Angela Kulig - Skeleton Lake

M y mouth was no longer the worst of it. Dryness tore at my cracked lips with every jagged breath I forced out. That feeling seemed to travel from the ends of my dark, tangled hair to the tips of my bare feet. I ran without direction, without a goal.

I liked the feeling of the escape. I liked pretending I could.

Deep footprints and tiny droplets of red ruined the winter landscape behind me as I darted past the tree line. Terrible blotches that looked black in the moonless night were all that remained of my hands. I had unconsciously torn away at the flesh with my own fingernails.

My heart continued to beat even though I knew it had already given up. Broken, but not silenced, it seemed determined to win a race against the pounding of my steps.

That was when I saw it glowing with the reflection of a million different universes. Tendrils of steam rose from all the edges and danced across the top of the lake. I couldnt remember seeing anything like it before.

Later, I would learn it was Skeleton Lake, but at the time, it only looked like my salvation.

What would it be like to drown? Did it hurt? How would it feel floating there, weightless, until my very life drained away?

I sprinted down a decaying wooden dock without looking back. Boards creaked below my weight. Pieces splintered off and landed in the water with a plink that sounded like hailstones.

I remember the sounds. I remember the smell of the old gray timber being torn from rusted nails.

I still cant remember the splash.

Drowning was nothing like I thought it would be. To start, it was slow. Time seemed to stretch out forever. The water was warm and pleasant after running through the snow. My wounds felt soothed by the murky waters. Even as liquid swirled into my ears, I could imagine I was at home in a bath instead of floating toward my oblivion.

I never closed my eyes. My vision blurred then somehow refocused on two places at once. Part of me stared at the late eighties wall paper in the bathroom, which my father stubbornly refused to update. The other part of me was completely aware of the lake, and the sky above me.

The stars were nearly invisible. Blackness stretched over my head like an old sheet, letting in just a little light through its worn places.

There was still more darkness below, where the muddy bottom waited to welcome me permanently into its grasp.

Even though I floated, I felt weighted down with so many thingsMom and Dad alone in the old farmhouse, unaware anything was wrong, all the friends I had until tonight, and the crushing weight of other peoples secrets.

Then there was light. Not a warm white light like everyone talks about, but a ghostly blue one. I wondered what its presence meant for my afterlife, if there was such a thing.

That was my last thought before the panic set in. Until I started burning.

Everything until that point had seemed so surreal. Had I ever stopped to think? There had only been the need to escape.

The blue light was right on top of me. I could tell it was close enough to reach out and grab me, but I was still surprised when it did. It seared my burning skin with ice cold fingers like instant frostbite on sunburned flesha cold and brittle feeling that belonged to a moving skeleton. Was it Death? Did such a specter really exist?

I let out the last of the air from my lungs as the black bled in from the edges of my vision. It filled everything. And then my stomach took a big flop. My whole body felt stuck in a Marlow shaped elevator shaft, and I had come to a sudden halt before being jolted upwards.

Then there was nothing.

I was unaware if I would ever leave the lake, unaware if it mattered at all.

I could hear my eyelids separating, and I didn't understand why they protested. When I blinked the crust out of my eyes there was a white blur above me. It was so blindingly bright I wanted to look away from it, but my neck ached and wouldn't budge. This might be that light that people talk about it, but my head was still filled with a ghastly blue oneone that seemed to laugh at me from every direction at once.

When the image above me came into sharper focus, I realized it was nothing more than a yellowing ceiling fan. Two of its decorative bulbs were burned out. I couldn't see what was directly behind me and the rest of the room was sloppily painted blackor maybe a deep, deep blue.

This wasn't my grandparents old farmhouse, but where was it and how did I get here? The dark walls seemed to nag at my cloudy head. The blackness seemed oddly wrong, but still familiar. As far as I could remember, I had never been in this room.

Visions of the blue light returned, along with images of the water I felt sure I should have drowned in. Only I couldnt have. I still seemed to be alive, and in pain at that. So unless Hell had undergone a recent remodeling to resemble a Goth kids bedroom, I must not be dead, yet the thought made my neck throb.

Pieces from the rest of the evening slowly drifted back to me. Each part of the puzzle stung a bit more than the last. I had snuck out of the house. There was no way my parents would have let me leave dressed like I had beenor otherwise. At the time, I felt it was something I had to do; now I just wished I had never left home.

Because he wasn't worth it.

There was a party at Rachelle's house that I could not have cared less about, but I knew Tyson would be there. Tyson King, last time I checked, was still supposed to be my boyfriend. Things had been tense since Thanksgiving, and saying I did not expect to see him there with his arm snaked around a willing Rachelle was an understatement.

I knew the moment I entered the house something was wrong. As I checked my reflection in the hallway mirror, smoothing out the green dress Tyson loved, people whispered and stared. I ignored them, just as I had been doing for months. I wandered into the crowded living room, and thats where I found them, alone on the loveseat against a window. I could see the snow falling into the yard, but my eyes were locked onto Tyson's face, waiting for him to see me.

When he looked up, there was nothing. No shock, no remorse, no guilt. Maybe there had never been anything there at all. I spun around and fell, one of my spiky heels had lodged itself in a knot on the floor, and then he was there.

I hated myself for what I wanted him to say. I wanted him to smile, lie, and let everything go back to the way it had been when I was blissfully unaware. He just took my hands in his, pulled me close, and said it wasn't worth pretending anymore. I wasn't worth it.

So I ran. The cold wind chapped my whole body as I clawed at my hands in a fruitless attempt to get him off my skin. I had walked the half mile to Rachelle's house from my newly inherited farm, but my coat, gloves, and common sense were still sitting in Rachelle Wood's entryway; and I was flying in the wrong direction.

First I went over a fence and through a snow covered field, then the woods. The air was drying me out, my heart was already withered. Then, oddly, I felt as if someone was behind me, watching me, but it could be no more than the wind so I shook the feeling away.

Why had Tyson affected me so? I had no idea. Right now I was lost physically, not just emotionally. Without causing more neck pain, I pulled my hands above the old quilt I was tucked into. I still did not look down because I was sure they were completely mangled. Instead, I wiggled my fingers. I could feel the cotton fabric beneath the tips, but the movement did not hurt.