The Well Part 2

Six Months Earlier…

I didn’t land.

It felt like I did, but only because I think I stopped falling. The drift gave way to weight. Not impact—just gravity reasserting itself.

Then something concrete.

Rough, angled. Enough to make me feel safe, not enough to stay.
I slipped. Slid. Caught something. My hand curled around a shallow ledge that felt more like memory than rock.

My legs dangled. My breath caught. And then I heard it—

The scream.

The same one from the marsh. But different.

It didn’t come from ahead this time. It came from below.
It echoed up through the stone, the way cold rises from the ground.
And it passed through me, I realized—
It was mine.

My voice. From earlier. From later. From the moment I first heard it.

I had screamed before I knew I was falling.

And the sound had taken this long to reach me.

I pulled myself up—just enough to see.

Below, suspended in haze, was the scene from Swamped.
But altered. Crooked. Like I was peering through warped glass.

The camera still hung from the branch.
The Reflection Loop sign flickered.
But the figure—
It wasn’t standing anymore.
It was climbing down the bank. Toward something. Toward… me?

I blinked, and the haze rearranged.

No longer Swamped—but the wave.

Frozen mid-crash, like before. Only this time, it reflected more.

I could see myself again—just as I had the first time—but behind me was someone else.
A shadow. A smear.

I turned around.

No one was there.

The air thickened.

My fingers dug in tighter. I began crawling sideways, not up.
The rock here didn’t slope—it spiraled.
And I followed it, thinking maybe it would lead to the surface.
It didn’t.

It led me to another ledge.

One I hadn’t climbed to, but returned to.

A camera sat there, same model as before.
And the screen glowed with an image:
Me—falling. Not the current fall. The last one.
Midair. Arms flailing. Eyes shut.

The shutter clicked.
Not from the camera in front of me—
From the one still falling.

Some version of me, still tumbling deeper, had pressed a button on his wrist.

I watched the moment from above as if filming my own descent.
I watched myself as I became a photograph.

The wind returned—with a hot, sharp feeling. Like breath, not air.

And then the figure appeared again.

This time with more detail.
Hair. Shoulders.
Hands that never closed.
Eyes that didn’t shine. Like it was sad.

It formed words, but I couldn’t hear them.
Still, I knew what it said:

“Turn around.”

I hesitated.

Then I slipped, and my head cracked the ledge.

Black.