THE AFTERHOUR

VII. The Lake:

Water. Drowning. It was all that he remembered. His previous memory, however, was of the fight, and him being torn into shreds by the Creature. The fact that the man was still alive suggested that he had somehow survived that encounter, which was the good news. And now he was drowning, apparently, which was the bad news. The unforgivable darkness was the only thing he could see, again, he was definitely fed up with this place. The man was out of breath, his arms and legs were failing around in vain. He tried to swim. But which way was up? There was no way to find the right orientation.

Something lit up in front of him, a faint white light, so faint he could barely see it. He swam towards it, but it seemed to be far away. He needed air, he needed to breathe. His lungs were filling up with water, but he kept going, reaching for the light.

Then he got above the water. The man was choking, he still couldn't breathe. He opened his mouth and started coughing, violently. He let it happen, knowing that he needed to purge the water out from his lungs. The coughing went on for a while, but he was finally able to breathe normally. Bobbling in the middle of what seemed like an ocean, he looked around in search of the light he had seen earlier; it didn't take him long at all. Gently floating on the surface of the water about fifty meters away, was a man, an actual human being! But there was something strange about him. First of all, he was floating, second of all, he was glowing. But the man didn't stop to think, he was just so glad he wasn't alone. So much so that he started swimming towards the figure, not even thinking about preserving his strength. He had been on his own for so long, the only sign of life he had had contact with tried to kill him. The sight of something like this, someone, strange as it was, was filling him with joy.

"Hello!!"

"Can you hear me?"

He called out, hoping to trigger some kind of reaction, or maybe even an actual response from the figure. It didn't happen. He tried calling out a couple more times but then decided to just continue swimming after it.

He suddenly bumped into something else, floating unseen in his path, above the water. The man put his hand on it to inspect this new object, trailing across its surface. A large wooden surface. It was a raft! He tried to stabilize the bobbing object with his hands, then arms, finally, he managed to pull himself on top of the wooden raft. It was hard to see, but the faint light emanating from the mysterious figure afar provided some much needed support. It was a two by four rectangular floating device, made from several logs of wood strapped together with vines. The glowing figure must have led him here to find it, he was sure it was helping him. He turned his attention to the floating figure: It was walking on water, slowly drifting away. He realized he would have to keep up with it. If there was anything he had learned in this place, it's "Follow the light". There must be something here that could help him with operating this draft. And there was! He found a long wooden paddle, lying conveniently on the side of the raft. Aside from his shitty situation, he would even call this luck. The man set off after the ghastly figure.

He had been so preoccupied with the situation that it had taken him a surprisingly long time to find out something that should have been obvious: There was not a single scratch on him! Even his plain clothes, which should have been torn to shreds, were clean as if the whole incident had never happened.

The unearthly glow continued to provide him with minimal support, which was enough for him to continue paddling forward. The man was getting exceedingly good at navigating in the dark. Having little to do but to follow, he couldn't help but think about some of the things that had happened. How long did he actually spend in that Tower? He knew that it was roughly sixteen cycles, but he couldn't even begin to try and convert that into a comprehensible measuring unit. He had tried to use his creation ability a few times since he got on the raft. But it seemed like that had gone away along with the Tower. Pity, he thought, a speedboat would come in handy right about now.