City of Murk: Tales of Terror

ShallowBerry

The wooden boards of the old dock creaked as Strawberry tiptoed across them. The waves called to her, in a cooling way. Freshly escaped from the oven, the sea seemed so... tempting. So refreshing. She made her way towards the end of the dock, stepping onto the last board...

*CRASH*

The dock collapsed, plummeting Strawberry beneath the waves, going deeper, and deeper, and deeper, and deeper.

Strawberry awoke, shooting upwards, gasping for air. She took off her hood, letting herself breathe. She looked around, noticing she wasn't in the water after all. Yet, she wasn't in the kingdom either... She was within a new realm. Yet, she didn't know that.

"Hello?" She asked, meekly. She coughed, water coming out. Did she fall in after all? She looked around, seeing she was in a run down city.

"Is anyone here..?" Seemingly alone, Strawberry was forced to walk alone the cold, murky place.

The town was run down, empty. Seeing a path, she followed it, leading herself out of town. The path was confusing, and soon Strawberry got lost. She walked around, sad. She felt tears come as she felt alone.. No friends, no family, not a single other cookie to be seen. She felt scared, the fear coming from the unknown.

"Please..." She sobbed slightly, her voice barely above a whisper. "I want to go back..." She sniffled, wiping her rogue tears. She looked up, spotting a beach. The sand looked filthy, footprints covering it completely, which was weird... Strawberry was alone, right?

Walking along the warm sand, she found herself along the waterside. She knelt down, reaching her hand toward the murky water. She felt drawn to it, as if a force was pulling her to it subconsciously. She let the water engulf her hand, her worries floating away with the gentle waves. Before she knew it, she completely got in the water. It felt soothing.

*Blub blub...*

Before Strawberry could process it, something wrapped around her, dragging her further under. She tried to scream, but the only noise that came was the water gargling as it filled her lungs. The water leeched into her eyes, causing her vision to blur. Something was wrong with the water, and soon she couldn't see at all. She felt more forces wrap around her, cracking her dough. She tried to wiggle her way out, yet it only formed more cracks. She could feel something ooze from the cracks, yet it didn't feel normal. Nothing about this place did. She shouldn't have trusted the waters, as now Strawberry was gone...

The only thing to remain within those murky waters was a new cookie, SunkenBerry, forever venturing deeper and deeper.

...

"Strawberry?" A voice called out, looking for the lost cookie. "Strawberry! Where did you go..."

Gingerbrave sat down on the sidewalks, giving up on looking for his lost friend. She had disappeared without a trace. He decided he had no other choice but to try and hire a detective to find her. I mean, it's not like she just vanished out of thin air to another dimension or something, right..?

*KNOCK KNOCK*

"Come in." Gingerbrave opened the door, taking a seat across from Almond Cookie.

"What can I do for you?" He eyed Gingerbrave up and down, noticing how he was only a kid.

"Uhm..." He squirmed in his seat, his hand fidgeting with a piece of loose thread from the chair cushion. "My friend, Strawberry Cookie went missing. We were supposed to hang out together at the beach... but I arrived late and she was gone." Almond Cookie nodded, debating on taking the case.

A young missing Cookie could be a sign of rebellion, running away. Yet, business was going slow, leaving him with no choice.

*SLAM*

The car door slammed shut, Almond walking across the sandy beach. He looked around, not noticing anything out of the ordinary. Then he spotted something. The boards creaked as he walked towards the end of the dock, stopping before reaching the end. There was a collapsed board, and upon further investigation, a pink thread...