Dark Waters Apr 2026

He dipped his oars into the water, careful not to break the surface with a splash. In Blackwood, noise was an invitation.

He didn't jump. He simply leaned forward until the center of gravity gave way. Dark Waters

"Is it peaceful?" Elias asked, his hand hovering over the water. "It is silent," the voice replied. He dipped his oars into the water, careful

The fog didn't just sit on Blackwood Lake; it breathed. It was a thick, cold lungful of silver that swallowed the hemlocks and turned the water into a sheet of polished obsidian. He simply leaned forward until the center of

Elias leaned over the gunwale, his heart hammering. "Thomas?" he whispered. The humming stopped.

The water began to rise. Not a wave, but a slow, bulging swell right beneath the boat. From the blackness, a face emerged. It was Thomas, or at least the memory of him, preserved in the cold, lightless pressure of the deep. His eyes were wide, glowing with a soft, bioluminescent amber, and his hair drifted around his head like smoke. He didn't look drowned. He looked... transformed.

Deep below, a pale shape drifted. It wasn't a fish or a sunken log. It was a hand—long, translucent fingers splayed against the dark. And then another. Dozens of them, waving slowly like pale anemones in a current that shouldn't exist.