The lake behind my house had perpetually frozen over. It had been that way for as long as I could remember, even during the warmest of Alaskan summers; it was something of an anomaly in our town. Kids used it for skating during the warmer months; it was the place to be in the mildly hot Alaskan summer but was often abandoned in the wintertime. Other, larger local rinks were frequented in the winter, but they, of course, all melted in the spring.
It was winter now, and a thin veil of snow covered the ground. The rink was unoccupied as I suspected, so grabbing my skates, I went outside. When I arrived, I noticed something unusual. There was a crack in the ice, not a small crack, but a large one that led to a gapping crevice in the lake. The walls of ice that amassed the crevice were thick. No wonder the lake was always frozen, I thought, it would take scorching heat to melt ice that dense. I was hesitant to step onto the surface out of fear it would break, so I walked along the edge to get a better look. Once I got closer, I could see footsteps; it appeared that someone had walked into the fissure. Or they fell, I thought.
Panic-stricken, I darted my head in every direction searching for help, but there was no one around. My parents had gone running errands in town and wouldn’t be back until the afternoon and there were no neighbors around for miles. We were in the middle of nowhere, so where could this person have come from? Upon further inspection, I noticed the footsteps left a trail coming from the woods. I decided to follow them, they could lead to help.
Pushing aside branches, I trudged my way through the snow following the trail of footsteps. They led to a clearing in the woods- then just stopped. As if the person had appeared from nothing; they were just suddenly there. It didn’t make sense, they had to have come from somewhere. I turned to head back when a bright light flashed before my eyes. I winced, blinking my eyes, waiting for my vision to return from the blotchy mess that it was. As soon as it did, I realized the footprints were gone, including my own. The snow appeared fresh as if never been walked on.
Hurriedly, I followed the path back. The crack was still in the ice, but no footprints led up to it. I carefully stepped onto the ice, slowly inching towards the fissure. Peering down into it, I saw nothing; no one. Whoever had been there, was no longer. Had I imagined the whole thing? Were the footprints never there?
I turned around, and that was when I realized; the footprints were there- my footprints, just as they had been before. I hastened to sprint off the ice, but my foot slipped, and my body hurled back into the opening. My head bashed against the ice, leaving a smear of blood on the way down. I hadn’t gotten close enough to see it before, maybe if I had I wouldn’t be here now.
The water was freezing, my head ached and there was no way I could pull myself out. As I struggled for breath, I couldn’t help but think of the events that had just transpired. It had been me all along, but how? Was it a sort of premonition? Something supernatural? But I would never know, because my lungs gave out and my consciousness drifted, leaving my body floating, limp in the water. There was nothing I could do now.
By Morgan Peters
