The world had collapsed into a singular, horrifying sensation: the emptiness where my heart once resided. I was dying. My body thrashed instinctively, engaged in a wild, panicked dance against the inevitable.
The icy water of the lake was a fresh torment, rushing into the void in my chest—a final, searing cold that stole my breath. A ribbon of vibrant crimson unfurled from my chest, creating a living stain in the murky depths.
My lungs screamed for air, a desperate, primal need, but the struggle felt weak and futile. The moon, a cold eye in the sky, gazed down at my pathetic attempts to reach its light.
Then, they came. Their bodies glided gracefully through the blood-stained water. The naiads were not the beautiful nymphs of myth, but creatures of the deep—their skin a pallid green, reminiscent of stagnant water, their hair a tangle of slick algae and river weeds. Their eyes were black voids, and their laughter—a gurgling, chilling sound—echoed from the murky depths.
I gasped as my lungs filled with the cold, thick water of the lake while they dragged me down. Their monstrous forms swirled around me like a macabre dance.
The last thing I saw was pale moonlight filtering through the surface, a distant, unreachable promise of air.
As the world around me grew darker, I thought about the events that led me to this moment and wondered if I could have changed my fate.