The alarm rang at seven fifteen, and Sophie Carlton felt like dying.
She opened her eyes, taking in the stubborn sunrays sneaking into her bedroom through the gaps in the blinds and feeling her frustration circling through her body, searching for an outlet.
Damn it, Will!
She had barely slept through the night, and it was all Will's fault.
She had gone to bed at 11 pm, as usual, but because her stupid brother was watching horror movies until late, she didn't fall asleep until well past 3 am.
She wouldn't admit it, but she had been too afraid to fall asleep. That voice, that boy's voice, it felt too real, too dangerous, too… familiar for her to ignore.
Now her whole body ached, especially her head, but Sophie Carlton was not a woman who would let something like this stop her from achieving her goals.
She allowed herself to be immersed in her anger for five whole minutes before finally getting up and starting her routine.
Making up the bed, washing her face, brushing her teeth, and putting on her swimsuit took her 10 minutes.
At exactly 7:30, she went downstairs to have breakfast.
"Oh, honey, you're up!" Her father, Bill Carlton, was sitting at the table reading the newspaper when she appeared, "Your breakfast is on the pan, go eat quickly." Bill's voice was unnecessarily loud, but there was no anger in it.
Sophie went to the stove to get her sandwich, but not before pointing at her ear while looking at her father.
"Oh! I forgot to turn this thing on again. Damn thing keeps giving me shocks, I need to buy a new one." Bill's voice fell to a normal tone as he turned on his hearing aid.
Sophie found her father's recurring promise to be almost sad at this point. For years, he had made this promise of buying a new device, but with what money? They were poor, small-town poor.
Her mother had died when she was little, and her father was the one who raised her and Will by himself, working through many shifts in the factory to make enough for all of them to live comfortably, and this had taken a toll on him.
At 52, Bill looked like someone in his mid-60s, and, after a work accident, he had been forced into retirement, now living on disability benefits.
Sophie looked at her father while drinking her coffee, realizing that he would be the only one she would miss after leaving Lake Manitoc.
"Hey, good morning!" At this moment, Will Carlton descended the stairs and greeted them.
"Hey, son. Did you sleep well?" Bill greeted him, his tone a bit colder than when he spoke with Sophie.
Will was a slim man of average height and size, and, in Sophie's opinion, a big loser.
"Like a baby!" And then he gave a small laugh, seemingly proud of himself for giving a humorous reply.
"It's good that at least one of us did." Her words dripped with sarcasm and frustration.
"Oh? You had a bad night? What happened?" He asked, and as she looked at his face, she could only see genuine curiosity.
He doesn't know?
"Nothing." She didn't want to talk about being afraid of some movie she didn't even see. This was embarrassing to admit when you were 18.
"Anyway, when are you going to get a job?" She changed the subject to something he wouldn't want to talk about.
She watched as he stuttered his way into an answer while under their father's heavy gaze, enjoying the show.
Will was only two years older than her, and they had been very close as children, but ever since she had caught him kissing her best friend in her freshman year, their relationship had grown strained.
Now, as a senior, a few months away from moving into another state for college, and no longer a friend of Alice, she felt like forgiveness would come easier for her. She knew her father would like it.
"I'll go for a swim now, Daddy."Sophie kissed her father on the head and moved outside.
"Be careful out there, Sweetie," she could still hear Bill's voice as the door closed.
***
The water was cold, almost unbearably so, but the many years of training on this lake had forged Sophie into someone who wouldn't stop swimming just because of a bit of cold.
One
She began to count in her head, timing how long she needed to get to the other side of the Lake.
The Carlton family lived in a wooden house by the lake's shore, so Lake Manitoc was where she trained most of the time.
Two
It was funny, really. She used to be afraid of this lake when she was a child; something about these dark waters evoked a primal fear in her, and after her mother drowned in it, this fear only grew stronger.
One day, she was with a group of friends at her house, and they were playing truth or dare when someone, maybe Alice, asked her if she was in love with Michael Flanigan, and she panicked.
This was a deep secret of hers, one that she didn't wish to share with anyone.
In her panic, she chose dare, and Alice, in a fit of cruelty, dared her to swim to the other side of the lake and come back.
At the time, she looked at Alice with pleading eyes, but Alice refused to change her sentence.
She jumped into the lake, felt its cold embrace, and as she swam, found herself to be stronger than these dark waters; she cut them with her hands and kicked them with her feet, forcing them to let her move forward.
At that moment, Sophie felt like she was the queen of the lake.
Ten
Just like that, she continued to swim her way into a scholarship to Columbia University; she would go to Law school and become a powerful lawyer.
She would leave this small town for the big city. She would give her father his well-deserved retirement and have a happy life ahead of her, away from this… lake.
Thirty
That's it! The voice from the last night had given her the same fear she used to feel of the lake. A dark, slimy, suffocating fear that paralyzed her.
That voice that said
Come…Play…With me!
Sophie stopped and raised her head above the water.
She heard the same voice again, a weak, breathless, distant whisper in her ear.
She looked around the lake, searching for the source of this voice even as
terror began to seep into her bones.
Run! Her body seemed to be saying, Run now, you dumb bitch!
She trembled. Why is it so cold?
Her limbs that had been so reliable until now were so heavy that it took all her effort just to stay afloat.
Breathing was hard, and thinking was harder.
Oh god, I'm in the middle of the lake.
She looked at her home, wanting to scream for help, but only a silent noise came out of her throat, as if her body had forgotten how it was to scream.
Her mind began to come up with a million plausible explanations for what she heard, most of them revolving around hallucinations brought forth by a lack of sleep, but as she was going over them, she saw him.
Right by the shore, a small, half-submerged face stared at her with its cold,dead eyes.
He looked like a boy, but there was something wrong with him. His eyes were of a lifeless grey, and so was his whole face.
For a moment, she thought that this was the body of a missing person, but then his eyes turned to hers.
She looked into those eyes and felt it instinctively. This… boy hated her; he wanted to kill her, he also wanted to kill Dad and Will.
Come…Play…With me!
Once again, she heard the voice, and the boy began to move towards her.
She turned around to swim in the other direction, but found that she had forgotten how it was done.
One
She closed her eyes and began to beat her hands and feet against the water in a disorganized mess, but she was moving forward; she had to be.
Five
Sophie continued to swallow more and more water as her movements grew more desperate.
Ten
She began to remember the time when she learned to swim with her father and mother; he always seemed a bit sad when he looked at the lake. She thought it was because her mother had drowned in it, but now she remembered he had been like that even when her mother was alive.
Twenty
She felt a hand touching her, or maybe she imagined it, but her arms and legs moved faster even as her lungs burned with the need for air. Her house was just ahead.
Thirty
Sophie opened her eyes and cried.
She was still in the middle of the lake; she had been swimming in circles all this time.
She looked at her home, seeing her dad at the window.
He waved at her.
Come Play With me!
She felt a hand grab her leg, and then water was all she could see.