rpanons | I'm bad at this

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try to find the lake

You set off to find the lake, alone. As the chitchat of the other anons dims in the fog behind you, a rich silence descends in its place.

The lake is more or less to the east, but you can follow your nose: the air gets more humid and lakey-smelling as you draw near. You can hear the lap of low lake waves.

Crunch crunch the soil gives way to a rocky sand beneath your feet. You have found the lake. The little stretch of shore looks out upon a calm, dark water, mostly swallowed up with fog.

You smell smoke.

can i tell where the smoke is coming from? follow it

The smell seems to be coming from the lake. You hover at the shore, deciding whether you want to know about it badly enough to go into the water.

There comes the sound of wood creaking and a lapping noise too regular to be natural. It is distant, faint, but still audible.

lol fuck that

start walking around the lake looking for a house or anything and if anything comes out of the water i am hauling ass up the nearest tree

It is a big lake and quite a lot of the shoreline is actually forest butting right up to the water. You navigate this with some difficulty. It is slow going but you do make progress, although at the cost of soaking your shoes in the wet, pathless soil. It's hard to tell because of the fog, but there might be a dock or something a few hundred feet ahead.

The rhythmic lapping sound grows steadily louder and closer as you proceed. If you look out over the lake, you can see a fog-shrouded, flickering, yellow-orange light. Perhaps it has something to do with the lapping sound, since it, too, is drawing closer. The smoke smell becomes more prominent. It has a fatty, sweetish quality now. Like grill smoke.

i'm going to head for that dock, but try to keep the light in view. logic suggests that it's a boat and it's probably heading for the dock, but i don't want to get too close. if possible, i'll hide in a tree near the dock and wait to see what happens.

Cagey. You scuttle gracelessly up a fir trunk within sight of the dock. Your hands are covered in sticky sap and flakes of bark and other gunk, but you can see the boat approach the dock if you hold down that branch in front of you with one hand.

Flames belch out of a golden stovepipe at the rear of the boat, emitting a grey smoke that disappears into the fog. There's room for two benches, one on either side of the deck; furthest from the dock there sits an older man with a thick salt and pepper beard and a black hat. Near to the dock sits a couple, a man and a woman, to judge by their backs and her lavender sweater.

"Here we are." Says the old man in a rough voice. You are close enough to hear him clearly. "Scuttle away now, ee hee hee!"

The male passenger stands. Some of the smoke blows on a wester wind and blocks your vision for a moment with a plume of meaty darkness, but you can see, when it clears, his expression of indescribable unhappiness. He is holding a hand out to the woman, who tilts her head of high-piled golden hair. She lifts her hand to his. Her profile is stark white with shock.

The captain of the boat looks up at the trees with a sharp and canny gleam.

well i'm not gonna move now. if he sees me, he sees me, and if he calls me out i'll respond normally and reasonably -- "sorry, i'm lost, i didn't know who you were." i keep holding the branch in place and make sure i take slow, even breaths. otherwise, i don't move.

If he sees you, he doesn't say anything about it.

The male passenger tightens his hand around the woman's. Then he lifts her against his body. Her torso in its lavender sweater leaps up to his frame, and below her pelvis, short, bloody stumps jerk below the torn fragments of white cloth in the bare air as if she were trying to balance herself. For a moment he buries his face in the crook of her neck. His dark hair shines in the light of the fire. A sob breaks from his lips, audible even where you remain.

Helplessly, she clings to him as her blood runs down the legs of his black pinstriped trousers.

He hugs her tightly and steps off the boat.

The captain barks, "Wait a minute!"

The man turns back to him, mute with despair.

"No tip?"

The man blanches with disgust and you can surely see the woman's hands tighten at his shoulders. At this, the captain throws his head back and roars with laughter.

The man hastens away from the boat, carrying his companion, or lover, whatever she is or was. He makes for a path that leads uphill from the lake. And the captain kneels down and pulls out some ambiguous log-shaped object, white, red at the ends, like some sort of Christmas favor, and throws it into the ship's furnace. A belch of smoke perfumes the air once more.

well screw that shit

i'm staying in this tree at least until he's gone, possibly until morning.

Actually he leaves almost at once. His fuel, you see, will only last so long, and now that the infernal fires of the ship's engine are stoked, he is soon on his way. Silence and darkness once again descend around you, and the soft flutter, here and there, of insects.

So, correction: silence, darkness, and moths once again descend around you.

They are not a sort you are familiar with. The wings are very pale, the color of ash. They don't appear to have eyes. One lands on the trunk of the tree, one the branch you hold. One flutters onto your hand. You can see more in the trail of the ship's fire as it reverses its course and is devoured by the foggy lengths of the lake. They come softly pelting upon your cheek and your wet ankle, careless and heedless.

The lost couple disappears up the trail into the woods.

i do not alert the couple to my presence, knowing already i'm probably going to regret that later. i do watch them and try to see where they might be going, if there's a light in the distance, if i can hear anything, etc.

there are normal moth species with no eyes, right? i brush them away where they land on skin, but otherwise don't bug them. (no pun intended)

rather, that don't have OBVIOUS eyes, whether some kind of eyes are actually there or not

The moths would appreciate your perspicacious entomological considerations, if they were capable of abstract thought.

It's hard to see where the couple ends up going. Your last sight of them sears itself into your retinas: bundled up in each others' arms, the shining trail of blood on the wide path. You could probably follow that trail if you got down there quick enough. There's less fog ahead of you than behind.

There are a lot of these moths though. They perch on your eyelashes. They flutter into the crook of your neck. They land wherever you were about to put your hand down. They smell like smoke. A creeping sensation runs down the back of your neck, sort of like if you were watching a car accident about to happen to someone else.

okay i get the hint thank you goodbye moth friends. i am going to try not to squish any as i climb down because that seems like it might end badly for me. i'll get a few dozen feet away from that tree, quietly, and go to the edge of the water. i toss a rock into it to see if it reacts normally, then squint around carefully to see if i can see a building anywhere on the shore. a lake usually has a lakehouse somewhere, right?

I'm bad at this

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forgot: you are Lakefinder Anon

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sa

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