Where Siren Lake Lies

Chapter 1: The Weight of What It Was

      It was just a place now, a hollow memory lingering in the air, echoing with all the things we never said.

    The park felt wrong the moment I stepped into it. The air was heavy and sticky, like molasses coating my lungs. I knew this place—but the trees were stalking giants, their branches twisting downward, curling like fingers about to close into a fist. Shadows bled across the ground, pulsing with something alive. The bench where we kissed was still there, but split down the middle, oozing sap that looked too much like blood.

I stepped forward, and distant laughter rippled through the air—high-pitched, broken like someone had stitched together joy and madness and failed. The grass under my feet squirmed, sharp blades brushing against my skin like insect legs. I looked away, but the sky bent inward, wrapping the world tight around me.

I needed to leave. Now.

I turned toward the exit—but it disappeared. The park folded in on itself; the paths looping back to the same twisted bench. My heart stuttered. Then I saw it—
A chainsaw, resting against the tree trunk. Still. Silent. Waiting.

I turned around, and instantaneously, he was there.

The chainsaw man.

He leaned against the nearest tree, his jagged weapon dangling from one hand. Chains trailed behind him. His mask grinned questionably wide, the painted smile curling into something grotesque, and beneath it, his eyes gleamed—hungry, predatory, alive with a kind of joy that made me sick.

I moved, but my feet sank into the earth, roots coiling around my ankles. The more I resisted, the stronger their hold became. I gasped for air, but the park began humming with a low buzzing—a swarm of flies, beetles, and wasps. They poured out of the cracks in the ground, crawling up my legs, spilling over my hands. Their wings brushed against my ears, and they whispered—
"You left her."
"You left her to die."
"You were supposed to save her."

Nora's voice tangled with the buzz, sharp and accusing, and I felt my stomach drop. I thrashed against the roots, but they twisted, unyielding, biting into my skin. The beetles crawling into my ears.

The chainsaw roared to life. The man tilted his head like a curious animal, savoring my panic. With each rev of the engine, the world shifted—the trees flickered, replaced by the walls of my apartment, cluttered with artwork and dishes. Then they flickered again, and suddenly I was in the alley, flames licking the walls, the smell of smoke and burnt metal choking the air. My paintings hung crookedly along the walls, their bright colors bleeding like open wounds.

I screamed, but the insects flooded my throat.

The chainsaw man approached lazily, dragging the chains behind him. Dragging through the dirt with a metallic scrape, too slow, too deliberate, like a bell tolling. His steps echoed, each one heavier than the last, until I felt them in my chest, pounding like a second heartbeat.

Then the whispers changed.
"You let him in," they hissed. "You let him back in."

I knew they meant Noah. I knew it, and it burned.

The chainsaw man stopped just in front of me, crouching so close I smelt the sweat and oil on him. His mask tilted as if he were smiling underneath, amused at my terror. His free hand reached out purposefully—almost gently—and ran a finger along my cheek, leaving a trail of soot and ash behind.

"You can't save anyone," he whispered.

Then the chainsaw roared deafening, and the alley exploded into flames.