One Week in June | ONC2020

June 14th 11:27 AM

"Please, Reia." Alistair begs as he intertwines his fingers with mine. "Just twenty minutes then you never have to go in ever again." I look between him and Kepner Lake. Alistair brought me here, promising that I wouldn't have to go in, but now he wants to go for a quick swim before we hit the road. This will be the last time he'll ever see the lake as well, so I can at least let him enjoy the water before we start our cross country journey.

"Fine," I cave and let him drag me into the water, "but we need to be on the road in the next twenty minutes. I don't want to be here longer than necessary." Alistair practically giggles with glee. He keeps walking further and further into the shallows and I can see the water fade to a darker shade as he nears the drop-off.

"I don't want to go any farther than this!" I yell after Alistair. The water is just barely touching my knees and I already am having flashbacks to the last few times I was in this awful lake water. It feels like every time I go into this water someone dies, and honestly I can't handle Alistair dying, he's the last good thing in my life.

"Sereia Marlow, don't make me come back there and bring you into the lake." He threatens but I stay put. Alistair huffs before stalking back towards me. I start hustling back to shore when Alistair scoops me up from behind and carries me back to the water.

"Alistair, put me down! I'm not playing around!" I shriek, but it's too late. He flings me into the air and I go crashing into the lake. Panic starts to rise up within me and I instinctively scream out all my air into the water around me. I struggle to the surface as fast as humanly possible, praying that when I do bob up for air I'm not surrounded by ice and dead bodies for the second time this week. Luckily, that's not the case. I'm greeted with warm summer sun and the distant laughter of families enjoying their vacation. Alistair swims up next to me and reaches out to help me stay afloat.

"Get away from me!" I cry and splash water at him, I start swimming back to the shallows. He wraps his arms around me and I struggle to break free from his grasp. I take a deep breath to try and calm the panic attack I'm having, "The last time I was underwater all my friends died. I can't deal with this right now." I explain, tears flowing freely from my eyes straight into the lake water.

"Reia, I'm so sorry. I didn't know it would be this bad." Alistair kisses my forehead with his wet lips and I nuzzle my face into the crook of his neck. He scoops me up into his arms and holds me as we float in the still water.

Something small and cold lands on my cheek and it sends an instinctual shiver down my spine. I look up into the sky, clouds are starting to roll in as tiny snowflakes sprinkle down onto the surface of the water. Fear washes over me and I slowly turn to look out into the middle of the lake. Three dark figures rise up out of the water's calm surface, three Petrov faces contorted into silent screams as their malicious eyes stare right into my soul. A terrifying realization dawns on me, Alistair went into the lake yesterday while I was still in there. The hunger in her eyes tell me that Rusalka wants one more sacrifice to end her summer and I just brought her Alistair on a silver platter.

"Alistair," I break out embrace and quickly shove him towards the beach just yards away, "Swim!" I yell, paddling as hard as I can towards the shoreline. Alistair doesn't make it more than a yard before stopping to look behind him.

"Reia, what's going on?" He asks, wiping the lake water from his eyes as I splash past him. "The week's over, there's nothing to worry about."

"It's not over!" I exclaim, grabbing onto his arm as I drag him through the water. "Make it to the shore. Don't look back. God, don't take him too!" I repeat over and over until my feet touch the sand. We take off for his car, leaving all our beach gear laying abandoned in the falling snow before clambering into the unlocked Audi. He's out of breath as much as I am while he searches through the glove box for the keys to the car.

"Get us as far away from this wretched lake as humanly possible!" I shriek. I make the mistake of looking back towards the water and am met with the gruesome, drowned face of Peter Petrov. I scream and shove Alistair's hands away from the glove box, plucking the keys up off the ground where he dropped them.

"What's going on?" Alistair huffs, not fully understanding the severity of this situation. I hear him gasp and I follow his mortified gaze out the passenger side window into the eyes of Peter. He can see him too.

"Either you drive this car right now, or you're going to die." I say calmly, my hands shaking as I hand him the keys.

"You don't have to tell me twice." Alistair turns on the engine and speeds away from Kepner Lake as fast as physically possible. He makes it to the entrance gate before slamming on the breaks. "Who are they?" Standing before the hood of Alistair's car are my five dead best friends, Marsha, Keenan, Kellsie, Riley, and Marcus. Next to them is my Mom and the man I can only assume is my father. They have the same horrific grimaces plastered on their pale, waterlogged faces.

"You don't recognize them?" I ask, mortified. Alistair had spent every summer with my friends for the past fifteen years and knew my Mom for longer, the fact that he doesn't recognize them solidifies that this curse with Rusalka has yet to be broken.

"Go. We'll hold them off." I hear Riley's voice sing in my ears. Her lips aren't moving, but I know it's her, I'd never forget her melodic tone.

"I wish I could have watched you grow up." My father says and I nod through my tears. I had imagined the moment I would meet my father, but seeing him in his dead ghost form while I run from a water demon wasn't the way I thought it would happen.

"Mom took good care of me." I think to my parents and I see Mom squeeze her husband's hand tightly. It takes every ounce of willpower not to run out the car to them, but they're dead and I need to ensure that Alistair and I don't end up the same . We need to get off this mountain ASAP.

"Save yourself." Marcus says as I watch as the seven of them take off around the car, my eyes trailing on their every movement. This is the last moment I'll ever have with my friends and family. They were taken so suddenly from me and I hate the fact that there was never a goodbye said between any of us. They were plucked from my life in an instant and the last thing they're willing to do is save my life when I couldn't even save theirs.

"I love you all." I whisper, my heart breaking as I see them fighting back Rusalka and the two Petrov boys from nearing the car. "Drive." I instruct Alistair. He stomps on the gas and we zoom off down the mountain road and away from Lake Kepner.

A shrill, primal screech shakes the mountain and dark clouds thicken at its peak. Snowflakes, heavy and sticky start coating the trees and road below. Within minutes, the town of Kepner and the lake adjacent are completely buried in snow and all its inhabitants lost to the white blizzard of a scorned mother's rage.

****

End of Act One