It was a mass of black blob, swirling underneath the floating dock, coaxing along leisurely to the speed of my steps. Its smooth motions were marked only by occasional splashes.

Nauseous sensation climbed up my throat. White hot fear raved at my chest, clawing and clawing like a caged animal, screaming at me to get the fuck away from the water, but the other part of me, the pride and ego that was still needing to prove a point to Lorgan drove **me to gulp past the knots in my windpipe. The planks and steel creaked under my feet—slow, drawn-out, tortuous screeches sent small ripples across the lake.

A bird cawed, ha-ha-ha-ha, the sound piercing through like a warning, before it, and the echo, were abruptly cut off.

An acute silence trailed behind, penetrating deep into my bone marrows.

The hair along my spine raised.

Forcing myself to continue walking, I resisted the urge to look over my shoulder just to make sure Lorgan was still there, still waiting and not abandoning me. Lorgan’s truck engine rumbling at the edge of my consciousness, the low sound becoming fainter and fainter with each step I took.

I grasped the pocket knife in my pocket, before pulling it out. The weapon felt awkward in my hand—too large, too clammy, the plastic grip and its crevices dug into my skin no matter how I adjusted my hold—it did nothing to stop my knees from tethering on the verge of buckling. The sun was hanging on the top of my head. The warmth stuck on my skin like a second layer of flesh, yet I was cold. I could feel someone’s eyes—something’s eyes—at the back of my head, the sides of my face, mirroring me. Breathing the same rhythm, moving the same way. A ghost of a sound, boot soles dragging against damp, warm wood.

The Chamber awaited, mere feet away.

Kept walking.

Don’t look back.

Don’t run. Don’t tremble. Don’t show that you’re a prey.

The shushing of the reeds, the pines, the calm water surfaces slowed to a still. I didn’t know why I didn’t notice it—the faint disoriented sensation was my body telling me something is very wrong—when the realization finally came crashing down, I halted, knees trembling.

All the noises had been abruptly bleached out of the landscape.

It was almost like I had stepped onto another dimension.

In front of me, the dock and the Chamber were rocking, gently. Back and forth and back and forth. Out-of-sync.

My jerky gasps lapsed over itself—the loudest noise—the only noise surrounding me. I took a step back, and snapped my head to the side when something caught at the edge of my vision. A gleaming, gray tentacles flicked above water, subtle, before submerging back, slithering across the water, almost could be mistaken for a giant eel.

It was waiting. Watching. Daring.

My feet burnt numb like I had stuck them in frozen water. It hurt to breathe, to swallow. My lungs felt heavy and full, as though filled with a viscous fluid. My ankles twitched, as if anticipated a tentacle curled around it at any time and yanked me under. I dared a glance behind my back, and somehow the emptiness made my stomach sunk.

I wanted to yell. To shout. Instead, all I could manage was a scratchy croak. "I'm not scared of you.”

The periodic plip-plop of muted underwater movements matched my own rabbiting heartbeat.

I forced myself to inch the last bit of distance, tightening my grip on the handle of the cleaning bucket, not feeling any less tense or braver. For a split-second, the absolution that I was playing right into the trap flashed through my mind like some sort of sickening last-seconds-of-life movie.

There was no going back from this. No Try Again?

If It had crushed military marines, if It had flung its arms impromptu and dragged down a whole police unit with no hesitation as retaliation for the gunfire, It was more than capable of snapping this twig-like floating dock. How would a flimsy pocket knife be enough to sever Its limb? How could a kid with noodles for legs and arms who didn’t know how to swim stood a chance against this creature, against half-aliens whose domain was water?

I’d have laughed aloud at myself, if the gravity of my decision hadn’t suddenly registered into me—that this was real, that this wasn’t another lucid imagination I had rehearsed over and over again with myself.

If I died here, that would be it.

⸻

The Chamber was small, when I finally reached it. Brown and windowless, held in place by a rope twice thicker than my arms. The exterior railing groaned softly as the whole structure swayed. Grabbing the post for balance, I hopped onto the porch. The Chamber tipped a bit, but the lifebuoys held and balanced out after a few seconds. Inhaling deeply, I gathered enough courage to reach out and try the door. The knob resisted at first, rusty and slick with moss, before finally turning.

The first thing that hit me was the smell. Licorice and mayan mint, sweat and blood and spit and come, skin and sex. The sweet, acrid scent poured out in rogue waves, dizzying and repugnant, slamming into me hard enough that my eyes almost rolled to the back of my head. I clamped a hand across my face, gripping the door frame, purple circles bloomed behind my eyelids. My body immediately reacted to whatever chemical presented in the scent—the muscles clenching, straining and nerves turned raw and sensitive.

The Chamber interior was bare-bone. There wasn't any furniture, save for the iron-frame queen-sized bed taken up the centre of the Chamber, a bedside drawer and a rectangular, wooden trunk at the foot of the bed. The bed sheet was rumpled, however, whatever imprint of the body last laid on it had already long gone, leaving patches of sticky fluid on the duvet.

Setting the bucket and the mop down, I crossed the room. The tiny vent near the top corner barely let a single, narrow feeble ray of light to illuminate the musky darkness. My shoes made wet, disgusting suction noises. I stepped over the discarded clothes haphazardly strewn across the gooey floor until I found the pink blouse and green box-pleated skirt Zoe had worn on the day she was Picked. I squatted, turning fabric inside out.