Benthos (noun): the flora and fauna on the bottom of a sea or a lake

The lake was taking its last breath. It used to be a crystal-like mirror of smooth waves, home to hundreds of critters and a widely popular tourist destination, but even this elegant force of nature could not withstand erosion and death.

Fish vanished first. The endless showers of golden sunlight warmed up the lake’s surface and drained the oxygen in its deepest waters, a cataclysm of termination in the making. What had originally been a heavenly blue turned murky with ominous green algae, overflowing from the bottom of the lake’s floor. With a few months of relentless heat and ruthless winds, the last droplets of water were gone.

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But revealed along with the skeletons of fish was a secret never meant to see the light of day.

Clutched in the embrace of the algae forest was a sturdy brown bag barely withstanding the torrents of time, and in it, the decaying flesh of someone long dead.

A murder, a betrayal, a sacrifice… The silent, unjudging waves of the lake had witnessed something from who-knows-how-long before, and had kept the untold death until it died itself.