The path to Tagulga was forgotten, buried under a thousand layers of time, tangled in the wilderness of northern Spain. The locals spoke of it, but rarely. If you asked, they'd tell you with a grin or a shrug that it was just a legend. The lake existed only in the past, they'd say, in the stories of the old ones, told by firelight. Still, a rumor persisted. It wasn't so much a secret as a warning: the lake of immortality, waiting for those foolish enough to believe.
Lucía had heard it all. A hiker. A traveler. A fool. She didn't care for the warnings. She had her reasons. Her brother, Carlos, had been lost to a sickness that no doctor could explain, no cure could fix. His body had withered under the strain of it, and Lucía had watched. She couldn't forget it, couldn't stop thinking about what might have been. If there was even a shred of truth to the old stories, she would find it. She would find the lake, and she would save Carlos. Or at the very least, bring him back.
She'd packed only the essentials—a small pack, enough food for a couple of days, a map that meant nothing anymore. She had seen enough of the twisted wilderness herself. The lake wasn't far from the village, hidden in a hollow beneath thick trees. People didn't go there. They didn't need to. The locals knew. But Lucía would.
She hadn't spoken to Carlos in weeks. He had fallen into a deep sleep that no one could wake him from. The disease had eaten at him, draining the life from him with slow, unforgiving hands. When she first left, she hadn't known how desperate she would be by the time she returned. But she was.
The forest had swallowed her up. It wasn't dense, not like the thick woods of the north, but enough to keep the sun from breaking through, enough to cast a somber gloom on everything. Her footsteps echoed on the soft ground, the moss and fallen leaves muffling the sound. The wind wasn't right—there was something heavy about it. The leaves didn't rustle the way they should. The trees whispered, but not with the sound of life.
She walked through it, steady, focused, the path all but invisible beneath the blanket of overgrown brambles. Her hands were scratched from the thorny branches, but she didn't care. The map in her pocket was a faded thing, useless, just lines on paper. It didn't matter. She kept moving.
After a while, the smell of decay became overwhelming. A musty, stagnant scent. The kind of rot that never quite went away. It made her stomach turn, but she pressed on. She couldn't stop now.
She had no idea how long it had been when she finally saw the water. It wasn't the kind of lake one would imagine—no glistening blue surface or placid edges. Instead, it was a dark pool of blackness, the kind that seemed to reflect nothing. It stretched wide, hidden in the folds of the land like a wound in the earth. A line of twisted trees surrounded it, their branches reaching toward the water like fingers. There was no sound, no movement, just the weight of the air pressing down on her.
Lucía didn't hesitate. She dropped to her knees and reached toward the water. It felt cold, colder than she had imagined, colder than it should have been for such a warm day. Her fingers grazed the surface, but the ripples that spread outward were slow, sluggish, like the water itself resisted her touch.
A voice broke the silence. It was a whisper at first, too faint to hear. Lucía pulled back. The voice came again, clearer this time, and for the briefest moment, she thought it was Carlos. She turned sharply, but there was nothing. Nothing but the trees, still and unyielding, the lake dark as ever.
She breathed in, slow, and then she saw it. Something had moved in the water. Something black, stretching out from the depths. The shape was barely visible, but she could feel it. It wasn't a ripple. It wasn't natural. She could feel the weight of whatever it was, pressing back against her.
It was then that she knew. The stories were true. But not in the way she had hoped.
The water reached up, slow but insistent, as though it were drawing her in. The surface warped around her hand, pulling, pulling until she had no choice but to look again, to listen. The voice. The whispers weren't coming from the lake. They were coming from her mind.
She yanked her hand back and stumbled away from the water. She fell to the ground, breath ragged, but the whispers didn't stop. They surrounded her. They crept into her thoughts. She clutched her head, trying to block them out, but they grew louder, clearer.
Come closer. Come closer.
Her heart raced in her chest. She had to leave. But her legs wouldn't move. The whispers were too much. She couldn't hear her own thoughts. She could only hear that voice—gravelly, ancient, familiar.
It is not for you. Not for your kind. Not for anyone.
She stumbled to her feet, and then, for the first time, she saw it. In the reflection of the water, there was a figure. A man. It was Carlos. His pale face, his eyes wide and vacant, staring back at her from the depths of the water. But the reflection was wrong. His mouth moved, but no sound came out. His body was misshapen, stretched beyond the limits of human form. His hands reached out of the water, but they were twisted, thin, broken.
She screamed.
The ground beneath her seemed to give way. She stumbled forward and caught herself on the edge of the lake, the water pulling at her with an unnatural strength. The figure of Carlos reached up, his fingers brushing against her face, but they were cold, so cold. His skin was pale, with the softness of death, yet it seemed to breathe, pulse with something alien.
She tore away from him. She fell back, her legs twisted beneath her, and for a moment, she thought she had escaped. She was going to get out. But then she felt it. The cold. It was in her skin, in her blood. The air was thick with it now, pressing against her like a hand around her throat.
The whispers rose again, louder this time.
You are here. You are here because you belong. Because you seek what cannot be given.
Her vision swam. She couldn't breathe. Her body was betraying her, twisting from the inside out. She tried to scream, but no sound came. The last of her strength, the last of her will, drained away as the water's grip tightened.
And then it was gone.
Lucía awoke on the bank of the lake. It was morning now. The sky was grey, overcast, as though the sun had forgotten how to shine. She tried to stand, but her body wouldn't respond. It was numb, stiff, her fingers useless at her side. Her limbs felt like stone. When she looked down at her hands, she saw the decay. Her skin had thinned, gone grey like old parchment. Her nails were brittle, cracked, peeling away. The cold in her body had reached deep into her bones, into her soul.
She didn't need to look at the water again. She already knew.
She had not come here to save Carlos. She had come to join him.