Liv tried to stand, but the motion felt off. It was too smooth, lacking the everpresent bobs and wobbles one normally tuned out instinctually. She staggered at the unnatural sensation, and eyed her feet to try and catch her balance. The first thing she noticed, as she prepared to try and shake off the muck, was that nothing of the swamp had stuck to her at all. It was also the first time since this nightmare began that she took note of what she was wearing.
Stompy buckle boots, cargo pants, her favorite tank top depicting a skull and roses, and her studded leather jacket.
“Why am I in my party clothes?” She asked no one. Had she died in this? As far as things went it wasn’t a bad choice but it made her wish all the more that she could remember just how she’d ended up here. It was then that her eyes caught one of the few open patches of water near her feet, and she realized that she had no reflection whatsoever.
Lacking a reflection, the mosh pit warrior reached up and ran her hands over her hair. She felt how smooth the sides of her head were, and her hair was tightly bound in elaborate braids. She even had her raven skull beads woven in on the right side. “Shit. Who the hell was I trying to impress?” She wondered, aloud. No way she put this much effort into her look just for fun. The braids alone took HOURS…
Lifting one boot, she was intrigued to see that nothing stuck to it. In fact… the water didn’t even ripple. On a hunch, she plunked her boot back down. Nothing. No sound, no movement, her foot just passed the surface of the brackish puddle like she was made of nothing more than light.
Yet despite her seemingly incorporeal nature, she still stood on the muddy ground for reasons she couldn’t fathom.
“Hang on, that doesn’t add up.” She mumbled. Why was there no sound to her footsteps? There had DEFINITELY been a sound a second ago when she landed. She turned around, looking down at the disgusting muck for some clue. The pale punk even hopped about to try and get her oversized boots to replicate the squelch, only to have her attention snagged by a dim red glow below the skummy water. On instinct she reached down to grab at it, but accomplished nothing.
“Right.” She sighed. “I’m a… ghost?” She thought about it for a moment but shook off the unanswerable question and refocused. Fighting off revulsion, she lowered herself into the tepid water and took a deep breath. Then she paused. Did she need to hold her breath? How did that work? She waited. And waited… After what had to be a couple minutes without any sign that she was running out of oxygen she determined that she did not, but not breathing felt WEIRD. She dipped below the water and looked through the silt at a glowing red stone of some kind.
Here, she realized, was the likely culprit of the earlier sound. Stuck in the mud under maybe two feet of water, it jutted up from the floor of the shallow pond, partially obscured by slowly drifting strands of a stringy weed. It almost looked like some kind of fluorescent jasper. Liv thought the color was rather pretty, even if the stone itself looked rough and jagged.
“Huh… That seems important.” It took a moment before she realized she’d just spoken aloud under water and without any audible change. This just kept getting weirder. Standing up again she began to inspect her surroundings. She could see perhaps a 20’ by 20’ area, most of which was dominated by this foul smelling puddle. Another oddity; she didn’t need to breathe but she could still smell. In fact, she could smell regardless of whether she was even breathing at all. Wonderful…
Surrounding the little area was a wall of gray fog that was all but impenetrable to her eyes. the increasingly annoyed woman stomped soundlessly through the mud, her distaste for this damned puddle growing by the second. Mosquitoes swarmed everywhere, making her bat at them uselessly. A chunk of rotten wood on the edge of the water was one of the only things to break the monotony of stagnant, smelly pond water.
She bent down to take a look at it and discovered a nest of what had to be the biggest cockroaches she had ever seen. Her screech of horrified disgust felt muffled by the surrounding fog, and the water around that glowing rock rippled a bit. Liv took a moment to back away and get the full body shivers that the sight of insects always inspired, out of her system. Then she looked back at the soft red glow. Did she do that?
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
The athletic looking spirit took a deep breath, felt stupid for doing so, then shrugged and carried on anyway. Opening wide, she mimed holding a microphone and gave her best death-metal scream. It was less visible than before, but there it was! A ripple! She did something!! She was going to investigate this phenomenon further, but just then the first thing she’d seen thus far that she didn’t hate emerged from the water. Seemingly disturbed by the ripples, a salamander slithered its way through the green pond scum and up onto the muddy shore. The thing was huge, nearly a foot long, and a mottled ruddy color.
“Woah!” She waded soundlessly over to it as it climbed out of the puddle. She knelt down to inspect it more closely and the critter slowly turned its blunt face to look at her with big dark eyes atop its flat head.
“Can you see me?” She asked, leaning left. The salamander’s gaze followed her, even though when Liv looked at the water she still saw no reflection of herself there. The salamander blinked one eye and then the other, utterly unconcerned. Her black little heart melted instantly.
“Awww! You’re frickin adorable. Imma call you Masque.” She cooed at the amphibian, who licked its nose in response. It was red-ish, after all, and she loved the idea of giving this adorable critter a name like Masque of the Red Death. “Well buddy, how do we get-“ Her question was cut short as the mosquitoes took notice of the poor creature. Swarming, the little jerks began to bite at her little buddy, who wriggled in response. It tried to eat the Mosquitoes, but without the added agility the water would grant it the poor beast was too slow to do so. Liv started flailing her hands, trying to fend them off.
“Hey!!” She growled, swatting. Snarling, she cursed. “Damned Skeeters!” There was fizzling sound and a slight *pop*, as she swore a mosquito just… happened… right in front of her. “Huh. Skeeter.” She said again. Nothing happened. She tried to focus on the feelings, imagining the annoying bug in her mind and said it again. “Mosquito!” Another fizzle-pop, and a new mosquito entered the world right in front of her face. The baffled stranger looked at her hand, then the salamander that was now going back into the water, then back to the glowing rock. What in the name of the gods was going on here? “Ant.” She tried. Nothing. “Fly!” No dice. “Mosquito!” *Pop!*Great. She had mosquito summoning powers. Awesome.
Maybe if she tried another animal she’d seen here? She was NOT about to summon a cockroach, so instead her eyes drifted back to the salamander just below the surface.“Salamander!” She said authoritatively. The water at her feet splashed as another salamander flopped into the muck from where it had materialized in front of her nose. Liv wheezed, suddenly feeling parched. She was a ghost, how was she thirsty?! She looked down at her feet, and even if she was dead she wasn’t about to try sipping THAT water. Yuck.
The yellow striped salamander had begun swimming around her legs while she tried to muddle through far too many questions at once. This was insane. Every part of this was insane. The implications of every little individual facet of this problem were so immense that she began to feel a familiar tightness in her chest. The panic she had managed to leave behind in the void threatened to return with a vengeance.
“Stop! Stop it! Get a hold of yourself, Liv!” She hissed at herself, flapping her hands as if she could shake the tension off of them. Closing her eyes, she took several centering breaths. She pushed her questions aside for a now, focusing only on the present moment. The buzzing of insects. The lapping of water from the swimming salamander. The rustle of tall grasses. She allowed the sounds to push aside her panic so she could try to think clearly. That was probably the only reason she noticed the new noise. A tiny croak.
Out of the shroud of gray mist came a tiny plopping sound, drawing her attention to the edge of what she could see. There, at the edge of the muck, a small frog hopped into view. Before she could even investigate, the mosquitoes moved in. Quite a few were eaten, but plenty got their lunch off the little brown critter in the meantime. Liv blinked in surprise as her thirst seemed to ebb. She could almost feel something warm and quenching flowing off of the swarm.
Stepping closer, she tried to understand what was happening when the water beside her exploded in a wake and a red blur charged. The frog tried to flee, but Masque was too quick. The larger salamander chomped down on the frog and made short work of the tiny thing. Liv felt a RUSH. This felt like pure sweet caffeine. Or maybe adderall. It was a TRIP either way. Masque swallowed, sticking its tongue out and squinting in what looked like contentment.
“I know what you mean, buddy!” Liv gasped. “Definitely wouldn’t mind another one of those!” With a fizzle and a pop, a small brown frog came into being at her feet, and her slight buzz faded. It croaked appreciatively at her before bounding off to chase mosquitoes.Liv looked around at her disgusting little pond. And it was. Somehow she knew that this was HERS. She didn’t like it, she didn’t want it, but some intrinsic part of her just understood that for better or worse, this was HER swamp.If someone started playing Smash Mouth she was gonna scream.