Welcome Home

Chapter II: The Black Pond

~ 💀 ~

I walk the dark forest in the evening under the grey clouds. The strong winds are howling in the my ear screaming for me to go away, and that I don't belong. The rocks crunch under my feet each step I take along the gravel path to my sanctuary. The leaves dance and rustle, while the trees sway sweetly. Spring is coming I can feel it. All the blossoms have bloomed, and all the leaves have turned green again. But the trees are still dead, and they don't have a spec of petals on them. They're just lifeless. I smell the rain coming. It's going to be a storm, I can feel it.

I reach my secret place surrounded by trees, with a small black pond in the middle. I kneel down, and place my hands in the water feeling the coldness. I leaned forward to see my reflection under all the ripples, and the waves. I am beautiful. I close my eyes and smile. I open them again, and I see something. It's a figure with long black wet hair. It was a girl. I look behind me and there was nothing. There was nothing at all. I frowned and stood up. I look around and there's still nothing to be seen. Is she hiding? Is she even real? Am I going crazy?

I look across the pond again and I see her. She looks as if she's risen from the dead. Her long hair covered her face, and she wore an old gown. She looks as if she was drowned.

"Who are you?" I asked.

She didn't respond to me. She started walking slowly around the pond towards me. I began blinking my eyes, because I know that this isn't real. It can't be. Who is this girl? What does she want with me? I began backing away to make a run. The more I moved the closer she came. Up close she's like a creepy pasta creature, but I can't see her face and I don't want to. I found myself against a tree, and I look up to see that we're face to face now. My heart began pounding fast, and I'm not able to breathe. A silence came.

The only thing I hear at this moment is the birds chirping among the trees happily, and the wind. I close my eyes hoping she'd disappear. I open my eyes and see that she's still here in front of me. I began to quiver as I notice her black eyes, and her cracked lips. Her skin is cracked as well and brackish. I look at her hands and see that they're bloody. I became even more frightened. I look into her eyes and stared. She then began screeching and growling. I managed to escape her and run like hell. I look behind me and she's crawling and crawling fast. I ran as fast I could until I couldn't anymore. I can feel my legs giving up on me. I'm losing my energy. I'm about to give in. I'm becoming weak. I'm falling to the ground.

I fell to the ground burying my face into the gravel. I look up to see if the girl was still there, and she's not. She's gone. As I slowly stand up on my feet, a strong hand grasped my leg and pulled me back down. I look and see that it's her. I dug my nails into the dirt trying to hold on as she was dragging me back to the pond. It wasn't working. I began screaming and kicking trying to free myself from this monster.

"NO!" I screamed.

I kicked from her grip and started running up the path again. I look back at her again seeing her screaming with her hand reached out as if she's lost a battle. I ran nonstop this time until I started seeing my house amount the pink cherry blossom trees. I kept running until I bumped into something hard, and fell to the ground. I looked up and see that it's TJ. He chuckled and gave me a hand up.

" Bella are you okay?" he asked.

"N-No I'm n-not. I -I......"

I couldn't form my words together. They're tangled in a web I'm caught in. TJ was looking at me strange, and I needed to explain to him. But I'm afraid. I'm so afraid.

" Bella what's the matter?"

"P-Please come with me."

"Okay I -

I didn't give him a chance to speak. I took his arm quickly leading him towards the black pond where the I had saw the girl. I told him everything that had happened, and he looked around and back at me. He looked confused.

" Bella there's no one here." He said.

"Yes there is! I saw it! It tried to kill me!" I panicked.

TJ placed his hands on my face and looked into my eyes.

"No one is here." He whispered.

"T-TJ I -I swear I know what I saw. I'm not lying! It just came after me..It..... "

He pulled me into his arms and held me tightly and closely. I listened to his heartbeat.

"Shh shh. Baby it was probably some crazy kid trying to pull a prank on you or something."

"TJ what kid do you know does that kind of shit? It couldn't have been a kid, no way. Kids don't do that. They don't go to that extreme."

"Shh....Bella calm down. Maybe it was some crazed weirdo or something or ..."

I just started crying. I couldn't take it anymore. He's just making assumptions. I know what I saw, and I saw it plain as fucking day. It was right here in my face ready to kill me. Hell it was trying to drag me underwater. My own best friend doesn't believe me.

"Hey.....hey don't cry. Don't cry Bella."

I can't just stop crying knowing what I saw wasn't normal. It wasn't normal at all. You don't just see a creature come out of nowhere like that. No one does, because things like that don't even exist!

TJ held my face and looked into my eyes again. He took his thumb and wiped away my tears.

"How about when we get home I'll make you some hot chocolate with marshmallows just way you like it and we can watch a movie until the guys get home. Does that sound good?"

I nodded my head a little and looked down.

"Hey everything is going to be okay. No one is after you." He whispered.

I returned a little smile and took his hand. We walked back up the path to return home.

Something's not right. I can still feel it's presence lingering. I know what I saw.