoved by your yells.
“Lake Michigan. You’re barely away from where I found you. Calm down.” He mocks, deadpan.
“There’s no land in sight, you bitch!” He scoffs at your pleas.
“I just wanna go home…” you try to put your head in your hands but are still wadding in water once again so you settle for pitifully looking down at the water, head hung. You are lifted from the water by a tendril underneath and around your shoulders, setting you down on the magic surface tension. Now you can crouch over and put your head in your hands as you cry, but not enough for tears to flow from your eyes very much. The skeleton sits down next to you, putting an arm on your shoulder and wrapping tentacles around your legs and side. You want to jerk away from your captor but your emotions basically shut off your survival instincts and activate the touch-starved part of your brain as your body leans against the side of the skeleton.
“I’m sorry I made you feel this way. I just saw you left by your family and wanted to help.” They attempt to comfort.
You scoff and sniffle at the same time. “He was getting a soda!” You take your wet hands away from your face and look up at the skeleton.
“Oh. I see. There may have been other reasons then.” They apologize somewhat.
“Wha-
“I’ll take you back. Come on.” He grabs your hand, lifting you from your sorry position. The water ripples underneath the two of you as you fall through. You resurface by the raft at the end of the water across from where your cottage sits. You spin around with no skeleton in sight but when you look down you see a bright cyan eyelight and slight grin looking up at you. “See you tomorrow. The name’s Nightmare by the way.” The eyelight fizzles out of sight into the darkness of the water.
Fitting.