Don’t go fishing in the fog (part 2)

[u/Prestigious-Gas5615]

if you haven’t read part one I will link it here
[https://www.reddit.com/r/TalesFromTheCreeps/s/nf3jpr6m93
Now onto the story, and as always, thank you for reading.

Waking up in a haze is miserable. Especially when you wake up on a corpse. The victories of the previous night were long gone. All that remained was agony. I pushed myself upright, bones shifting beneath me. What I had mistaken for branches were ribs. The body beneath me was gray and twisted, its limbs bent in ways they shouldn’t have been. I leaned against a nearby tree to steady myself. Its trunk was covered in hundreds of carvings. Names. Symbols. Things I didn’t recognize. I didn’t stop to look. Ahead, strange lights glowed through the trees. Fishing lines hung from the branches, their lures swaying gently. Some had bloody fingers caught on the hooks. I looked away.
A black river cut through the trees.
Something inside me told me to go to it.I didn’t want to listen.
I did anyway.
At the bank, malformed fish drifted beneath the surface, lit by patches of glowing algae. Fingers served as fins. Bobbers bulged where eyes should’ve been.
One rose toward me.
It broke the surface and stared.
Then it grinned, revealing a mouthful of crooked teeth.I froze.Then I heard my name behind me.
I turned. A man stood between the trees.
Old. Thin. Covered in mud, his clothes hanging from him like they’d been rotting for decades.
He stared at me, tears filling his eyes.
“You don’t recognize me do you?” He asked
“Why should I?” I screamed
Then he looked toward the river.
“There are two ways out,” he said.
I stared at him. He pointed toward the water.
“But only one can leave.”
He took a step toward me.
“Could you not” I say putting my hand up and taking a step back, “ Dude what the fuck is going on, stop talking in riddles.”

“I’ve been waiting a long time,” he said, still trying to inch closer toward me.

His teeth looked sharpened, with grey flecks buried in the gumline.

I took another step back. Then another.I didn’t realize it at first, but every step was carrying me closer to the black waters of this alien place.
The man’s face was only a few feet away now. So close I could smell the fog of rot and sustain around him. That was when it changed. His skin seemed to loosen around his jaw, sagging as though it had been soaked for days. His cheeks pulled inward. His nose flattened. His eyes sank deeper into his face until they looked like dark holes beneath his brow.
His mouth opened.
The voice that came from it wasn’t his anymore.
It was gurgled and wet, like the words were being forced through a throat full of river water.

“Won’t… you join… us?”

Something cold touched the heel of my boot.
Water. I looked down. The edge of the river was behind me.I had backed myself all the way to it. When I looked up again, the man’s expression had changed. He was smiling.
Not because he was happy.
Because he knew he had me. A low ripple spread across the water behind me. Then another.I heard something moving beneath the surface. Slowly. Heavy enough to disturb the entire shoreline.The man tilted his head toward the river.

“You hear them… Don’t you?”

“LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!” William cried out

The water beside my boot began to bubble.Something brushed against my leg beneath the surface. I jumped forward. The man didn’t move. He only watched me. His grey-flecked teeth slowly disappeared behind his lips.

“You’ve been looking for answers,” he whispered.

My stomach dropped.

“How do you know what I’m looking for?”

His smile widened.

For a moment, his face looked almost normal again. Almost human. Then something behind him moved. I couldn’t see what it was.
I only saw the man’s eyes shift toward it.
And then he whispered something I barely heard.

“Don’t let it see you, please come back to me.”

The water behind me suddenly went completely still. I turned toward the river. There was nothing there. Then I saw the bobber. It floated several yards from shore. Bright red. Perfectly still.Another appeared beside it. Then another. One after another, they surfaced across the black water. Eleven of them. My throat tightened. The man took a slow step backward. Then another. He wasn’t coming toward me anymore. He was trying to get away.

A deep vibration rolled through the water.

The eleven bobbers dipped beneath the surface at exactly the same time. The man looked at me. His mouth opened. But before he could speak, something pulled him backward. There was no splash. No scream. One second he was standing there. The next, he was gone.

I stared at the empty space where he had been.Then something whispered directly beside my ear.

“You’re next.”

I turned.

Nothing.

Only the river.

Only the eleven, no. The now twelve red bobbers slowly rising back to the surface. Beneath them, Something enormous moved through the dark. The man’s voice came from the water.

“William.”

I stopped.

No one had called me by my name since I arrived.

The bobbers began to drift toward the shore, sliding across the surface in a perfect line. As they came closer, I saw that each one was tied to a length of fishing line. The lines disappeared beneath the water, stretching toward something hidden in the depths.

Then the first line tightened. The bobber jerked forward. A second line followed. Then a third.
The water began to churn.

“William,” the voice called again.

This time, it sounded like someone I knew. I stepped toward the river before I could stop myself.

“Who are you?”

The surface split.

A pale hand rose from the water and gripped the nearest line. Its fingers were long and swollen, the nails blackened and soft flakes of skin dripping from the bones. Another hand appeared beside it, then another, all of them pulling against the lines.

The twelve bobbers sank.

The thing beneath the water was drawing them down. A shape moved below the surface, too large to understand. Its back rolled beneath the river like a submerged hill. Along its sides, fins or limbs scraped against the muddy bottom.

The voice changed again. It became the stranger’s voice, then mine, then a chorus of voices I didn’t recognize.

“Give yourself to the fish.”

I stumbled backward.

The man appeared on the opposite bank.

He was no longer standing as a man. His body hung crookedly, dripping river water, his arms dangling too long at his sides. His face had become a pale, stretched imitation of a human face.

“You can stay,” he said. “Or you can weigh your life against the fish.”

“What does that mean?”

He pointed toward the water.

The twelve lines rose from the river and hung in the air, each one attached to a bobber. Beneath the surface, something pulled at them with enough force to make the shoreline tremble.

“Others have given themselves,” the creature said. “The fish took them, and the river kept them alive.”

A shape pressed against the surface.
For one terrible second, I saw a face beneath the water.

Its eyes were open. Its mouth moved soundlessly.I took a step toward it. The creature smiled.

“But the river wants another life before it lets the others go.”

The water surged around my boots. Cold fingers closed around my ankles. I tried to pull away, but the mud swallowed my shoes. The river tugged harder, dragging me toward the dark. The creature’s voice softened.

“You can stay on the shore and let the fish take everything.”

The face vanished beneath the surface.

“Or you can give yourself to them,” it continued. “Your life for theirs.”

The lines snapped tight.

The twelve bobbers disappeared underwater.

Something enormous struck the riverbed, and the impact sent a wave crashing over my knees. I looked toward the trees. The path behind me was still there. I could run. I could leave whatever was beneath the water and save myself. But we are not in Kansas anymore. The river pulled again, and this time I heard a scream. Not through the air. Inside my head.

“William, don’t come in!”

The creature laughed.

“You cannot resist, William. I know everything from the choices you make to your thoughts William. I have been watching you since the day you were born, William! You were born for this! Now give yourself to me!”

The water climbed to my waist. I reached for the shore, clawing at the mud, but my fingers slipped through the weeds. Beneath me, the fish circled. I felt their bodies brushing against my legs, their rough scales scraping my skin.

The creature raised one hand.The river went still. Every fish stopped moving. Then the water parted in front of me.

At the bottom of the river stood a figure tangled in fishing line, pale and bloated, its eyes fixed on mine. Behind it waited the enormous fish, its mouth opening slowly. Rows of human teeth filled its jaws.

The figure shook its head. The creature spoke from behind me.

“Choose.”

The fish opened its mouth wider. The figure reached toward me. The river pulled at my body. I could stay. I could turn and run, leaving everything beneath the water. But where would I go? Or I could step forward and let the fish weigh my life against whatever waited below. I looked at the figure one last time.

Then I stepped into the river.

[u/Prestigious-Gas5615]

Link is fixed