Black Lake

I'm about to say something that you probably won't believe. It's the sort of thing I probably would have laughed at myself if I hadn't experienced it. There's a forest not too far from here that people go hiking through all the time. I actually go there a lot myself, but this isn't any ordinary forest. This forest is unusually large and it's said that there are still large areas of it left untouched. One of those areas happens to be where the fabled "Black Lake" is.

The Blake Lake is a fabled lake that's said to exist somewhere in the forest. You hear about it all the time growing up around here. Your parents and grandparents tell you stories about the black lake and what it means. It's said that the lake traps every visitor that stops by. Nobody can really tell you why that's the case or even where it's said to be. The only real defining feature is the dark black water.

For years I thought that it was just a silly story that people passed down, sort of like stories about the boogieman or ghosts. The last thing I expected to find while hiking one day was the lake itself.

How I found that lake is something I still don't fully understand. It happened while I was hiking last week. There's a very straightforward path I usually hike on just as a way to relax my mind and loosen a little from any stress I might be feeling. The only sights worth seeing on that path are some trees and a single field. It's pretty and all, but I got bored of it after the hundredth time walking through it.

I chose to walk out of the path and go wherever my walk took me. Trees hovered above me as I ventured deeper into unknown parts of the forest. I admired the way they stood so firmly during the best and worst of times. Sounds of birds and wind blowing came to a gradual halt as I ventured in deeper. Eventually, all I could hear were the sounds of my boots stepping into the dirt. The friendly looking trees now appeared to be keeping me away from something. I'd see them leering at me, as if they were trying to scare me away. But I wouldn't let some trees stop me. I kept walking forward.

Everything was completely silent by this point. My footsteps sounded like distant echoes in my own head. My mind felt like it'd been removed from my conscious as I continued walking without any purpose. That's when it appeared.

I stopped hiking and opened my mouth as I came across a small black lake. Thick fog surrounded the lake, making it hard for me to see much of it. I walked carefully towards the lake's shore with hope that I could find out more.

The lake and the area surrounding it were a little calming despite the eerie atmosphere. I could feel my lungs as I took a deep breath. I could feel every movement of my eyes as they rolled in my head. Every part of me could be felt and sensed. I felt like a piece of clockwork discovering itself.

My emotions no longer existed in this area. Feelings and concepts I had known all my life were now foreign to me. I felt my eyes widen as I stepped into the lake. My foot couldn't even be seen because of how dark the lake water was. I continued walking further and further into it. My wet clothes began to squeeze against my untouched skin, making me squirm uncomfortably at the cold sensation surging through my body.

Stepping into the lake washed away all the things I spent my days thinking about. School, friends, my future, and what my purpose in life was became nothing more than detached thoughts.

My head was now entering the water. I kept my eyes opened as I submerged myself into the lake. The inside of the lake was when things became even stranger.

The lake itself was a vast and empty place. All the emotions that had my escaped my body must have ended up in there, because now I felt a wave of them returning to me. I remembered the happiness I felt when I had my first birthday. I remembered the sadness I experienced when my cat died. You would think that I became overwhelmed and driven mad by something like this, but it was actually quite refreshing. Feeling all the emotions return helped me remember why I valued them, even if I didn't always like how they made me feel.

I had been enjoying myself so much that I forgot about being submerged underwater. All it took was a single touch from my toe to remind me of that. My vision had begun to darken as my emotions continued to consume me. That's when my toe lightly brushed against something hard. The rough texture was such a sharp contrast to the smoothness of the water that I snapped out of my trance. I looked down to see what I had brushed against and saw something that I still refuse to fully believe. Underneath me were piles upon piles of corpses, old and new. My toe had brushed against the head of a corpse. I looked in terror as it stared at me through eyeless sockets. The bit of skin that was left on the skull had been wrinkled and distorted.

I looked across the bottom of the lake and found corpses on top of each other. There was a flash of light from the other end of the lake. I looked in its direction and saw two small but bright looking orbs making their way towards me. It was hard to see in the murky water, but something told me they were attached to something much larger. I didn't waste any time to find out what they belonged to. My arms and legs frantically moved as I attempted to escape the lake. I could see the outside world through the water. I extended my arm as I came closer to the surface. My heartbeats thundered in my head. Whatever was in the lake had grown closer. I could hear a low noise echoing across the lake.

I closed my eyes and made one final stroke in the lake. My head emerged from the water and entered the outside world once more. I grabbed the shore and pulled myself out with one final push. My eyes darted back for a second to take one last look at the lake before I ran off.

The glowing lights I had seen earlier were barely touching the surface. They were bulbous eyes that belonged to something living underneath. I couldn't tell what features it had because of how dark the water was, but I'll never forget those eyes. I ran faster than I ever had after that. Everything that happened that day keeps replaying in my head. I'll even get nightmares of it while trying to sleep. It's an entity that can never be escaped, and I trapped myself in it the moment I walked towards it.

I know I've been going on forever, but I'm telling you this because I don't want you to go through what I went through. The Black Lake is real and my advice is that you never go looking for it. Ever.