paranormal | solve a mystery | a natural disaster | one of you is a time traveller | unfriendly
CW for claustrophobia and aquaphobia (and a bad ending)
The woods were filled with dripping.
It was to be expected- the area was endlessly damp, and Cora was out not long after the rain. Everything was running like a tap, water scattering from leaves she brushed as she walked and seeping into her coat.
Tap, tap.
It sounded hard, like it was hitting stone, echoing. The sound somehow wasn’t sinking into the foliage and earth like it usually would, shivering sickly in the air, like clashing brights among the earth tones of the forests usual sounds.
Cora shuddered and shrugged further into her coat.
She couldn’t shake the curiosity though. Like a river running from beneath her feet, her path further into the forest ran along before her, and she kept walking along it.
She was mostly wanting to prove herself wrong.
It had begun several months ago. Some tiny sound woke her from a vivid dream she didn’t quite remember, and her limbs jerked her out of sleep. She dreamt of tunnels for weeks, and a feeling of fury closing around her limbs. She dreamt of a snarling, gurgling voice hissing her name.
Tap, tap.
She dreamt of water.
It crept up her neck and pooled at her feet. Always cold.
The mumbling, indistinct voice muttered back into hearing again, fading in and out like old radio stations. She worked her fingers deeper into her pockets and tried to hold her nerve. If she turned back now, she was sure it would follow her anyway. She had to stop this now.
Cora wasn’t a loud or bold sort. She was quiet. Reserved. Walking in the woods used to be an escape. Now she was haunted here too, somehow worst of all. But the muttering was louder. If she could only hear it clearly.
She jumped down into a small trench in the ground, decorated with soggy leaf litter. The rain above had stopped, but the dripping sound remained. She realised with a start that, for the first time, she could place the source of the echoing drip.
The Bowl. It was a very little cave that was a common haunt for youngsters enjoying some company, and water was dripping from the overhang onto the cave’s floor, droplets slapping aggressively onto the stones. It was surreal to find the source of the sound that had been haunting her for weeks. She turned to leave, but the voice she’d been hearing suddenly bubbled out of the air around her, urgent.
“Don’t go! Don’t go!”
Cora froze, heart racing. It was familiar but she didn’t know where from.
Warily, she crept towards the cave. No-one was there- the cave was very shallow. She could see the back wall already.
“Hello?”
The cave only repeated her own voice back at her. She glanced at the sky. Mostly clear.
She glanced into the Bowl. It was quiet and still.
Cora wasn’t bold or loud. But she was sick of the nightmares, sick of the noises. Sick of the voice. She knew she wasn’t imagining it now. She wouldn’t call out or shout anymore. She already knew whoever it was wouldn’t do her the courtesy of replying normally.
She stepped nervously towards the back of the cave, peeking warily into all the corners. It was very shallow and almost perfectly round, hence it’s name. Old fire spots and even a few bits of litter decorated the floor. Cora had carved the initials of her and her teenage sweetheart among many on one wall. She could still find it- sitting in a crude approximation of a heart. L + C.
Tap, tap.
Something shifted.
Cora had only about a second to react when the ceiling started to give way. The overhang was only dirt- the cave was so shallow it was barely covered over anyway. The fact that she was at the foot of a slope, that the rain had loosened the earth, that the water was running right over the lip of the cave entrance, all of it was disguised by the familiarity of the cave. Cora was plunged suddenly into darkness.
Tap, tap.
The voice was muttering and mumbling urgently and Cora suddenly had the feeling it was inhumanly, desperately angry. In a blind panic, literally, she clawed at the dirt, but more tumbled further into the chamber, pushing her back. She kicked her legs furiously, freeing them from the wall of earth, but she suddenly realised it was wet. It wouldn’t be long before it gave way completely.
She was trapped.
Hot, furious tears prickled the corners of her eyes. How could she have been so stupid! How could she have been so stupid?
She scrambled to the remaining free space in the cave, but it was pointless. Soon the dirt would shift again and there would be nothing she could do. She was already covered in mud anyway.
And the cave wall behind her was wet with water.
It pooled at her feet. She screwed her eyes up and helpless misery overtook her. Her muttering as she felt the water creep up her calves would ripple back through time to lead her right to the moment that created them. Her panic as mud piled around her legs was undercut with frantic muttering, now clear to her ears but senseless to her mind, as she cursed herself for getting into this situation. She imagined she saw herself walking up to the bowl. “Don’t go! Don’t go!” she begged, as the water crept up her neck.
She had haunted herself to her own demise.
Sleeping staggered from the void, left with nothing but the sort of quickly fading terror that one associated with a nightmare. She shudders, and goes to find a nice pool to swim in. That’ll calm her down….