Prologue - Walking the Dog

I walked along the golf course, lit by moon and stars. I had my headphones on, streaming music while I walked my dog off the leash. Except it took me what may have been 10 minutes to notice that Lesley wasn't walking beside me anymore. I looked around, calling out her name softly as I started to back track with my headphones now in hand.

How did I not notice I had lost my dog? I was walking past the large pond that may be called a small lake where if it were deeper than ankle length. I noticed ripples in the water. I didn't risk getting my feet wet until I verified that my dog was the cause, so I had to run around to see. Thankfully it was in the open so that I could see it was indeed Lesley. Except she was soaked and just sitting there, which worried me.

She would normally shake herself off if she got wet, but firstly she wouldn't normally try and go into the water in the first place. I took my jacket off and felt the night chill grip me as I hurried to cover my poor pug, to dry and to warm her up. Then, I ran home. And I felt something was in that water.

I ignored it. My dog was wet and cold. I needed to get her home. In fact I had walked further than I should have for the nighttime stroll, and Lesley may have fell in when she tried to drink the water. Yet I was worried for she didn't shiver like she should. I felt something was wrong.

It became more apparent when it seemed I wasn't moving away from the pond, even though I could see I was covering distance, I moved my eyes and it would seem like I haven't moved at all. I turned around and the pond was still there, 2 metres away from me. I turned back away and sprinted, panic fueling me as I focused on moving. But as I went to follow the bend, I swore as I came back to the pond.

I looked down at Lesley and noticed she was drooling. She never did that. There was so much wrong right now, I couldn't focus nor was I paying attention to what was happening around me. I didn't notice something charging me until I had no time to move out of the way. I was forced into the pond, whatever hitting me having pushed me so that only myself and the dog I carried got wet.

The water felt different. Wrong. It just didn't feel like water, as if something else made up the pond more than water, or even looked like it. That thought struck me even as I tried to get up, disentangling my arms from my jacket-wrapped-dog to push myself up. Looking up, I saw things that made me stop moving. Something behind me gripped my shoulders, and I turned to look, my eyes catching a blue and white dress, I faded to black.

My name is Mitch King, and my life is filled with the Trials in Fear.

Note from the Author: This is to hopefully be a weekly updated novel.

This work is based on the Fear Mythos. Please, feel free to look us u if you want to know more about them. They will feature heavily in this story, but as they are my interpretation of their concepts, don't worry about being spoiled.