Cold.
That's the first thing I feel. Not air, but water. My body is half-submerged, lying in the shallows. Ripples spread from me, breaking the surface like cracks in glass. My breath catches, chest tight, lungs burning. I push myself up, coughing water and dirt. The air is damp, heavy, but it tastes clean too clean, like the world has been wiped of everything living.
The forest around me is silent. No birds. No insects. Not even the whisper of leaves. Just the slow rhythm of the lake behind me, licking the stones.
I look down. My reflection stares back, pale and ghostly. For a heartbeat, I don't recognize it. My face looks hollow, my eyes darker. There's blood dried on my neck, the wolf's blood, maybe mine too. The sword lies next to me, half-buried in the sand, the metal glinting faintly under the pale light.
I can't tell if it's dawn or dusk. The sky above is a dim silver, neither day nor night.
"How… did I end up here?"
The last thing I remember is the fight, the wolf lunging, the weight of the sword, the blood. Then nothing.
Now I'm here. At the edge of a lake that shouldn't exist.
The water is perfectly still, a black mirror stretching to the treeline on the other side. The surface reflects everything – trees, mist, even me – but there's something off about the reflection.
I blink once.
The me in the water doesn't.
A chill runs down my spine. I stare harder, and notice the eyes. My reflection's eyes are glowing faintly a molten gold, alive and pulsing like fire trapped behind glass.
"What the hell…"
I splash the surface with my hand. Ripples distort the reflection, bending it into a dozen fragments and for an instant, each fragment has a different expression. One smiles. Another looks angry. One looks terrified. And then the water calms, and they all vanish.
I stumble back, heart hammering.
The mist begins to rise from the lake, thin at first, then thick, swirling like smoke. It crawls along the water and reaches the shore, curling around my legs. It's cold, but not natural, it feels like fingers brushing over my skin, searching.
Something whispers.
Not a voice, not quite, more like the echo of one.
Come back.
I spin around, scanning the forest. Nothing. No one. Only trees and silence.
But when I look back at the lake, there's movement. Deep below the surface, shapes shift slowly, serpentine, impossible to define. They move as if circling something glowing beneath.
At the center of the lake, a faint blue light pulses. Once, twice like a heartbeat.
I can't look away. Every pulse feels like it's tugging at something inside my chest. My legs move on their own. One step. Then another. The cold water bites my feet, my calves, my knees, but I keep walking.
The whisper grows louder.
Come closer.
Remember.
"Who's there?" I shout. My voice echoes over the water, but no one answers.
The light brightens, shimmering beneath the surface. I reach toward it. My fingertips brush the water. And for an instant, the reflection shifts again.
I see not myself but someone else. A figure standing exactly where I am, wearing the same torn clothes, holding the same sword but his face is older. His eyes burn brighter. He stares back at me like he's waiting for me to remember something.
Then the water erupts.
A wave bursts upward, slamming into me. I fall back, gasping, drenched. The light vanishes. The mist recoils, sucked back toward the center of the lake. Silence falls, thick and suffocating.
I lie there, soaked and shaking. My heart feels like it's being crushed. I look at my hands the veins glow faintly, golden, then fade.
"What the hell is happening to me…"
Beside me, the sword catches my eye. The blade looks brand new, sharper, brighter, etched with faint runes along the edge. I've never seen them before, but something deep inside me recognizes them.
When I lift the sword, the runes flicker faintly, as if reacting to my touch. The reflection in the blade shows my face again and those same golden eyes staring back.
I drop the weapon instantly.
The sound echoes across the water like a bell.
The forest stirs.
Leaves tremble. Something moves.
I grip the sword again, breath shallow, scanning the tree line.
Footsteps. Slow, deliberate, coming from the left. Branches crack under weight, heavy, but human. My muscles tense.
"Who's there?"
No answer.
Then, through the mist, I see him.
Standing on the opposite shore, the man from before.
He's motionless, his posture too straight, too calm. His smile hasn't changed. He looks almost… pleased. The lake's reflection shows him perfectly, but unlike mine, his reflection doesn't ripple. It just stares back, still and solid, like he's carved into the water itself.
My heart starts pounding again.
"Who are you?" I call.
His lips move, but no sound reaches me.
"What?" I shout louder, stepping closer to the edge. "What do you want from me?"
This time, I hear something faint, carried across the lake, a whisper that might be my name.
Then he tilts his head slightly. The smile widens – too wide, too human to be human.
Behind him, the trees bend inward as if pulled by some unseen wind. The mist thickens until his figure fades into it, leaving only his reflection in the water.
And then the reflection moves.
Even though he's gone from the shore, his image still stands on the water, smiling. Slowly, it begins to walk toward me – across the lake's surface.
My breath catches.
"No… no, no, no…"
I stumble backward, gripping the sword. The runes flare again, this time burning white-blue. The air hums like the world itself is holding its breath.
The reflection stops halfway across. Its golden eyes, the same color as mine, lock onto me.
"You can't run from what you are", the voice whispers inside my head.
I swing the sword instinctively, slashing through empty air. The reflection shatters like glass, the ripples spreading outward until the lake falls still again.
The mist retreats slowly, drawn back into the trees. Silence returns.
I drop to my knees, breathing hard. My reflection reforms in the water just me this time, trembling and soaked. But when I look closer, I notice the faintest smile on its lips, one I'm not making.
"I'm losing it…" I whisper.
A breeze stirs for the first time, gentle and cold. The mist thins, revealing the far side of the lake a narrow path of stones leading deeper into the forest.
I sheathe the sword and stand, my clothes dripping, my thoughts spinning. The blue light no longer shines beneath the surface, but the water still hums with quiet life, like it's waiting.
I take one last look at the reflection, my reflection and turn away.
The path ahead glows faintly in the dark, as if lit by the same ghostly light that once pulsed beneath the lake.
Each step feels heavier than the last, but I keep walking, not because I'm brave but because I know if I stay near that water any longer, I won't leave at all.
Behind me, the lake settles. The ripples fade. The reflection, that thing stands perfectly still on the surface, watching as I disappear into the mist.
And just before I vanish among the trees, I hear it whisper one last time:
We'll meet again… at the water's edge.