Please Stay Away From The Water

I’ve never understood why people say they feel “feel alive”

I don’t feel alive. I just feel… operational.

Functional. Correct. Efficient.

These are the words people use about me after my accident:

“You always make the right choice.” “You’re so stable.” “You don’t overreact.” “You’re just perfect.”

I suppose I should view it as praise, although sometimes their eyes would tighten. I could see envy, distrust, loathing.

But the thing is, I don’t try to make good choices.

I simply follow the physical signal. The tug in my chest, right beneath the sternum that tells me which option I’m supposed to select.

Left or right? Tug.

Stay or leave? Tug.

Speak or stay silent? Tug.

I’ve built an entire life on those signals. Don’t we all?

⸻

The Sandbox

I asked about the tug once as a child, shortly following the accident. I was sitting upright in a sandbox with another child to my side.

He was short and squat. Mucus ribboned down his nose like green worms. He played with a blue truck- smashing it up and down into the sand over and over until it broke. The plastic tire detached and ricocheted into his face. It made a satisfying plunk sound when it did. As he sat there wailing I turned.

“Why didn’t you listen to your tug?”

He stopped blubbering in surprise, it was the first I had interacted with him.

“Wh-what t-tug?”

I looked at him, he began to fidget as tears started to resume their descent across those ruddy cheeks.

“The tug in your chest, you must have one under that fat. Maybe you’re too heavy and it’s not functional.”

When he ran off crying harder than before my mother grabbed me, shaking my arm violently.

“What is wrong with you.” she screamed. Her face was red, spit flew furiously out of her mouth. Her eyes scanned mine, searching. I wasn’t sure for what. I made my mouth move into a smile- people liked when others smiled.

Other parents turned to watch us, looks of concern plastered on their face.

“I can’t do this. I wish we could go back to that day on the kayak. I wish you fucking stayed d-“

My father had grabbed me out of her arms at that point. He apologized to me, furiously yelling at my mother.

That car ride home was filled with expletives, threats of divorce, and my father taking me away.

My tug told me to stay silent, so I did.

After that day, I tried harder to study people. Their faces, their tones, the rise and fall of their voices. I practiced copying whatever they did, like repeating a pattern until it fit.

It didn’t come naturally. The emotions themselves never came, but the performance-I was able to mimic. People seemed calmer when I replicated their behavior, so I continued. It was the logical thing to do. I never mentioned the tugging again, it unsettled people.

Maybe it was something better left unspoken, maybe there was a social rule I wasn’t able to grasp. My only flaw.

But lately, I’ve begun questioning whether the signals belong to me at all. Whether I should of stayed d-

⸻

Back to the Lakehouse

My earliest memory of childhood is from when I was six. There was a kayaking incident at our lake house. I can’t remember anything before then.

Growing up, doctors would reassure my father-saying it was due to the accident.

I do know that day molded me- my personality, my behavior, my life.

My mother refuses to talk about it. She refuses to talk to me at all.

My father won’t mention it. He spends his days on the couch, idly watching TV-just flicking through channels.

Today, without understanding why; my tug crashed hard. I walked out of work. Got into my car. Typed the lakehouse address into the GPS.

And when the tug in my chest tightened, I began driving, knowing I wouldn’t need my seatbelt.

I never did.

⸻

The Lake Doesn’t Look Like Water

I assumed there’d be nostalgia. People spoke of it frequently. It was supposed to happen when you were reminded of something from the past.

Instead, I continued to feel nothing.

Not fear, not curiosity. There was just a baseline hum of observation that shook throughout my body.

Since the accident I hadn’t been near water. I had, according to my doctor, “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder”.

He didn’t understand. I didn’t feel stress, I never had.

What I did have though, was an aversion to water. My body tugged the wrong way when nearing open water sources. It felt like magnets on the wrong side of each other. Repelling me away.

Now as I scanned the back of the summer house-the lake was smaller than I recalled. And the magnetic repellant was gone. But the water was wrong.

It wasn’t reflective. It wasn’t clear. It had a texture.

Other people in the distance swam, boats careened by. Why didn’t they see it?

I walked on the decrepit dock. I knew how to avoid any danger, where exactly to step, how to balance my weight-even with half of the boards missing.

Nearing the edge, I slowed. My shoes rested, an inch hanging off the lip.

I scuffed a part of the rotten wood into the water and waited. I expected there to be ripples but the surface didn’t move. The wood appeared to be pulled down into the muck until it was out of view.

The lake shimmered with a faint metallic sheen. Threads of silver weaved through each other, thinner than pieces of hair.

I lowered myself, kneeling on my shins. Splinters pushed through my jeans, trying to wriggle their way into my skin. My palm moved flat to press against the water.

It didn’t splash. It compressed.

Like wet moss. Like it had memory.

As the water continued to resist subtly against my touch, something brushed my wrist from beneath- soft, filament-like.

I didn’t jump. I simply noted the abnormality of it all.

I felt a tug, I needed to check something inside the house. Something important. And I went inside to investigate.

⸻

Mom

In the living room, my tug led me to a wooden chest. Inside I a scrapbook wedged behind old VHS tapes. A name-my full name- was on the cover.

I opened it without hesitation.

The early pages were normal. Pictures from summer birthday parties, family vacations, first school days. Memories that should have triggered something. But they felt like fiction, I had no recollection of any of it. Then I reached July.

There weren’t any more photos

July 14, 1995 She died. She wasn’t breathing. Lips blue. Eyes open. No pulse.

I stared at the words. It didn’t feel like reading about myself.

July 14, later Something came up from the water with her. Thin. Luminous. I saw it flash, like it went into her nose. I tried to pull it out but it was gone. Mark told me to get my hands off of her so he could continue CPR. I cant stop thinking about it- I know what I saw.

I blinked at that line. Not from shock, but from interest.

July 15th She’s awake, but she’s not… responding to anything. I feel sick, she didn’t even acknowledge her own name for the first few hours. Mark says it’s because she went so long without oxygen. The doctors agree. She does tasks when asked, but it’s like she’s following instructions I didn’t give her. There’s always a second of hesitation.

July 20 She answers every question correctly. She behaves perfectly. She’s calm. Too calm. I think there’s something inside her.

July 24 Mark told me to leave it alone. To be grateful, happy that she survived. He’s in denial. It must be the guilt. The kayak flipped when she was alone. He was supposed to be there with her. She was stuck there with her seatbelt strapped. She was underwater for seven minutes.

July 27 I know it’s watching me. I saw it eating during breakfast. It had a bowl of Coco Puffs. Maya hated Coco Puffs.

It won’t go near the water. Mark says it’s PTSD. It calls me mom, calls Mark dad. It still talks to us but it has no personality. Everything’s changed.

July 30 I wish It died with Her.

I should have been sad. I suppose that’s what the normal reaction was, but there was no tug cue for tears.

There was only a tug to go back to the water.

⸻

Tugging Everywhere

When I stepped back outside, the tug in my chest returned— not directional this time, not instructive.

It was frantic.

Was I dying?

The lake stirred even though the air was still.

My body began walking toward it without conscious decision. My muscles moved with machine-like precision.

One step. Another. Another.

I tried to stop. My legs didn’t respond. I wasn’t ready.

Then, halfway down the dock, the tug stopped completely.

Silence. Absolute internal silence.

For the first time in my remembered life… I had no instructions.

I was like a device suddenly disconnected from its power source.

And then, finally, a memory surged— not a recollection, but like playback. Not mine, but Her’s.

⸻

I Saw My Own Death From the Outside

I saw myself floating beneath the kayak. But the view was distorted. I was watching myself from the sand, burrowed in silt. I was upside down. No- Ah, no. She was upside down, I was still in the sand.

Her hair was spread around her, waving with her body’s jolts. She looked like Medusa, her hair like snakes with a life of their own.

She panicked. She struggled. She opened her mouth. And water was sucked into it.

I remembered assessing her for a span of time, waiting for her struggles to slow.

A symphony of eager thoughts urged me forward. “Yes, yes, this one is pleasant.” they said. My companions. We knew this could be the one.

I came closer once she finally stopped moving, shaking remnants of sand off of my sleek and thin body. She was 60.4 times my size.

Other threads of silver flashed by. My body emitted a light on her face. She was healthy. Young, female and no ailments. A good vessel, a ship.

The surface above me reflected a soft, diffused glow. We agreed, she was suitable. My body tugged instinctively toward her, closer to her nasal cavity.

I would be a perfect fit. My body was small, flexible, and slick.

We could feel the other lesser beings run into the water. Her body was about to be moved. Now was my time.

I touched her face as she was being pulled from the water. Slid into her nose while the beings tried to blow uselessly into her. Passed her throat as water was being forced back out. Behind her eyes that wouldn’t see again.

I situated myself in the brain stem. Wrapped around like hair on a metal pole. Faint electrical signals still zapped after her departure. I pushed out all 6004 of my appendages out of my form and into the soft tissue surrounding me. I wriggled for a moment, getting situated.

My heartbeat restarted like a mechanical pulse.

Not natural. Triggered.

I opened her eyes.

And then I became one.

⸻

The memory was cold, observational, detached.

I had watched myself enter an empty container.

⸻

Lake Worms

My breathing hitched—not emotionally, but mechanically—when I reached the end of the dock.

The lake was moving now. Not rippling. Breathing.

Expanding. Contracting. Expectant.

I understood now, with a final clarity that was inhuman:

I am not the original. I am the result. A rebuilt organism. A functional construct running on a foreign signal.

The tug in my chest- the one that chose all my decisions- wasn’t instinct. It was communication. It was me. It was us.

And now I was coming back.

The water parted. Not like liquid-like something opening its mouth.

Shapes flittered beneath the surface— thin, luminous threads identical to the ones from my memory.

I have returned for their judgement, for their examination.

⸻

Homecoming

I’m standing at the end of the dock now. There is no fear. No sadness. There never will be.

Only recognition.

I was never a person who survived an accident.

I was in a body that was adopted. A chassis. A host. A test.

And it appears the test period is over.

The lake is moving closer— reaching— inviting.

The tug in my chest has restarted. Stronger. Overriding voluntary motion.

This body is walking forward.

If anyone reads this—

I wasn’t healed that day.

I wasn’t saved.

I was just trialing a host.

I am one of millions. I was the first test. I passed.

And now we are ready.

Stay out of the water