Halloween Vault 3D Entries

Day #1: Fantasy || The Forbidden Lake

Given Prompt: Halloween Party Mystery

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"You've always been the optimist, huh?" I had said, crumpling up my expression, as she laughed.

"Don't worry, Alexa," her bright voice had replied. "I'll always be here to light things up for you, so be as pessimistic as you can be!"

I could hear those words, that broken promise, ringing in my skull, as though she was right here, speaking to me as always.

"You liar," I sobbed by the Forbidden Lake. "Easy for you to say!"

She'd always been the cheerful girl hiding her pain within. I never got to know anything about her – her life, her dreams, her disappearance – before I lost her forever.

All I had ever done for her was cry in her stead, scream in her stead, scarred in her stead.

And now that she was gone, so were those thoughts, those feelings, those tears, all replaced by one promise that would never come true – "I'll always be here to light things up for you."

I was weak; she was strong.

I was the moon; she was the sun.

I was alive; she was dead.

Halloween, once upon a time my favorite holiday, no longer meant anything but... the day of her disappearance.

And today marked the one year I had endured without that person.

Life moved on.

But I couldn't.

I had initially come here on for the local Halloween party, but I neither had tricks, nor treats, nor friends.

And so, due to my soured mood, I had wandered listlessly for about fifteen minutes before settling down by the edge of the Forbidden Lake. That place was supposed to be closed after the dark because a legend said that no one had ever come out alive.

Even though I was aware it wasn't a myth since I had experienced it first-hand... her disappearance, her assured death (though not official), I was still here.

What a horrible place to hold a Halloween Party.

I sighed, wiping my puffy eyes.

"Alexa!"

I wished my mind would just forget her voice.

"I'll show you a secret!"

I wished I could get over her death.

"Alexa, I'll always be here to light things up for you, so be as pessimistic as you can be!"

I wished I never remembered that promise from three years ago!

Yet, though I knew she'd never come back, though I knew it was probably a hallucination, though I knew I shouldn't have come to such a dangerous place, I could think of only one thing: Even if it lasts a moment, I want to hear my friend just one more time.

It offered me a hand.

I clasped the shining figure's transparent hand, trusting it only because of the familiar sunshine-filled voice, the familiar face of my missing friend.

My feet sank into the chilly waters, feeling the sand particles compress under my weight. I shivered in the freezing atmosphere as the shimmery figure guided me deeper within the lake.

There it stood behind me, showing me a magnificent landscape –the lake lightened up due to several bioluminescent jellyfishes.

"You see those jellyfishes? They're Aequorea Victoria, also called the Crystal Jellyfishes, a bioluminescent hydrozoan jellyfish species."

"You're so good at Biology," I mumbled, taking this knowledge as proof that it was really her.

"You've got to be like these creatures..."

Ouch. It hurt.

"...always lighting up the darkness..."

It really hurt!

"...flowing with the water currents..."

It hurt a lot!

"...what is known as time."

It really hurt so much!

"M-Mia?" I whispered, but her voice put me at ease, though the world was slowly fading before my eyes.

"You've got to float freely just the same..."

"IT HURTS, MIA!" I screeched.

"...in your next life."

Feeling several teeth sink in, a transformation behind my back as it became larger and ferocious, I bawled out loud when the monster engulfed me within its jaws.

Before I moved on, I wondered... Which appearance of this creature did Mia see before her death?

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Total word count (according to Word) is: 660 words.

Surprisingly, I didn't struggle with word count as I always do usually. It's tragic, but I'm personally a pessimist myself, so perhaps that's the explanation.