Dont run away, drift away

Nerissa plopped down on the dock which was floating on the water- but yet was
always in one place- almost magically, taking her red-brown hair down to let it ca-
scade down her shoulders and back. It had been a busy day, and it felt good to
finally get to sit down after running from one class to another. Nerissa pulled her
shoes off, one after the other, and then her socks; she was planning on soaking
her feet in the cool lake water for a bit. With a sigh of relief and contentment, Ner-
issa leaned back on her arms and stared up at the sky, which was painted oran-
ge and pink as the sun hid behind the trees to retire for the night.

“I hope many are in the common room tonight,” Nerissa said to herself in a soft,
almost inaudible tone; it would please her greatly if she could fall asleep to the so-
und of soft voices and laughter. Like a lullaby a mother would sing to her children.
A smile formed on Nerissa’s lips; even the thought of it made her feel at peace. The
girl dipped her feet into the water slowly so not to freak her body out with the sud-
den temperature change. It wasn’t as cold as she thought it would be, but it was
cool enough to end the aching, thankfully.

Sitting up a bit straighter, Nerissa looked down into the water, wondering if she co-
uld see past her reflection, which was dancing on the water as a warm wind blew.
She tilted her head to one side before splashing the water a bit with her foot in an
attempt to clear it, but she could still see nothing past the surface. Nerissa had hea-
rd that there were creatures of all sorts living in the black lake, but she hadn’t belie-
ved any of the stories she had been told about them. If there were creatures living
in the waters, then why did children still go swimming there? It didn’t make sense,
because it wasn’t true, Nerissa had decided with a simple nod of her head. That
was one of the many mistakes Nerissa made.

There was a moment of complete silence, and for a moment, even the wind stopped,
even the rippling of the lake water. Nerissa took notice of this, looking about for a mo-
ment. What could have scared the wind away? There was nothing fiercer that she
knew of than the wind. Nerissa shrugged her shoulders, only to yelp moment later;
she could have sworn she felt something slimy wrap itself around her ankle. Nerissa
pulled her feet up out of the water, crawling backwards in an attempt to put as much
space between herself and the lake as possible. She knew she had felt something;
there was no mistaking that sort of thing.

Nerissa stood up, stumbled, and ran, barefoot, off of the dock and into the grass -
which wasn’t much further from the black lake than the dock. She breathed in & out
slowly, trying to steady her heartbeat. “Time to go inside,” she told herself with a no-
d; yes, a bite of something to eat and a little rest by the fire would help calm her. She
blamed it on stress, for it was a logical explanation, and Nerissa enjoyed sticking to
the logical stuff as much as a witch living in an enchanted castle could. She turned
slowly, but she never made it far.

“Help!” she screamed when something wrapped around her waist and pulled her ba-
ckwards at a speed that stole the air from her lungs. She felt the water splash around
her as she was pulled under, but she could do nothing about it, for the grip around her
waist was too strong. Nerissa closed her mouth when water started to rush in only
to find that she had wasted all of her air trying to scream for help when she had be-
en dragged into the black lake.

The last thing Nerissa had seen before she had passed out due to lack of oxygen, had been glimmering light coming from the sunset above, blurred by the water, as if mocking her; reminding her in a sing-song voice that there was no way of her breaking free from whatever creature that had claimed her as its own. However, the last thing she heard had been a splash, and it had filled her with a warm, hopeful feeling that allowed her ‘sleep’ peacefully, images of sunny days and joyful people filling her mind. Though, she hadn’t a clue if that splash had meant she could still make it out of the mess she was in, it gave her hope. Hope… that was such a risky word.

-

Water rolled off of Nerissa’s skin- which had gone a ghostly shade of pale –as she laid there in the grass that made up the shore of the black lake, no oxygen entering her lungs, no carbon dioxide leaving them either. Her red hair was dripping with water, tangled and covered in dirt from the bottom of the lake, almost making her appear as if she had died. That, couldn’t have been further from the truth; her mind was still operating smoothly. Perhaps a little too smoothly, for her mind had never been filled with so many pleasant thoughts at once, almost causing Nerissa to believe that she had drowned.

Nerissa had known from the start that water was dangerous, only, she hadn’t had the option to prevent danger that time around.