Black Water

A Silent Backstory

When Jenny heard what had happened, she immediately drove off to the Lodge, leaving her children at the hotel after making them promise to stay in the room. By the time she reached the well, Dennis was already sitting on the ground, staring at the water helplessly. "He went down," said Dennis, "he left a message in the Lodge. He said that he was descending the well."

It was hopeless at that point, to expect him to come back up. Jared had no diving experience - going into the well was practical suicide, and Jenny knew that.

But, to Dennis' surprise, she didn't appear sad or frightened at all. She stood there, holding her ground in front of the well, staring at its dark surface. "Call 911." she said flatly, "tell them to bring a rescue diver."

"They're not going to help."

"I know, but do it anyways." Jenny's voice made an odd turn - suddenly, she sounded far more authoritative. Almost commanding. "Do it now."

"Um...okay." Dennis took out his phone, and began to call 911, "they're not going to do anything. Just look at how useless they've been in the past."

But Jenny wasn't listening. She was staring at the water, her eyes fixated on its flat and even surface.

She thought about all the water that stood directly beneath her. About all of the gallons and miles of water which likely stood between her and Jared. She looked up, and saw in front of her a large, gaping tear that contained every infinitesimally small comprehension. Every tiny figment of the imagination. And, behind it, a looming darkness. A shadow, which covered the trees, the mountains, the Lodge - it plunged the world into an eclipse, bathing it into an endless night. The shadows thickened, the trees swayed, and somewhere deep down in that well, a scream rose up and tore through Jenny's body, shredding it to bits and casting it into the void like nothing else could. It was deafening and eternal - a cosmic silence, which shook her thoughts and notions until she felt herself shaking.

And yet, she still stood her ground.

When Dennis turned back to the well, he saw that Jenny was gone - literally gone. She had vanished, and was nowhere to be seen. And there was only one place where she could've gone.

So it was only a miracle, when eight hours later, she resurfaced, her clothes drenched and her hair sopping wet. And right after her, Jared also appeared at the water's surface, his eyes closed and his skin cold. By then, the police were conducting a thorough interview with Dennis, and the unexpected arrival of Jenny and Jared was enough to cause quite a commotion.

At that moment, Jared's core temperature had dropped to a dangerous 91 degrees fahrenheit, but fortunately for him, the doctors were able to restore his body temperature through manual blood transfer. Apart from a slightly runny nose, Jenny appeared to be perfectly fine, and refused to say what she had seen underneath the well.

When he resurfaced, Jared also happened to be carrying two cameras - his own Nicon underwater camera, and Allen's camera. The footage that these two cameras contained would come to be known as Endeavor IV and Endeavor V - the two most ambitious attempts at descending the well.

In the past, the well was seen as nothing more than an interest for the insane and easily gullible. The religious and the paranoid. Nobody could blame the police for not taking the well seriously in the beginning, because they simply had no reason to. To them, Ioueri and Allen had died only because of their stupidity; there was no evidence to suggest otherwise. But now that they had a diver who actually survived, and on top of that, who claimed to have seen something - now they took the well seriously.

And it wasn't as if they weren't familiar with the Irwins. They had dealt with them twice before, but this time, they had something solid to work with. The testimony of Jared Irwin.