The rain did not stop until dawn.
It did not ease. It did not taper. It simply exhausted itself sometime before morning and left the swamp swollen and quiet.
When I stepped outside, the world had shifted.
Water had crept higher along the banks, swallowing patches of mud that had been exposed the day before. The shallow place where they found my father now blended seamlessly into the darker channel beyond it. No clear edge. No safe boundary.
The air felt washed thin, stripped down to scent and sound.
And beneath that—
Something greener.
I walked down toward the water barefoot.
The ground yielded under my weight more than it should have. Each step pressed deep. When I lifted my foot, the mud clung longer, reluctant to let go.
At the edge, I stopped.
The surface reflected the sky in dull gray sheets.
Then I noticed the prints.
Not mine.
They began in the water and ended near the base of the porch steps.
Long impressions. Deep at the heel. Narrower at the front.
Too long for any boot I owned.
Too elongated for a normal foot.
I crouched slowly.
Rain should have softened them beyond recognition. Should have blurred their edges.
Instead, the impressions looked recent. Pressed after the storm.
I reached out and placed my hand inside one.
My fingers did not reach the end.
Something tightened behind my ribs.
They were shaped almost like human prints.
Almost.
The toes were wrong.
Too thin.
Too separated.
As if something had once been human and then… stretched.
A memory surfaced uninvited.
Louisiana.
Waking in a cypress break.
Feet aching.
Finding prints in the mud I couldn't match to my boots.
I had laughed then. Blamed gators. Blamed imagination.
The swamp does not make monsters. It keeps them.
I stood too quickly.
The porch steps creaked faintly behind me.
I turned.
Nothing there.
But the house felt closer now. Watching from above like a hunched back.
⸻
By late morning, the sheriff returned alone.
Dalton didn't waste time with pleasantries.
"You walk down there this morning?"
He gestured toward the water.
"Yes."
"You see anything?"
I considered the prints. Considered the way my hand had disappeared inside one.
"No."
The lie felt heavier this time.
Dalton studied my face, then stepped past me toward the bank. He paused near the shallows, scanning the mud.
I felt the tension coil through me as he looked.
He said nothing for a long moment.
Then, quietly: "Strange how water moves."
My throat went dry. "What do you mean?"
"Storm like that should've flattened everything."
He crouched.
My pulse hammered in my ears.
"Should've erased tracks."
I forced my voice steady. "Maybe something came out after."
Dalton straightened slowly.
"Maybe."
He didn't look convinced.
"Hunter's wife found more blood near the north trail," he added. "No body. Again."
He stepped closer, lowering his voice.
"You ever see your father wander at night?"
The question struck too cleanly.
"What?"
"When you were a kid."
I hesitated.
A flicker of memory—barely there.
Standing at my bedroom window.
Seeing him waist-deep in black water.
Perfectly still.
"I thought he fished," I said.
Dalton's jaw tightened. "He didn't fish."
We held each other's gaze for a second too long.
"Lock your doors," he said finally, and turned back toward his truck.
⸻
That afternoon, the ache began.
It started at the base of my spine.
Not sharp. Not stabbing.
A pressure.
As if something beneath the skin were testing its room.
I tried to ignore it. Sat at the table with one of my father's journals open, reading lines that blurred together.
November 14
It is stronger in flood season.
November 20
Stillness feeds it.
November 28
It prefers when I do not resist.
The pressure along my spine intensified.
I stood and walked to the bathroom mirror.
At first, I saw nothing.
Then I leaned closer.
The skin between my shoulder blades had darkened faintly. Not bruised. Not dirty.
Green threaded beneath it in branching lines.
I reached back and touched the spot.
It felt firm.
Denser than flesh.
A tremor ran through me.
"Stress," I muttered. "Just stress."
But even as I said it, my fingers felt stiff.
The joints resisted when I flexed them.
As though they were not meant to bend that way anymore.
⸻
Night fell faster than it had the evening before.
The frogs resumed their chorus. Cicadas sang in metallic waves.
I sat in the dark without turning on the lights.
The house seemed to prefer it.
Outside, the waterline gleamed faintly under a thin crescent moon.
I told myself I would not step outside.
Told myself I would stay seated.
The ache along my spine pulsed.
Slow.
Deliberate.
The dragging sound began again.
Closer this time.
Not from the water.
From beneath the house.
Wood scraped against wood.
Then—
A soft, upward press against the floorboards below me.
Testing.
My breath came shallow.
The pressure in my back flared suddenly—sharp and expanding.
I doubled over, hands gripping the edge of the table.
Something shifted beneath my skin.
Not tearing.
Rearranging.
My shoulders rolled forward involuntarily.
The joints in my fingers cracked one by one, lengthening slightly.
I stared at them in disbelief.
The nails darkened.
Not dirt.
Color.
A green-black tint spreading from cuticle outward.
The dragging stopped.
Silence fell heavy across the swamp.
And in that silence, I felt it clearly for the first time.
Not a voice.
Not a thought.
An instinct.
Stand.
The urge was not violent.
It was not frantic.
It was patient.
Stand.
I rose slowly, as if pulled upright by unseen strings.
My back straightened further than it should have.
The ache transformed into something almost like relief.
I stepped toward the door.
Each movement felt more natural than the last.
When I reached for the handle, my fingers brushed the wood.
For a fraction of a second—
The grain seemed to answer.
I opened the door.
The night air wrapped around me like damp cloth.
I stepped into the shallows.
The water felt warmer than before.
The surface did not ripple much when I entered.
I walked until the water reached my knees.
Then my thighs.
Then my waist.
The pressure along my spine peaked.
Something beneath the skin pressed outward.
Not painfully.
I exhaled slowly.
And let it.
My shoulders widened.
The world seemed to lower around me.
No—
I had risen.
My arms felt longer.
Heavier.
From the corner of my eye, I saw something trailing from my left shoulder.
Thin.
Dark.
Hanging.
I did not look directly at it.
Did not want to break the moment.
The instinct deepened.
Do not move.
So I stood.
The frogs fell silent.
Minutes passed.
Or hours.
I could not tell.
A deer emerged cautiously at the far bank, lowering its head toward the water.
It did not see me.
I understood then.
Stillness was camouflage.
The deer drank.
My jaw shifted subtly.
Not wider.
Just… differently aligned.
The deer lifted its head.
For a fraction of a second, its eyes met mine.
And in them, I saw no recognition.
No fear.
Just confusion.
I stepped forward.
The water parted without splash.
The deer bolted too late.
The night swallowed the sound that followed.
⸻
When I woke, I was lying on the porch.
The sun had not yet risen.
My clothes were torn at the shoulders.
My legs were streaked with drying mud.
And beneath the porch steps—
Fresh drag marks led back toward the water.
This time, I did not search for other explanations.
I only wondered—
How far I had stood.