Chapter 1
It was 20 years ago. It was a hot July day. I believe it was the 12th. The date is vague, but the event is very, vivid. We were at a pond to cool off on the hot summer day. My brother, Leo, was skipping rocks. He had thrown two and wanted to show me how far he could skip. He threw with all his might, but the third stone came skipping back. We looked at the stone as if we had just witnessed a miracle. But it was everything except a miracle. As my brother picked up the stone a rope attached to it wrapped around his hand. He struggled to get untangled. He then got pulled into the water and pulled off into the depths. I ran after him but my parents grabbed me before I got out to the deep parts. I just saw the ripples in the water move towards shore as if the pond had not been disturbed. A couple of weeks said that we couldn’t come back to this pond. I wanted to come back every week if not daily. They saw the expression on my face and agreed we would come back every week. I went back to school in august and never told anyone what had happened, never interacted with anyone, and never bothered to do my work. One day my dad said that we were getting a boat and were going to look for Leo. We searched for hours, but never found a trace. All we had was that ripped piece of cotton cloth. As we pulled back into shore I looked out across the pond at the setting sun. The sun made a golden road of sunlight across the water. As I looked out I realized that the day he skipped the stone was the last day I would ever see him. The days went by and soon came summer. I would go to the pond every weekend. I would mostly just sit but sometimes I would walk. I would skip stones still with the hope, that something would happen, it comes back, it flying, something. But they just skipped then sunk. I didn’t understand why nothing happened. I thought for sure something would happen. I was walking down when I saw some small feet. I ran hoping it was my brother. It was a boy who was sleeping next to the water. The years went by and for once I didn’t enjoy summer or the weekend. The next thing that happened was I was in high school. I was in the middle of class when my mom pulled me out early. She took me home early and told me that she and my dad were getting divorced. My mom was staying here but my dad was moving to Florida. I decided to stay with my mom and visit my dad during winter break, and on some holidays. My dad packed his stuff and we took him to the airport. As I waved goodbye my dad waved back. When he was out of sight we walked back to the car and my mom drove us to the pond. My dad left the boat so we decided to go and take it out for a ride. The sun was setting but we didn’t pull the boat in yet. We just sat. We saw something float to the top of the water. I reached down and picked up a shirt. Then all of a sudden there was a loud bang, almost like a gunshot. The boat got busted on something and was leaking gas and oil. We pulled the boat up onto the trailer and drove back home. As we drove home I thought about the shirt. I noticed a tear in the fabric. I moved it around a bit and realized it was a hole. When we got home I ran to my room and compared the hole to the piece of fabric that washed on the shore. It was a perfect match. I couldn’t sleep that night. The next morning we went to the pond and my mom skipped a rock. The rock then skipped back. She picked it up and then a rope tied around her wrist. My mom got dragged out and got taken to the depths. I tried calling my dad to tell him what happened and he said he would buy another set of tickets and said to meet him at the airport. I met my dad there and we headed to Florida. When we got to Miami, we headed to the house. We moved all the stuff inside and not two minutes later, the sky darkened. I thought it was just a storm but it was a hurricane. The hurricane was a category five hurricane. I was so scared. My dad decided it was safer to leave. We drove upstate until we reached Georgia. We kept driving to the tip of Georgia. When we got there we listened to the news and in a couple of hours, the hurricane had passed by. We watched the news and it showed all of the destroyed houses. One of them was our house so we decided to move back. When we got back we saw our old house was for sale and was very cheap. We bought it and it stunk. We used air freshener and the house smelled better. We sat on the floor since our furniture had gotten destroyed. We decided to go to the pond. We walked out and they had added a new dock. As we walked around the pond, my dad started skipping rocks. He threw one and it came back he went to pick it up and a rope wrapped around his ankles. I grabbed his hands and tried not to let go but the ropes were too strong. As my dad got pulled out I ran to the dock. I filled my pockets with big stones and grabbed a really big rock. I jumped into the water using the rocks to weigh me down. I got to the bottom and saw a pile of at least 50 to 60 bodies. Then, a stone wrapped around me and pulled me out of the water. I tried to go back but the stone continually saved me. I decided to just go home and try to live by myself. As I thought over my life I decided to get a job in the morning. I slept on the cold carpet and barely got sleep. I woke up the next morning and went looking for a job. I got hired at Pizza Hut. I worked for a couple of weeks and got enough money to move somewhere else. I bought a ticket to Oregon. When the plane landed I went to get my baggage when I saw something strange. In a fountain at the airport, there was a flat stone. It looked exactly like the one from the pond but I wasn’t sure. I ran through the airport. Once I got out of the airport I called a taxi and drove to a mall. There was a smoothie shop looking for cashiers. They hired me right away and I enjoyed the job. I finished my first week and got my money. I was walking through the town when I saw a pond. It was identical to the pond at home. I skipped a rock across the water but it never came back. If it did, I would grab it right away. I went home and then decided, to stop trying to get a stone to come back, and just live my life. I did and grew up to have a happy family and a great house. Then one day, I had to go out of state for work. I was gone for a week and came back to see my family had gone missing. I asked the officers what had happened but they just said they disappeared. I left to go look for them and I couldn’t find them. As the night drew closer to dawn, I started to lose hope, when I went to the pond. There were three people there. It was my husband, son, and daughter. ThHey then all got dragged into the depths of the pond. I ran to them and dove after them. It was there, I saw the beast behind the ropes. It was a serpent-like creature, with rope fingers. It gave me a chilling stare as it chomped away on the victims that it dragged to the depths. I swam away as fast as I could. I got a metal pipe and swam back to the creature, and hit it with the pipe. It swam after me and I swam ahead of it. I swam as fast as possible, barley staying ahead. I got onto land and it swam back to the depths.
A storm came by and lightning struck the pond. The water lit on fire and the water boiled. The monster was never seen again. No kids had ever gone missing in the pond again. Construction workers came and dried up the lake in the morning. I just wished they would have found the monster. I still don’t know what the monster was, where it went, or what it wanted, but it will never get it. Not as long as I live.
