The water closed over my head and sound disappeared.
No screaming. No splashing. No noise at all except for the whispers.
Join us.
Stay with us.
Drown with us forever.
The voices came from everywhere and nowhere. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands. All the wolves who'd failed the Pool of Reflection. All the souls the water had claimed across countless trials, countless years, countless desperate wolves seeking truth and finding death instead.
Hands pulled me deeper. I tried to fight, tried to swim, tried to claw my way back to the surface. But there were too many of them. Every hand I knocked away was replaced by three more.
They dragged me down through the black water that tasted like starlight and despair.
My lungs burned. I'd been holding my breath since the water closed over me, but I couldn't hold it much longer. The cold was stealing my strength. The hands were pulling me toward something below, something that waited in the depths.
