When I was about six or seven, my friends and I would go down to the old lake and swim away the summer days. We'd spend hours floating about, eyes closed against the harsh sunlight, mocking our parents who kept telling us the water was dangerous. Graham's nanna even said the lake was cursed so naturally we turned it into a joke.
And it remained a joke right up until we dared each other to swim as far down as possible and bring back whatever we could grab. I won. My lungs felt like they were on fire for the rest of the day but I went down the deepest and grabbed a handful of white pebbles which we all shared.
When I showed them to my parents they yelled at me for disobeying. That was fair enough but then they called the police and made me hand the stones over. I was asked so many questions that I started to cry, thinking I'd done something unspeakably wrong.
Turns out I stumbled upon a mass grave which was marginally less terrifying than the thought of going to jail, at least to my seven year old self it was. They found nearly fifty bodies down there, all tied together in one big human raft.
I overheard the teachers saying it would have taken them hours to die, slowly sinking and floating as people drowned and bloated and decayed until they all went under for good. And I'd come up with a handful of teeth, well worn down from frantic attempts to chew through the coarse ropes that held them all down.
And it remained a joke right up until we dared each other to swim as far down as possible and bring back whatever we could grab. I won. My lungs felt like they were on fire for the rest of the day but I went down the deepest and grabbed a handful of white pebbles which we all shared.
When I showed them to my parents they yelled at me for disobeying. That was fair enough but then they called the police and made me hand the stones over. I was asked so many questions that I started to cry, thinking I'd done something unspeakably wrong.
Turns out I stumbled upon a mass grave which was marginally less terrifying than the thought of going to jail, at least to my seven year old self it was. They found nearly fifty bodies down there, all tied together in one big human raft.
I overheard the teachers saying it would have taken them hours to die, slowly sinking and floating as people drowned and bloated and decayed until they all went under for good. And I'd come up with a handful of teeth, well worn down from frantic attempts to chew through the coarse ropes that held them all down.
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