Rusalka's Conflict

Downward

Later, as I emerged from the lake. Brunette hair dripping behind me, clothes absent. Scratch marks ups and down my forearm and wrist. A distant gloss over my face. I crawled up from the silent water, laying across the bank. The cool water that remained on my skin, chilled every inch of me. The sand was soft. I allowed my fingers to sift through it, as I attempted to calm my beating heart. 

I curled into myself. 
Holding my head with my unscathed hand. Sadness and fear swelling inside of me; 
the deed had been done. 

My plight was not something I could not subdue. It was something I dreaded to accomplish. It was not only for the sake of my species but I had to do this. I needed to quiet the mad voice, hissing to me from within. There was a blood thirty desire that compelled me to shed the blood of man. 
This craving for murder however was not what I wanted.

I wished to continue a life in peace, walking near the wilderness on the barefoot sand, escaping a curse to experience a human life lacking misery. A peace away from myself.

When I tried to calm my desire, it would burn for more. Clawing and burning me from the inside until I had shed blood till I was fainting from exhaustion. Waking days later to find bloody clawed corpses littered around me. This usually drove me to tears and screaming. Desperation and fear for my life, for what I had done; I screamed until I was sure my victims could hear from beyond death. I ended by experiencing more pain within my soul, than which I had inflicted. When I attempt to avoid this swelling desire from overtaking me. I planned so, if I only killed one person every so often when I needed to. Was better than going into a bloodthirsty frenzy and murdering a household of victims. 
I was to the point where I really had to do this? It was the truth; I was scared of myself, this voice, this creature that I was.

As I remembered, every Rusalka is supposed to be a fair maiden who had died by water and was given new life with a single purpose. Seduce and drown others in a quest of wronging man. If this was even true? I would never know. For I had not seen another Rulsulka ever, or at least I would've never known. See, I look like a human, I even behave like them sometimes. The goddess only makes us that way in order to get close to man. 'To know your enemy' is something I know too well. 

They all look like humans. We disguise ourselves this way to blend in. We could almost live normal lives if not for a craving of blood and being literal lake spirits that required water to survive. By all accounts, I am a slave to the lake. My curse is to murder for an eternity as payment for the goddess giving me new life. As if I remember my previous one? Doesn't matter. How many years I had lived so far? I'd never be able to tell.
In honest, I feel hopelessly trapped sometimes.

If a better life existed for me, I hope I would find it, I would lick my lips, bare my teeth, grab it, then claw at its neck until… ugh! I'm doing it again. I was curled up, laying naked on the lake, the earth moving around me as I just sat here feeling pity for myself. I hated myself. I wish I wasn't this way or at least didn't feel this way. If I could get by worry free to just murder like I was supposed to, I wouldn't have this pain within my spirit. 

Even though I had fallen for humans and felt sympathy in killing them before. I had never quite had such overwhelming feelings as I had for Reyna. She wasn't different in the slightest from the rest of them. The lines in her back, the joyful way she moved, her ambition in trusting me seemed just so… perfect.
It made me nostalgic just imagining her again, the way we kissed in the lake, the warm touch of her lips, shift in her stance. When I ducked under, grabbing her wrist, holding her and sinking down the incline. Agony that I inflicted upon her. The red streaks spreading past her, the water and the sun so far away. 
Not a god in sight to save her but a monster…?

The breeze had picked up again a little. Rustling my hair, giving my body a whole new chill. I need to get up. Opening my eyes and staring at the bleached forms that were my legs. I sat them in front of me, parallel with my hips as I lay on my side, using only a bloody arm as comfort, holding my torso.
I shifted my left leg over and propped myself up on the bank. Now holding legs to my chest, resting my head and staring off into the water. I closed my eyes, and the tears began to fall.

All of the things I'd done, all the humans I left in my wake, the fear I had for this blood thirst inside of me… I wanted it to end. 

So I just remained here, and continued to cry.

Once it seemed at long end and I had repositioned myself laying flat on my stomach, arms stretched in front of me, with the water at my fingertips. My breathing began to even out as the sun set. My eyes were wet and all I could smell was salt. I parted my lips and exhaled. Closing my eyes again I bent my legs to my side, resting a hand behind me I looked to the sky and breathed.

So this is what I was?

Hopelessly bending over again moving with a certain dread, I sat on my knees and rested my arms and head on the ground in a prayer position. I recapped all of my regrets, whispering to the water. To the goddess I asked for everything: the future I wanted, the fear that remained, the cycle I was forced to endure, all the misery it had caused. I begged and begged for a new life, raising my voice and sobbing desperately until I was screaming at the water. I was upset, at the goddess, at myself, all the times I thought killing was the only way out. I didn't want to anymore…
So I sat, expecting an answer. I had heard tales of humans praying before. Asking for help from the goddess and being blessed with fertile ground or fresh well water. This sounded like bliss as I may have expected the same. I sat their with bloodshot eyes, weeping to her.

I waited...

My answer was vacant.

I was upset again, not in the same way, I felt abandoned. Sad and miserable. I was exhausted. Thinking no more I simply lay forward and began to cry again. I mourned my soul all through the night. My tears fell in buckets, like a river reuniting with the lake. My state of misery seemed endless. If I cried forever would I turn into water..?

No.

I would become a corpse.