The Darkness

The afternoon sun reflected diamonds off the surface of the pond, as the woman’s body spun lazy circles in the water. With the numbing cold of the spring water, she felt all sense of reality leave her. How can this be happening? She had time for this one fleeting thought as her world turned grey, and disappeared down a long, cold, dark tunnel.

The World slammed back into focus as consciousness returned in a rush. Her eyes snapped open, and with a gasp that was almost a cry, she sat bolt upright in the bed. She looked around the room wildly, nearly paralyzed with confusion and fear. Where the hell am I? she thought, and then, the voices. A shiver ran through her body, and she felt impossibly small, and very afraid. Faint memories ran through her head. Voices, and fleeting images in the dark, and the cold: the cold that ran through her body and into her very soul; the cold that filled her mind, and penetrated to the core of her being. She wrapped her arms tightly around her body, and let out a frightened whimper. “Where am I?” she said aloud in a tremulous voice that was a hairs breadth away from a sob. “Who were they?” she barely whispered. The door opened, and the spell was broken as her family burst into the hospital room.

The doctor told her that she was lucky to be alive. Her heart was stopped when they found her floating face down in the water, and the paramedics were only able to revive her with considerable effort. The cold water was probably the only reason she was able to survive that long without oxygen. Throughout the conversation with the doctor, her husband stared at her intently, his bloodshot eyes brimming with tears. “I thought I'd lost you Ally”, he would tell her later, as he held her tightly to his chest. She had been in a coma for nearly three days, and he barely left her side in that time.

Sitting in the warmth of the spring sun, surrounded by loved ones, she began to forget about the cold, and had almost convinced herself that the whole thing was nothing more than a nightmare created by her oxygen-starved brain. Insubstantial images, bodiless voices, and intense cold all seemed like a reasonable response to losing consciousness in ice-cold water.

Later that evening Ally lay asleep in the hospital bed; her husband reading in the chair beside her. The rest of the family had gone home earlier to let her rest, and she had drifted off, finding security in his presence. As she slid deeper into sleep, she began to dream. The images were fleeting and ephemeral, and yet they held a strange intensity that transcended beyond a mere dream.

A woman floated in murky water, her hair drifting like tentacles around her head, gently moving. Sunlight penetrated the depths in a green glow. Her features were hidden in shadow, and yet somehow she seemed familiar. As Ally watched, she began to move. Her arms extended, reaching out in supplication. Shapes began to appear out of the murkiness; dark and horrible. From every direction they came at her and as they dragged her down into the depths, she looked back up at Ally, face still in shadow, arms extended in horrified entreaty.

Ally awoke with a gasp; eyes wide open in the dim room. Scott was asleep in the chair, book on his lap. She got up and walked into the bathroom, shaky on her feet. Looking into the mirror for a long moment, she tried to drive the images from her mind with sheer will. Unsuccessful, she ran cold water into the sink and splashed her face. As she wiped the water away from her eyes she glanced back up at the mirror, and looked into the horrified, shadowed face of the woman from her dream. Ally let out a scream, and stumbled backwards, out of the bathroom. Scott leaped to his feet and rushed to her side. “Are you alright? What is it Ally?” His voice was thick with concern. “The mirror” she managed, her eyes wide. She turned, slowly and tentatively, and looked into the bathroom. She saw nothing but her frightened face looking back.

Scott looked at Ally, worry creasing his features. They sat on the bed together, his hand on her leg as she sipped a glass of water, struggling to recover. After a long moment she looked up at him, let out a breath, and began to talk. “I don’t know what’s happening to me”, she began. “I keep having these visions…No, they’re more than visions; they are almost real…” She trailed off, and then picked up the story again. “I keep seeing a woman in the water. She looks up at me, but I can never quite see her face. It’s like it is always partly in shadow. She reaches out to me, but before she can touch me, she is dragged down into the water.” This is insane, she thought. He is going to think I’m losing my mind. Am I? Her shoulders shivered and hot, fat tears rolled down her cheeks.
“Ally,” Scott said as he pulled her close into a comforting embrace. “You almost died. Give yourself some time. It’s only natural that your mind will play some tricks on you.”
“OK,” she said doubtfully, but thought, you don’t understand. It’s not a trick. What is happening to me?

The next morning the feeling was stronger than ever. Something was happening that was much more than a trick of the mind brought on by her near death experience. The dreams had continued through the night - all variations of the same images. As she lay in bed, eyes puffy from lack of good sleep, she contemplated the visions, and what they meant. There was an overwhelming feeling of familiarity, but they somehow seemed to be more than just memory. By the end of the day, she was seeing images in every reflection; faintly in the window, shimmering in the depths of her water glass, and intensely every time she closed her eyes and drifted off. Over and over she saw variations of the same images, with one constant theme; the unmistakable impression that the woman was asking (begging) for help.

She stared at the wall, eyes tracing lines within the patterns, lost in thought. Memories danced on the verge of her mind, but stopped just short of solidifying, teasing her with vague forms and feelings: always ephemeral, never substantial, and absolutely maddening in their elusiveness. What happened to me? She glared out the window, as if the answer would appear in the cloudy sky or the mostly empty parking lot if she looked hard enough. The quiet of the hospital room and muted sounds of nurses working in the ward were her only answer.

Late that afternoon Scott came back, cups of coffee in hand. “Did you get any sleep?” he asked, gazing at her fondly.

“A little.” She sat up and took the coffee in her hands, enjoying the aroma. Ally gazed into her coffee, and the movement of the liquid reminded her of the woman in her visions again. “Scott”, she began tentatively, “do you believe in ghosts?”
Scott looked at her in surprise. “I’m not sure Ally…Maybe” he said hesitantly. His look now had turned somewhat suspicious. “Why do you ask?”

Three hours later, and Ally lay quietly, lost in thought. The conversation had gone about as well as she had expected; Scott had attempted to placate her, nodding his head in understanding, but not understanding. He tried to convince her that it was all in her head; just a side effect of the trauma she had sustained. This was followed by worried conversations with doctors, and predictably, doctors and nurses questions and reassurances. In the end, she was just glad they were finally leaving her alone. Ally was tired, she was sad, and she was more convinced than ever that the visions were not just in her head. The longer that Ally thought about it, the more she came to believe that someone (or something) was calling her back to the pond. By the time she went to sleep that night Ally’s mind was already set: in the morning she would return to the pond.

Ally awoke with a sense of urgency so strong she could scarcely stop herself from leaping out of bed and running out of the hospital. She looked across the dim room at the clock on the sterile looking, white hospital wall. 3 am. She looked at Scott in the chair beside the bed, and decided that he was deep asleep. Slowly and quietly, she slipped out of bed and picked up her clothes from the bed stand, took Scott’s car keys off the table, and crept into the bathroom to change. Twenty minutes later she was driving into the night to answer the incessant calling.

Light crept into the sky, and the horizon slowly turned red as Ally sat in the car, staring out at the pond where everything had started, lost in thought. Finally she decided that there was enough light to get out and investigate. She stepped out of the car, and looked around uncertainly, unsure of what to do next. Impulsively, she walked to the shore and followed the edge until she was even with the spot that she had fallen in. Ally stood at the edge, and gazed out over the water, once again lost in thought. As she stood, a shape began to take form in the water. She blinked in surprise, and then narrowed her eyes as she tried to bring the vague form into focus. Ally started in shock. She swore that for just a moment, she saw the face of a little girl under the water. She stepped forward into the water, staring at the shape intently. Oh my God she thought, as the shape once again took the form of a little girl. She walked deeper into the water, moving faster now. “Help!” she yelled as she plunged past her waist. “Somebody help!” Ally began to panic now, thinking a child had fallen in the icy water just as she had.

As she moved deeper into the water, the image began to dissolve into a black cloud. She blinked, staring hard into the water, a seed of uncertainty beginning to germinate within her. She took another step in, slow and tentative. The cloud began to stir, as insubstantial images took on form, solidifying into a legion of faces; angry, bitter, and hollow-eyed. “No”, she whispered. As the hands slowly reached up towards her, she saw her reflection in the water. “No!” she cried. She realized with growing horror that she was the woman in her dreams. “No, No, No…” Her screams turned to gurgles as her head was submerged, and the hands pulled her slowly, inevitably down to the blackness.