The Watcher

They say the lake is haunted, but not the way you’d expect.

 

It started with an old campfire story we’d heard a hundred times before: a lone fisherman was out on the lake late one night, and when he looked over the side of his boat, he saw his own reflection staring back…only it wasn’t quite right. Its eyes were too wide, its mouth stretched into a grin, and as he stared, the reflection reached out, clawing its way up from the water to drag him under.

 

We laughed it off, of course. Campfire stories were supposed to be scary. But that night, after the fire had died down, my friends Jake, Lydia, and I decided we’d row out on the lake for a laugh. We weren’t scared—at least that’s what we kept telling ourselves.

 

The lake was eerily calm as we drifted farther from shore. Fog clung to the water’s surface, and our laughter faded as the silence thickened around us. Soon, there was nothing but the quiet splash of oars and the soft, distant rustle of the trees.

 

“I dare you to look over the side,” Jake whispered, smirking as he handed me the flashlight. His voice was barely a murmur, and his grin faltered just a bit as he looked around.

 

Trying to act brave, I leaned over the edge, letting the flashlight beam cut through the inky black water. At first, all I saw was my own reflection—my face pale, my eyes wide. But then…something shifted. My reflection seemed to ripple and stretch, and before I could pull away, it changed.

 

It was me, but not me. The face staring back at me had empty, hollow eyes and a gaping mouth twisted into a too-wide grin. Its fingers clawed up toward the surface, reaching for me, and I felt the boat rock as if something was pushing against it from below.

 

I gasped, jerking back, but the face was still there, hovering just beneath the water, watching.

 

“Did you see that?” I whispered, my voice barely audible.

 

Jake and Lydia leaned over the edge, their flashlights cutting through the dark. And then, one by one, their faces went pale. Because now, it wasn’t just my reflection staring up at us.

 

Beneath the water, we could see other faces—distorted, hollow-eyed, and grinning. Each face was a reflection of someone in the boat, but twisted, wrong. They reached up, their hands pressing against the surface of the water as if they were trapped beneath glass, desperate to break through.

 

“What…what is this?” Lydia stammered, her voice trembling.

 

Before anyone could answer, the boat lurched, tilting violently to one side. One of the reflections—Jake’s—pressed harder against the surface, its hand reaching out, stretching until it finally broke through with a slick, wet crack.

 

A freezing hand grabbed Jake’s wrist, its grip like iron, and he screamed, thrashing as the reflection tried to drag him down. The water surged, icy and dark, and we scrambled, trying to pull him back. But the harder we pulled, the tighter the reflection’s grip became, dragging him down, inch by inch, into the cold blackness below.

 

“Let him go!” Lydia shouted, slapping at the water, but her own reflection surged forward, clawing up through the surface with empty, hungry eyes.

 

In a panic, we let go, and Jake vanished beneath the water with barely a splash, his scream cut off by the dark.

 

For a moment, everything was silent again. The water stilled, and there was no trace of Jake or the twisted reflections that had dragged him down. Lydia and I sat there, shivering, too stunned to speak, our eyes fixed on the water, afraid to look but unable to tear our gaze away.

 

And then…we heard it. A soft whisper, echoing across the water.

 

“Come closer,” it murmured, the voice chilling and familiar.

 

Lydia and I shared a terrified glance. We couldn’t be sure, but the voice sounded an awful lot like Jake’s.

 

Without another word, we grabbed the oars, rowing back to shore as fast as we could, our hearts pounding, our hands trembling. Behind us, the whisper grew louder, calling our names, promising safety if we’d only come back.

 

When we finally reached the shore, we jumped out of the boat, pulling it onto the bank and sprinting away, not daring to look back. We didn’t stop running until we were far from the lake, our breaths ragged, our skin clammy and cold.

 

In the days that followed, people searched for Jake, but no one found him. They said he must have drowned, his body lost somewhere in the lake. Lydia and I didn’t try to explain what had really happened; no one would have believed us.

 

After that night, life didn’t feel normal. Every time I saw my reflection, I felt like something was wrong—like it might reach out and grab me the way it had grabbed Jake. But even worse was the feeling that the lake was calling me back. Lydia and I agreed to never return, but part of me couldn’t shake the pull of that place, the whispering promise that Jake was still out there, waiting.

 

One night, as I tried to sleep, I heard tapping on my window. At first, I thought it was just branches in the wind. But then I heard it again—clear, deliberate. I got up, my heart pounding, and pulled the curtain back.

 

Outside, standing in the yard, was Jake.

 

He was soaked, his clothes hanging off him in wet rags, and his skin was as pale as bone. His hair dripped lake water, and his eyes were wide, empty, almost…hollow. He didn’t smile, didn’t move. He just stood there, staring up at me through the glass.

 

“Jake?” I whispered, but my voice cracked, barely more than a breath.

 

He lifted his hand slowly, pressing it to the window. For a split second, I wanted to open it, to ask him what had happened, to help him. But then I noticed something.

 

The reflection of his hand in the window was wrong.

 

While he held his hand flat against the glass, his reflection’s hand was twisted, clawed, pressed against the glass as if trying to break through. And his mouth—his real mouth was closed, but in the reflection, it was grinning, wide and twisted, baring teeth that looked too sharp, too wrong.

 

He spoke then, his voice low, distant, like it was coming from somewhere far beneath the water.

 

“It’s cold,” he said. “Come with me.”

 

My heart hammered as he lowered his face, so close to the glass that I could see the muddy water dripping from his skin, the way his eyes were too wide, unblinking. He reached up, tapping on the window again, softly, rhythmically.

 

“Come closer,” he whispered.

 

I stumbled back, terror freezing my limbs. I wanted to scream, to run, but my legs wouldn’t move. All I could do was stare as his face pressed harder against the glass, his mouth opening wider, his voice growing softer, like the lake itself was whispering through him.

 

“Come back,” he murmured, his voice twisting into a deep, guttural sound. “You’ll be safe…come back.”

 

And then, in a blink, he was gone. I staggered back, my chest heaving, and collapsed onto my bed, pulling the covers over myself, hoping it was just a nightmare.

 

But in the morning, I found muddy footprints beneath my window.

 

After that, the dreams got worse. I’d wake up gasping, my skin damp with sweat, with the taste of lake water on my tongue. I’d dream of being pulled under, of faces in the dark, hands reaching up, twisting, grinning, calling my name. Lydia started avoiding me, and I could tell she was afraid, though she wouldn’t say what.

 

Then, a week later, I woke to another tapping, this time from inside the room.

 

I lay frozen, every muscle tense, too terrified to open my eyes. I didn’t want to see what was standing there, watching, but I felt it—a presence by my bed, cold, damp, and breathing shallowly, like something dragged up from deep underwater. And then, barely a whisper, it spoke.

 

“Come back to the lake.”

 

I opened my eyes, and he was there, kneeling by my bed, his hollow eyes fixed on me, his mouth twisted into that too-wide grin. His hand reached out, brushing against my arm, and his skin was icy, sending chills through me. I pulled back, scrambling out of bed, but he just stood there, watching me with that terrible, empty smile.

 

“Come back,” he whispered, his voice softer, pleading. “I need you to help me.”

 

I didn’t wait to hear more. I bolted from the room, running through the house, out into the night. I ran until my lungs burned, until I reached Lydia’s house, pounding on the door until she opened it, her face pale, her eyes wide with fear.

 

“He came back,” I gasped. “Jake…he’s here.”

 

She didn’t look surprised. Instead, she nodded slowly, her hands trembling.

 

“He came to me too,” she whispered. “Every night, he’s been at my window, calling my name, asking me to go back. I thought it was just…a nightmare.”

 

We sat in silence, the reality sinking in. Whatever we had seen on the lake, whatever had taken Jake, it hadn’t let him go. And now it wanted us, too.

 

That night, we sat by the window, watching the lake in the distance, knowing it was waiting, that whatever haunted its depths wasn’t finished with us. And as the hours crept by, we heard it again—a soft, distant tapping, followed by a voice that drifted through the night, echoing through the darkness.

 

“Come back,” it whispered, cold and hollow. “We’re waiting.”

 

  As dawn broke, Lydia and I made a silent vow to never go near the lake again, even as the whispers grew louder, promising that it was only a matter of time.