When The Lake Calls

Chapter One: The Water Knows Me

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THE INCIDENT - Summer '18

Everybody in Black Hill gravitated towards the lake.

It was like a fulcrum, the center of gravity the town turned around. Little kids had dared Oliver to go jump in naked, and the star kids of Black Hill invited me to a lake hangout. The lake was a point of conversation, and if you weren't in, then you were out. I was in - I had to be.

Being the new girl was like a bad smell. You either accepted us as we were or you tried to change us. You fitted us in. I wanted to fit in because there was no other way to be. You only had to look at the clothes the girls wore in Black Hill, the sports the boys played. The cars their parents drove. Mum with her '09 Audi and my Nikes' weren't going to cut it. Oliver was lucky. His art was all over the primary school walls, and we'd only been here a few weeks.

The water in the lake was cold, despite the warm summer air. It drew goosebumps from my skin, slicking my swimsuit closer to my body. I wasn't stick-thin like the other girls. Emily, with her chestnut hair and bright eyes, looked like a model. She had the tits for it paired with a toned stomach, and legs that stretched out for days. I never understood how girls had clear, shaved legs. Small dots littered mine.

Strawberry legs.

I saw the way all the other girls followed behind Emily, even when her words cut and slashed through you. She smiled though, and then you forgot what you were saying. She invited me out here in the first place.

"It'll be awesome!" She had said, spinning around in the empty hall. We weren't allowed out of the cafeteria or the school library at lunchtime, but Emily didn't care. "One in the morning, bring a swimmy and don't talk to that creeper McMahon lady down by the cliffs. She's gone a bit mad."

Now, swimming around underneath the water, watching the others' legs kick about, I was glad I came here. It smelled like clovers and grass around the lake, hinted with the darkness of the night. It was pretty. Reminded me of one of Oliver's paintings.

My lungs burned, screaming a warning call. I was due to come up.

A bit longer.

Thoughts flitted through my mind, new faces, conversations, ideas. I needed to pop into the local shopping boutiques to try and find a new outfit before school on Monday. I trailed water, brushing my hands through the pondweed when pain erupted in my hip.

Something bit me.

I screamed, but nothing came out. Water flooded in like an uninvited guest, pressing down into my throat. It filled me up like a balloon. I hardly noticed the cut anymore as I struggled, kicking up towards the rippling surface. My lungs weren't burning, they were drowning, choking, and filling with murky lake water. I didn't know if the water was poisonous, but I didn't want to find out.

I broke the surface, gulping in the fresh air. Choking and coughing, raw hacks stripped my throat. The water in my lungs spilled out, grey and mixed with blood. Spit and snot ran down my face, but I didn't care. I was alive.

Wiping my face, I looked around. Everything was different. The sky was an ice blue, the ground frozen white. Pine trees loomed over the lake, snow dusting their branches. What the hell was going on? I opened my mouth to ask the others when a log caught my eye. It had fallen into the water.

I swam closer. My heart sped up in my throat, pumping blood that drowned out the sounds of the forest.

It wasn't a log.

The log grew arms, then two legs, and a nice pair of tits as I came closer. It wore a periwinkle blue bikini that showed off its toned stomach. It was Emily, tinted blue and as still as a log would have been. I swam until I was close enough to wrap a hand around her wrist. It was freezing cold.

Like she'd been dead a long time.

A scream echoed through the forest, sending a flock of birds launching into the air. Only when the copper taste of blood flooded my mouth did I realise the screams belonged to me. My tongue throbbed, leaking red out of my mouth and onto my chin. I shuddered, my body racking with sobs. I couldn't breathe. Hot tears spilled down my face, burning tracks into my cheeks. I screamed again, guttural and broken like the squeal of a horse. Dead, dead. The invincible Emily. Gone. Clawing at the skin of my face, I dug my nails into the tender flesh. I wanted to ground myself with the pain.

The shudders stopped and the icy water drained my tears away. My body felt light. Relieved. I forced myself to stop and think.

I didn't know what to do. I'd never had to deal with a corpse before. Did I have to bring her to the shore? I didn't even know where she lived to tell her parents.

But how did she die?

Letting go of her, I looked around again. My eyes caught on the odd shapes floating in the water. There were more logs. Four others. All with different skin colors, dressed in different brands of designer swimsuits. Panic gripped my throat and squeezed, stopping my airways. I tried to gulp in breaths of air, but the cold bit my nose and my mouth, leaving me feeling more out of breath than before. The fading sun left long shadows forming on the banks. The water made it hard to think. My fingers and toes felt numb. If I didn't get out soon, I would follow Emily and the others.

I stared at them, all sliding across the surface like ice hockey pucks. Ripping my eyes away, I took the first breaststroke towards the banks. God, it was so cold. It seeped into my bones, freezing my limbs in place when I tried to move forward. But I kept going.

I didn't want to die. I didn't want to be like them, which was absurd to think of now. I'd wanted to be a part of the popular kids since we'd moved to Black Hill. I'd wanted to sit at their table, and laugh and flick my curls and look down at everybody else. It was where I belonged. I've always been part of the 'it' girls. Part of the group of girls with winning smiles and boyfriends above six feet and a wardrobe the size of England.

I reached out towards the frozen grass and placed my hands on the ground. With all the strength I had, I pushed myself up, straining under the weight of my body. Grunting, I swung my legs up until I was kneeling on the ground. I couldn't lie down, or I'd catch a permanent chill. I glanced up again, staring at the sky.

The warm blanket of summer felt like a distant memory - the imprint of something that had happened weeks ago.

Trembling, I wrapped my arms around my body and struggled to my feet. The logs swayed on the lake's surface, their faces frozen in place. I left them as they were, and headed down through the clearing of the pine trees to the pathway home

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Auli'i Cravalho as

Annalise Madigan