The canopy was dense but the rain was persistently hammering down, turning streams into cascading rivers and making an ocean of the little lake. If it could climb, it did and joined the clustered creatures hiding amongst the leaves from the strange serpentine things patrolling the drowned paths.
Everything else was as good as dead and would likely be found all bloated, half-eaten and lodged against a beaver dam. Within this chaos rest our protagonists - an elderly couple who take their campervan deep into the forest to spend a week or so just fishing and basking in the barely tamed wilderness.
They will wake up to find that they have floated far deeper into the woods than they had ever been before, far beyond the ranger's signs that specifically forbid entry to protect rare plants. They will find far more than rare plants outside their door and it will find them a brief, yet enjoyable meal.
But before their untimely demise and after the open their curtains, they will wade through several miles of partially submerged walkways, heading for the ranger's tower in the hopes that someone was still there. They will see logs dragged down into cloudy brown water that didn't look that deep, they will see ripples that follow them, sinking if they stare for too long.
One will trip and injure themself, stirring the water with their bleeding leg and praying they'd find something to clean and wrap their wound before an infection could set in. They would be dead mere minutes before their leg began to swell and leak pus, souring the waters around them.
The other will put on their bravest face and fight against their aging mind to remember every scrap of survival information they possibly can. They won't remember much of it but they will remember the stories their granny used to tell them about an ancient king lowering a chest full of snakes into the lake to guard his treasure and how this angered their deity who cursed them to share the snake's fate.
Their campervan will be found five months after they are declared missing and three days after the search party has been disbanded. A hiker will trip over their bones, entwined with mud and faeces. Only a few will understand exactly what came for them, the rest will blame bears or mountain cats and all will lock their doors the next time it rains.
Everything else was as good as dead and would likely be found all bloated, half-eaten and lodged against a beaver dam. Within this chaos rest our protagonists - an elderly couple who take their campervan deep into the forest to spend a week or so just fishing and basking in the barely tamed wilderness.
They will wake up to find that they have floated far deeper into the woods than they had ever been before, far beyond the ranger's signs that specifically forbid entry to protect rare plants. They will find far more than rare plants outside their door and it will find them a brief, yet enjoyable meal.
But before their untimely demise and after the open their curtains, they will wade through several miles of partially submerged walkways, heading for the ranger's tower in the hopes that someone was still there. They will see logs dragged down into cloudy brown water that didn't look that deep, they will see ripples that follow them, sinking if they stare for too long.
One will trip and injure themself, stirring the water with their bleeding leg and praying they'd find something to clean and wrap their wound before an infection could set in. They would be dead mere minutes before their leg began to swell and leak pus, souring the waters around them.
The other will put on their bravest face and fight against their aging mind to remember every scrap of survival information they possibly can. They won't remember much of it but they will remember the stories their granny used to tell them about an ancient king lowering a chest full of snakes into the lake to guard his treasure and how this angered their deity who cursed them to share the snake's fate.
Their campervan will be found five months after they are declared missing and three days after the search party has been disbanded. A hiker will trip over their bones, entwined with mud and faeces. Only a few will understand exactly what came for them, the rest will blame bears or mountain cats and all will lock their doors the next time it rains.
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