There's rumours that there's something lurking at the bottom of the old lake in Wednesday Woods. Kids at school just love mentioning the strange bubbles they've seen crossing back and forth, round and around, never the same two paths of so I'm told.
They're right, you know.
There is something at the bottom of the lake.
Something alive and angry and stuck and it's all thanks to me.
In my younger days I'd go to Wednesday Woods with my sisters and we'd try and catch newts, frogs, whatever our nets could manage. It didn't take too many years before we upgraded our nets, begged until we got a small boat for Christmas and set our sights on much bigger things.
Back then the Great Playground Rumour was that there was a carp made of solid gold that swam about the lake but only at the very centre. I suppose in a way it's how our generation of kids explained the way the water shone in the sun, our own little myth now long forgotten.
It was June, I remember, when we caught something that looked vaguely like a carp. We'd never seen one before but it was big, had fine and a gaping maw of a mouth so we called it our golden carp and set about paddling back to shore with it in tow, our hook still in its bleeding forehead.
We never questioned why the hook had gotten stuck in such an odd place, considering it was baited well and should have been eaten instead but we were too young for such logic. It wasn't until we set it on the sore that it began to jump about like a spring hare, mouth opening wider and wider until it had almost split itself in half, revealing row upon row of razor sharp teeth.
I was younger than my sisters, faster too. It saved me from their fate. Meant that they were caught in its jaws instead of me. By the time it had snagged their sleeves I was halfway up a tree and bawling my eyes out. While I couldn't see so well I still remember those blurred shapes, all wriggling and screeching, slowly quieten down.
I don't know quite how long I spent up that tree but when I got down they were all dead. There was no blood, no warmth to their bodies and I felt like it was all my fault. To my small self, the only way to fix this was to tie them all together and drop them into the lake so that nobody would ever find out what happened.
I didn't realise that as soon as they met the water they would all come back to life, screaming and melding together into a triple-headed abomination that thankfully couldn't swim. My dear sisters and that creature tried to get at me on the shore so many times that day. Each time they left the water they collapsed and died on the spot, each time I brought them back they'd resurrect and come hunting for me.
They still are, you know.
They don't want anybody else.
My sisters just want me to join them.
They're right, you know.
There is something at the bottom of the lake.
Something alive and angry and stuck and it's all thanks to me.
In my younger days I'd go to Wednesday Woods with my sisters and we'd try and catch newts, frogs, whatever our nets could manage. It didn't take too many years before we upgraded our nets, begged until we got a small boat for Christmas and set our sights on much bigger things.
Back then the Great Playground Rumour was that there was a carp made of solid gold that swam about the lake but only at the very centre. I suppose in a way it's how our generation of kids explained the way the water shone in the sun, our own little myth now long forgotten.
It was June, I remember, when we caught something that looked vaguely like a carp. We'd never seen one before but it was big, had fine and a gaping maw of a mouth so we called it our golden carp and set about paddling back to shore with it in tow, our hook still in its bleeding forehead.
We never questioned why the hook had gotten stuck in such an odd place, considering it was baited well and should have been eaten instead but we were too young for such logic. It wasn't until we set it on the sore that it began to jump about like a spring hare, mouth opening wider and wider until it had almost split itself in half, revealing row upon row of razor sharp teeth.
I was younger than my sisters, faster too. It saved me from their fate. Meant that they were caught in its jaws instead of me. By the time it had snagged their sleeves I was halfway up a tree and bawling my eyes out. While I couldn't see so well I still remember those blurred shapes, all wriggling and screeching, slowly quieten down.
I don't know quite how long I spent up that tree but when I got down they were all dead. There was no blood, no warmth to their bodies and I felt like it was all my fault. To my small self, the only way to fix this was to tie them all together and drop them into the lake so that nobody would ever find out what happened.
I didn't realise that as soon as they met the water they would all come back to life, screaming and melding together into a triple-headed abomination that thankfully couldn't swim. My dear sisters and that creature tried to get at me on the shore so many times that day. Each time they left the water they collapsed and died on the spot, each time I brought them back they'd resurrect and come hunting for me.
They still are, you know.
They don't want anybody else.
My sisters just want me to join them.
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