63rd Day of Autumn 218 – Night of Ellie’s Death
Galoring
The nightmare is familiar:
Abram’s Lake is bathed in the sunlight of late summer. The surface air is warm and richly detailed. Ethan sees every feature across the long blades of grass that pierce the pond, bright and vibrant. He sees their subtle, uncaring sway from the violent waves of a boy fighting against the cold waters of their bed.
Marcus appears as a void; the sun stands hidden behind his enormous figure so that his father is little more than a dark silhouette. It crouches on the dock as Ethan flails within the waters beneath him, the cold depths of the lake laughing through his fathers unseen lips.
Ethan is vaguely aware of the burning within his thin arms and legs, but the need for air is all-consuming. His too long hair covers one eye, half blinding him. Yet he still sees everything around him clearly.
Most clearly of all is the dock itself.
He sees each and every splinter of the old dock and knows that grabbing its ledge will pierce splinters into his hands. The wood will bury itself into his skin, beneath his nails, yet he claws his way towards it, unthinking and uncaring. He is driven by instinct; propelled by fear.
Pain, that fear seems to argue, is still Life and it is more than willing to trade one for the other.
But Ethan cannot reach the dock.
Each time he is almost within reach the walking stick appears, pressing against his sternum. Each time he instinctively grabs hold of it, a buoy against death. But each time the stick only serves to push him back out away from the dock, the malice of its owner felt through the wood itself before the stick is jerked free from Ethan’s grip, the wood slipping easily from his weak, wet hands.
Each time he slips beneath the water, his strength wanes and his fear grows in equal measure. Each moment without air becomes longer, feels more desperate.
The dream ends the same way each time: The dark shadow watches as he sinks beneath the surface one last time, his face unable to break the tension of the surface. The water stays wrapped over his face like a transparent layer of film and Ethan wakes gasping for air.
But on this night the dream would change.
It began the same way, yet the first time he thrashed his way back to the surface the dark void was gone, Garbon standing in its place. His friend was there smiling and laughing on the dock, waiting for Ethan to join him. This time, Ethan was not struggling to stay afloat for himself, he was staying afloat for Garbon. He knew, somehow, in the way that we all know within our own dreams, that when he went under it would mean Garbon’s death.
Ethan fought desperately, trying to say his friend’s name, trying to call out to him. Asking for help so that he might save him. But eventually Ethan lost his footing and his face slipped below the surface.
Kicking desperately, he managed to resurface, only to find that Garbon was gone, replaced by Roland.
Roland sat on the docks, his long legs draped over the side, his toes hidden beneath the water. At a glance, it was easy to mistake his legs for two additional pillars supporting the dock. Roland was smiling warmly, sharing that rare look of approval and encouragement. He sat on the docks just as he had on those nights so long ago, as he taught Ethan to swim.
Again, Ethan knew that falling beneath the surface would mean his brother’s death.
He tried to keep his head up. He reached for Roland, angry that he wouldn’t reach back. But mostly he was just scared. He didn’t want Roland to go. His brother held the dock afloat and seemed to anchor the world itself. He shouldn’t die because of Ethan…
But slowly, Ethan found his head slipping under the water once again. Fear flooded over him anew as he felt Roland disappear. He kicked and pulled and forced himself back to the surface. But Roland wasn’t there.
Instead, it was Ellie.
She sat on the docks. She was perched upon the small, frayed blanket she would use for picnics, one corner of the sheet hanging lazily over the edge of the dock, safely fluttering in the breeze well above the waterline, dancing in tandem with her hair. She used one hand to brush the errant strands from her face and waved to Ethan with the other.
A small, wicker basket rested beside her holding a loaf of bread from the bakery, made fresh by Ellie less than a candle ago.
Ethan’s thoughts came through in a single word, repeated like a desperate prayer to a god who would never hear them:
No…!
He swam and fought with everything inside him. He clawed and screamed and kicked at the murky prison trying to drag him under. He was determined: the waters would not win this fight.
But from somewhere below, unseen, Ethan felt a hand grip his ankle. It was cold and slick, distinct from the pond itself. Ellie continued to smile as Ethan was dragged under.
Suddenly, Ethan was no longer a child. Instinctively, he reached behind him, his fingers wrapping around the hilt of a blade so much a part of him that its bone white hilt felt as though it was grown from his own body; each time he gripped the dagger it felt as though he was returning some part of himself. The slick hand that gripped his ankle was severed easily, instantly dissipating into thin air.
His blade is unconsciously secured behind him as Ethan swam back to the surface. His fatigue disappeared like the severed spectral hand and he easily broke into the fresh air above… but the sun was gone. The light from the long summer days was replaced by dark, thick clouds and the portent of rain.
Ellie, too, was gone.
Her blanket lay half steeped in the water below, dark stains rising up from the water’s surface, absorbing into the other half still resting on the dock. The basket lay crumpled on its side. Ellie’s bread floated nearby, trapped by a patch of tall grass. The grass sagged unnaturally low with Blight and the bread was plagued with discolored mold that reeked of unnatural diseases.
Ethan tread in the lake alone.
The world was still and quiet, yet somehow he felt a hint of malicious laughter. The clouds grew thicker and the waters around him became deeper. Spectral hands began moving towards him, gripping onto his leathers, wrapping themselves around his shoulders and pushing him towards the now infinite depths below. The implied laughter became audible as the hands gathered in strength and number, the wind of a nearby storm growing stronger.
Each time Ethan had been pulled beneath the surface he had been afraid. And as his family and friends appeared, his fear had become terror.
But as the hands gripped onto his hair and pressed against his face and body, as the laughter grew to a crazed cackle, as the scene grew from one of peaceful familiarity polluted by a single, dark void into a nightmare without reason or hope, Ethan — for once — was not afraid.
He calmly took a breath just before the hands forced him under. He did not fight to stay afloat. As the hands dragged him deeper, Ethan’s own hand found that familiar part of himself that formed a blade of obsidian, darker still than the waters attempting to drown him. He grasped the hilt tightly, crushing the bone against his skin until there was no space left.
Just as there was no space left within him for fear.
Ethan brimmed with rage.
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