Alone, Alexander sat on the sad, rickety dock, his head bowed like an angel’s and his feet dangling off the edge. Cold water settled between the spaces of his toes, turning his soft skin to prunes and causing his knees to shake from the chill. Anxious clouds churned above him; threatening a storm.

He shivered.

Deep water had never been a problem for him—in fact, he would even say it was a bit of a comfort. His father was a fisherman, and his father before him, so it was routine for him to help out on the boat. But something about this specific lake put him on edge. Whether it was the way the water stood still like glass despite the wind, or the way the black depths seemed to glare up at him, he couldn’t be sure, but whatever it was, it sent an uncanny chill down his spine that made his mind scream for him to run.

There was a tug on his ankle.

Alexander froze, eyes wide and quivering. For a split second, everything was still and silent and he could almost pretend that the grip on his leg was nothing but a plant or a trick of the mind. And then he was pulled beneath the water.

Shocking and frostbitten, it swallowed him in an instant. Soaking through his clothes, filling his ears and nose and open mouth. Surface, he thought, he needed to get to the surface. But as he flailed his arms and legs he realized that there was none. The ghastly water had no end, no up or down, and there was no way for anyone to hear my screams as I frantically searched for a way out.

I should be dead by now.

However long I’ve been swimming in this frigid lake, it must be longer than a human can possibly survive underwater. It’s been long enough that I’ve gotten long and thin, scaly and green, snakelike. I can wrap my mangled body all around the circumference, licking the algae off sunken and rotting logs, creating rocking waves with the movements of my elongated spine.

It doesn’t scare me, this monster I’ve become. And that, I think, is precisely the reason why I’m so afraid.