The Darkness Below

It started out much the same as every Saturday for as long as Kevin could remember, he got up had his porridge and set off to go fishing on the lake. Bait box full he loaded up his small motorised boat, it had seen better days, the paint wearing off, but the name of the boat, The Rodfather, still clear on the prow.

It was overcast, a storm brewing on the horizon but Kevin knew these lands, he had grown up here, lived here all of his 51 years, raised two kids here. He knew he had hours before the storm reached him and the fish always are more active just before the storm. He was right, the fish were active, it was almost as if they were jumping out of the lake into the boat. Trout, Perch, Bream soon the cool boxes Kevin used to store the fish he caught were overflowing. He looked at the watch, 11:01, looked up at the sky and decided on one more cast before setting back. A minute passed, then another then finally a bite!

Kevin hooked the fish and started reeling, the fish was barely fighting, almost as if it was swimming straight up. Then a sudden dead stop, the line and rod jolted so hard it was almost pulled from his hands. Kevin was no amateur angler on his first trip though so he fought back and sure enough the fish started to come up again. As Kevin pulled the fish onto the boat he noticed he in fact only had half a fish. There is nothing in this lake that can bite a fish clean in half like that right? Sure there had been stories but in over 40 years of fishing this lake Kevin had never seen anything even so much as a Pike.

He turned to head back to shore, thinking what could have done such a thing, curiosity taking over as he started to formulate plans, he would use live fish as bait to try and catch whatever it is. After a minute the world went dark, as if the storm had rolled in instantly, looking up Kevin saw the same grey sky as before. The darkness was coming from within the water. As soon as Kevin looked down he could see movement, like silver swirling in the dark water, mesmerising, pulling him in, until with barely a splash he went overboard. Not struggling as the swirling black vortex pulled him ever deeper into the lake.

It was three days later that Kevin returned home, cold and wet but physically unharmed. However, he was mentally broken, an empty shell of the man he had been. Moved into a care home for specialist care he was completely mute and barely slept, except on stormy days, where he would sing old sea shanties to himself always looking perfectly at the lake, no matter how far away it was.

Time passed, days turned to weeks, months, years and in all that time Kevin never aged. Doomed to never die, and yet live no more after being sucked into the dark abyss. What happened down there in those three days perhaps Kevin himself doesn't even know, but one thing is clear. There is something down there, something dark and powerful, an ancient force beyond human comprehension. The question one must ask is why now? Why did it become active and then disappear without a trace? Was this a freak occurrence or a sign of darker times to come? I guess only time will tell and we should all pray, that when the time comes, we are ready to face the darkness that rises.