Dark Waters -

Deep below, a pale shape drifted. It wasn't a fish or a sunken log. It was a hand—long, translucent fingers splayed against the dark. And then another. Dozens of them, waving slowly like pale anemones in a current that shouldn't exist.

Elias sat in the stern of the rowboat, the wood groaning beneath him. He was seventy, with skin like cured leather and eyes that had seen too many seasons of the "Dark Waters." That’s what the locals called the lake after the sun dropped behind the ridge. It wasn't just a name; it was a warning. Dark Waters

The fog didn't just sit on Blackwood Lake; it breathed. It was a thick, cold lungful of silver that swallowed the hemlocks and turned the water into a sheet of polished obsidian. Deep below, a pale shape drifted