The Kelpie's Curse (book #1 in the Kelpie's Entrapment trilogy)

Day 5 Pt. 1

She pulled at the bars desperately. This had never happened before. She had never been trapped. Well, of course she was trapped. The water was what trapped her, but this?

She was in an underwater cave with no way to get out because there were bars at the cave's entrance. She had already felt around and there was no air bubble in the underwater cave. Not that she expected there to be one. This was her own personal Hell, after all.

She could feel the tightening already and she wanted to curse. Maybe there was a key she had to feel around for? Her subconscious couldn't hate her this much, could it? If only she could-

Her limbs flailed. She propelled herself backwards and she almost screamed. She was sure she would have if she hadn't needed to hold on to the precious oxygen. There, on the other side of the bars, was the Kelpie, a black stallion with hellish red eyes who could breathe underwater and had a craving for human flesh. If it hadn't been for the fact that she was drowning she might have been thankful for the bars just then.

'Damn you,' she thought vehemently.

"Problems, Lass?" the Kelpie asked. It eyed her hungrily and she knew that she was stuck between a rock and a hard place, or in this case drowning and a Kelpie. Either way she was fucked.

Problems? If she had her bow she'd show it problems. Where the hell were a mermaid and a conch shell when you needed them.

'This isn't a video game, Frank!'

She could feel the acidic burning in her lungs and throat and knew that she was running out of time. Next she would start convulsing before the dots appeared in front of her eyes and then, just as she was about to bite it, she would wake up, hopefully. She always woke up.

'What do you want from me?' she thought wildly as the burning continued and her hands started twitching and inching towards her throat.

"Ye know what I want, Renestrae Frank."

Her eyes grew wide in shock. It could read her mind and it knew her name? What the-

Wait, of course it knew her name. This was her dream after all. It was simply her subconscious tormenting her. It meant nothing more than that.

'This is just a dream.'

"Is it?"

She wasn't going to fall for it. She knew it was just a dream. It was always just a dream. Don't panic. Her mind was just using her traumatic experience and the legend that Dageus had told her against her.

She clawed at her throat as her body convulsed seeking the way out that she knew didn't exist, needing the air that just wasn't there. She wanted to scream, she wanted to fight, she wanted to put an arrow between the creature's eyes.

"Give me what I want and this pain will go away."

'Fuck you!'

The spots started to form before her eyes and her convulsions, while still strong, were starting to slow. It wasn't a good sign.

"Are ye so selfish tha' ye would let people die?"

Her heart clenched and she couldn't be sure that it was part of the drowning process. No! She would not feel guilty. It was only a dream. Her convulsions slowed some more as she reached out and wrapped her hands around the bars. She couldn't be sure but she thought she might be crying.

"The more ye resist, th' more people I will kill, Lassie" the Kelpie growled angrily.

'You're not real,' was her last thought before her vision clouded and...