The Hidden Well

It was quite late in the evening when Anne heard these unexpected three knocks on the door of her ground floor appartment. The fact that someone could be in the situation of needing her help surprised her and made her feel anxious at the same time. After all, she had only moved in a few days before and had never met any of the other inhabitants of the residence. She wondered if she had been making too much noise, or if someone was just curious to ask her who she was.

Although she has wondered many times how she woud react to an unexpected visit at nighttime -there was no guardian or janitor at all in the residence, she found herself walking towards the door even before she had made her decision. And when she opened it, she was not the least surprised to see a man standing behind it. She had never see him before, but his confident look convinced her that he was familiar to this place.

"Hello", he said smiling, "I'm Daniel, your neighbor."

He pointed at the other door on the floor ground, a few meters across the yard. He has these sweet greyish eyes and hadn't shaven for quite a few days visibly. He looked thin, tightly wrapped in a trenchcoat, while being easily three to four inches taller than her. Temperature had dropped with the end of the day, he was wearing a hat and his breath turned into small clouds of mist.

"Hi, I'm Anne. Nice to meet you." She held out her hand.

He considered it for a second too long, then shook it lamely while staring into her eyes. She forced herself not to wince at the touch of his humid skin. 

"Nice to meet you, Anne." He grinned, and for a moment his eyes went totally white, iris and pupil disappearing totally. "Although we've already met before."

She shrugged, not the least intimidated. She knew that the word had spread about her talents beyond the borders of the human world, and that the mere perception of her aura would lead all kinds of creatures to her, wherever she settled.

"You wouldn't believe the number of freaks I got to know in my crazy life", she sighed. "So, you're my neighbor, but obviously that's not the point; what is your issue?"

He tapped the concrete ground with his feet. "I need to go down there," he answered with a surge of impatience.

"What do you mean 'down there'?"

He took off his hat, revealing a light gray hair that seemed to drip with water in spite of the total lack of rain.

"My primary element is Water. There is an ancient well under this yard," he explained. "It can give me access to my world again, and I need to get back or I will die here among the humans."

Anne repressed a chuckle. "And what are you? The Little Mermaid?"

His face showed no sign of humor. "No," he answered, "as you should know, I'm the God of the Swamps."

For a moment, Anne wondered if it was some sort of joke, but it became quickly obvious that it wasn't. She was facing a godly creature for the first time, which made her realize how much more she still had to discover about the uncanny worlds her rare perception connected her to.

"I don't like your silence," he said. "Can you help me anyway?"

She sighed. "Listen, I understand that you would come to me, but there's no way I can actually help. You see, I'm a psychic, and what you need is either a wizard or a digger."

He glanced around, frowning, then looked back at her.

"You must help me", he insisted nervously. "If I don't return there, I'll just die."

"And why did you leave your world in the first place?" she asked annoyedly.

"Although I've taken the shape of a mere human, I'm still in possession of most of my powers."

She tought it was a courteous way to remind her she still owed him some respect. His glare was expressive enough.

"I suppose I could help you find a wizard", she uttered reluctantly. "But I cannot garantee they will not try to take advantage of you. You must be aware of what the humans did to the Christian god when he mingled with them? And they didn't even use magic..."

 "I'm not afraid of humans. After all, my fiancée is one of them." While saying this, he watched her so intently that she started to feel uncomfortable. "I suppose you don't remember anything about me and the ridiculous love I had for you?"

It took her a while to figure out what he meant, and even when she realized what his words implied, she found it impossible to believe.

"You must be mistaken. It can't be me."

"Of course it's you", he said bitterly. "How ironic that a suicidal young girl should refuse to share the life of the God of the Swamps, because she can't take the sight of drowned corpses and murdered bodies being thrown to rot in the waters! Besides, it can't be a coincidence that you decide to move in here, a few meters away from my door, right above the surest passage to my world, just when I'm in desperate need of help. There must be a part of you that still remembers me."

She gave him a long incredulous look, before she blurted out in a blank voice :"Well, it sounds like it would be the dead part of me."

This text is a writing exercise, but maybe next year I'll be able publish the full story. Stay connected!

KAB