Max accelerated into the narrow forest path, plowing past misty tree branches that felt as if they were closing in on her. The van rumbled and shook, driving as fast as she could handle, intent on getting as far away from the lake as she could.

The sound of crashing waves surged from behind her. She glimpsed at the laptop screen. The water was receding at an unprecedented speed – the graph had dropped straight down.

Silhouettes blurred past her headlights on the forest's edge. White figures of all shapes, flickering in and out of view, staring at her with cross-shaped eyes.

“Fuck! Where did they all come from?!” No time for this – just go!

Up ahead, two– three– no, five amorphous fiends had shambled onto the road. With Wire's RV speeding behind her and volons everywhere else, she pressed her foot down, sped towards the monsters, and braced for impact.

The first and second volon smashed against the front of the van, spewing pale blood over the windshield, lifting the front wheels in the air until Max had cleared them. But the other three malformed beasts were far larger. She held onto the steering wheel with a white-knuckle grip, driving as straight as she could.

“Come on!” she screamed through clenched teeth, flooring the gas pedal.

The white masses splattered across the vehicle, completely drenching the windshield in an opaque screen of viscous fluid as the van chugged through the trio of volons. Her visibility was gone. The windshield wipers only helped to smear the thick coat of white blood around.

She took her foot off the gas and braked – but it was too late. The vehicle slammed to a halt with a piercing crash, sending Max lurching forward along with everything else in the vehicle.

Shock jolted through her body. The seat belt and airbags had done their jobs, but her old vehicle model lacked modern safety technology. The van had shut down completely, leaving her stranded with no visibility.

Behind the vehicle, the RV's horn blared.

“Fuck! Ah–! Ah, damnit!” Whether from shock or adrenaline, she felt almost no pain from the impact – her mind was far more concerned about something else.

Locating the pistol still hooked to her waist, she unholstered it and turned the safety off. She looked out the side windows, checking for incoming volons. Several of them stared at her from within the shrouded forest, and some were fast approaching.

“Wire!” she screamed in desperation.

Behind her creaking vehicle was the sound of metal and hinges shifting. A door?

Three sharp clacks pierced the air, followed by shrill yowls and the crackle of flames.

“Wire!” Max groaned, looking behind her. The remite had parked his RV behind the wrecked van and was fast approaching on foot, illuminated by the flaming volons he'd just shot.

“Max! Max! Are you okay? Can you move?!” he shouted, pointing his gun into the forest before checking on her.

“I-I think, yeah, I can try!”

“Get in the RV with me! We need to go NOW!”

Max's body ached in protest as she shifted towards the door. Wire opened it and pulled her out, keeping her balanced with a firm grip.

“Come on, come on!” he ushered her.

Fires sprung to life along the forest's edge where Wire had taken out the volons, igniting some of the surrounding trees and vegetation. Bordered by flames, there was still a clear path from Max's van and Wire's RV; the two hobbled back to the RV while the other nearby volons were cut off by the growing inferno.

Wire guided her up the vehicle's steps and shut the door behind them. “Can you move? 'Cause we gotta go!” he exclaimed.

“Yeah, I can! B-but the fire! It's going to burn this whole forest!”

Wire had already scrambled over to the driver's seat. “Fuck the fire! The lake, Max, it's alive! It's... i-it's fucking alive!”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Max ambled towards the front of the vehicle. Wire reversed the RV just as Max reached out for the passenger's seat, managing to keep her balance.

To the left of the wrecked van was a wall of flame, and to the right were volons of all shapes and forms approaching the vehicle. Some had already begun clambering against the side of the RV, clawing at the windows.

“Dude, pull back, they're climbing on us!” Max yelped as she fastened her seat belt.

“And back up into that thing?!”

“What thing?! Just ram through, then!”

The opening between the van and the road's edge was far too narrow for the RV. The volons were piling against the windows, clawing and snapping at their surfaces.

“Fuck! There's no way we can get through that!” Wire cursed again and pushed down on the gas. The engine roared as the vehicle accelerated backwards away from the disaster in front of them.

“There's another path behind where I parked my RV!” he continued. “Max, just... just don't look out the windows! Trust me!” He accelerated the vehicle back out from the path, rattling various objects in the back of the RV.

“I can handle seeing some volons, dude!” she groaned.

“Max, do not look out the window! I fucking mean it!”

As the vehicle entered the clearing they'd camped at, Wire spun the RV around to face where he'd initially parked. There was another path there.

Then, another harrowing roar swept through the area, so loud it shook the ground underneath them, forcing Max to cover her ears.

She craned her head to the passenger's window.

“You know when you said the lake was a volon, Max?! Just take my word on this! You were right! Don't look–”

Too late.

Towering white flesh. Mangled, unnatural limbs extending from the lakebed to the sky. Flesh melting and dripping into itself. Undulating mouths of clustered, jagged teeth snapping at the air. Transient, gelatinous anatomy shifting form with every passing second; where one torso began, twisted limbs reached out into themselves with ravenous maws until they melted away, and the leftover torso was just another shrieking amalgam.

The lake had risen. At that moment, Max understood her place in the world. Humans were no longer king.

[https://zynima.net/assets/lit/ystetslake7.png]

She was speechless. Her heart pounded. Chills swept through her body. She stared at the impossible leviathan, mortified and awestruck. Nausea churned through her gut as her face tensed, tears threatening to leak from her eyes. How long had she been holding her breath...?

Wire said something. It didn't matter what it was, though. Did anything matter anymore? What was the point?

Foliage and leaves began obstructing her view of the unthinkable colossus. Oh – the RV was moving. Wire had driven into the other path away from the lake.

Max craned her head around to face her remite friend. “I'm scared,” she muttered.

“Snap out of it, Max!” Wire shouted. “I'm getting us out of here, come hell or high water!”

As the titanic volon left her vision, reality returned to Max, and her situation became clear again. They were in danger – mortal danger.

“I'm here, I'm here,” was all she could think to say.

“I hope to god that thing can't see us through the trees,” Wire prayed.

Max looked forward to the forest path in front of the vehicle. “More volons up ahead!” she called out.

Two more shambling white masses stood on the road ahead. To her surprise, one of them jumped out of the way as Wire blared the horn.

“Brace yourself!” he shouted.

A muffled thump echoed from the front bumper as the volon disappeared under the hefty vehicle, jerking the cabin around.

Another long, piercing scream blasted through the air, rising in pitch until it was hardly audible. The vehicle's chassis crashed and bent behind them as a massive white pillar slammed down through the back of the RV. The vehicle trembled before it came to a screeching halt.

“Fuck! Oh, god!” Max cried.

Wire yelped all the same.

Leaves and branches surrounded the windshield, whizzing down past the vehicle. Seconds later, they were in the sky above the forest.

“Hang on!” Wire yelled.

Max closed her eyes and screamed. Everything tilted backwards. Her seat belt kept her in place, but the world was spinning, contorting her body as the vehicle flew through the air.

Another otherworldly howl shredded through Max's ears.

She struggled to get air in her lungs as the RV lurched backwards, accelerating faster than she could handle. She gripped the seat, desperately trying to remain in place.

The world began falling. Max wailed in abject terror as everything plummeted back towards the ground. The vehicle crashed around, jerking in every direction as it fell.

But then their descent slowed. The giant monster's screams became muffled and quiet. Max opened her eyes to see... nothing. It felt as if the RV was suspended in the air, hanging from its front end.

I'm dead, Max concluded. I'm dead.

Seconds later, Wire turned on the cabin light. Max glanced around with blurred vision, struggling to sit up in her crooked seat. Wire had a hand on his left shoulder, also trying to find his bearings.

“What just happened?” Max whined. “Are we alive?”

“Did the lake grab us?” Wire quietly suggested.

“W-what else could have done this...?”

The vehicle shifted from side to side, slowly and rhythmically. Max craned her head up to look through the windows – her gaze met nothing but inky darkness.

“Where the hell are we?” she moaned. Then, after listening closely, Max heard something beyond the RV's interior. “Hey... Wire, I can hear something. It sounds like... waves? Can you hear it?”

A long moment of silence.

“I can hear it too,” he replied. “It's... nice. It's... warm.”

“We're probably not underwater,” Max thought aloud, denying the obvious answer as to what really happened. “We flew underground. We crashed into a hole somewhere in the forest.”

“Max...” Wire began. “M-Max...”

“Hmm?”

She looked around. The interior seemed softer than usual, metal bending and folding down as though it was a natural phenomenon. Viscous fluid seeped in through the gaps in the vehicle's walls, floors, and ceiling, crawling to them from every direction.

“We're not underground,” Wire said.