I actually wrote this one for a competition (I didn't place). It's partially based on the fishing trips I went on when I was really small. Enjoy

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She loved the sea.

She loved how the water caressed her boat, how the waves rocked it like a mother soothing her troubled child. The summer sea was a deep, clear blue, completely unruffled. It was a far cry from the winter sea that crashed graspingly against the shore, as if wishing to pull the land down into a cold, watery embrace. It was cleaner than the polluted-looking water of her local river; a river she hated with a passion.

When she was released from the land to float out here on the open ocean she felt a wild, pure sense of freedom, and at the same time a strange unity. She was on the ocean, and the ocean was in her.

 The fishermen in the harbour were part of the old school that believed women on boats spelled bad luck for sailors. She chuckled quietly as they muttered about her 'lack of supervision', and made grisly predictions of ship-killer storms, creating a low rumble which swelled around her as she readied her dinghy to set sail.

When she surrendered to this sense of togetherness she could almost see the currents of air and water, and instinctively knew when problems were in the works, and how to avoid them.

Besides, just like the creatures who floated in the shadowy womb of the ocean's depths, she was a part of it, and, just like a loving mother, the ocean took care of its own.

She came out here when she wanted to be alone with her thoughts, and today was special.

Today was an anniversary.

Once she was out on the open water she folded the sails and lay back. She felt a sudden impulse to write. Since her papa's death she had become a fervent writer, and she spent a lot of time staring off into space, dreaming up characters, plotlines and landscapes. Her mother had become worried and had asked her what she was doing.

"I'm stewing all my experiences in the pot of my consciousness," she had said testily, "and whatever comes to the top will be scraped off, seasoned, and written down, to one day be eaten by an avid reader looking for an escape from the world."

Her mother had been sufficiently awe-inspired by the rather pompous response and had left her alone. Now, inspiration struck, and she scribbled feverishly as poetry bled from her mind to the pen and out onto the page, and a verse came in to being:

Somber blue green waves

Sparkling sands, rocks, driftwood

Seascape of my youth

Naively impressed with herself, she doodled a few more verses, and the put it away as the creative waterfall dwindled and began to dry up. She thought she might get it flowing with a bit of reading, so she pulled out a book.

Books had their own special enchantment, a captivating magic concealed in the pages, imprisoned by print and paper, just waiting for a fertile imagination to come along and release it. But the summer sun brought her under its own warm, golden spell, the words running together, dripping of the page and leaking out of the small gaps in the wood of the boat, getting lost in the sea...and then she was dozing, the book resting gently on the tip of her nose.

She was brought to full consciousness rather abruptly by a jerking movement of the boat. Swirling her hand in the water, she found that the boat was being tugged along at a fast clip by a current that flowed where no current had a right to be. It was completely unnatural, but she shrugged it off. The current felt agitated, like the palpable excitement she had felt when her father was handing out presents after a long business trip.

Slowly, a small crescent-shaped bay came into view at the prow of the boat. Déjà vu crept up behind her and bounced around inside her skull. It looked so familiar. The clear water lapped onto a serene beach with sand turned golden by the sun. The beach was ringed by assorted flora of an intense green, and even from this distance she could hear beautiful bird-calls falling through the air in glittering, pure cadences.

Her small vessel was left meandering in the cove when the current disappeared as mysteriously as it had come. She pulled out a pair of oars and rowed until the boat fetched up against the shore. Hopping out into the warm water, she pulled it above the tideline, and then turned to look at her surroundings. The birdsong was louder now, a canticle in diamond notes, and the air was fragrant. She walked slowly up the beach and as she crossed into the trees she heard it. The sound of a waterfall. She walked faster, the sound pulling her through the scenery without seeing any of it. She came upon the source of the sound in a small meadow.

The light-filled clearing was mostly taken up by a deep pond. It was surrounded by grass and rainbow-like flower clusters. The pond was fed by a waterfall that ran off a small cliff and created ripples, disturbing the mirror-like surface. The whole area was draped in a light atmosphere of harmony, and the pool looked incredibly inviting.

As she went forward to explore the mere she noticed a deep shadow behind the falls, which, upon closer inspection, revealed a dank and shadowy tunnel. She leaned forward, meaning to step inside, and a nebulous feeling touched her. She took another look back at the pond. Its mild loveliness caught and gripped her, and an urge to swim, to be held in the water's flowing embrace, surfaced inside her. All thoughts of the tunnel flew out of her mind.

She shed her clothing without hesitation, relinquishing her body to the pool's refreshing, all- encompassing hold. The water was warm and lured her into a floating dream in which she was held in limbo in a warm, cozy chamber, swamped by an enclosing vibe of security.

By the time she'd had her fill of the water's shared ambience and peace it was nightfall. There was still that passageway behind the waterfall; it was a balmy midsummer's night.

She decided to stay the night and explore it tomorrow before she left.

She found a tree surrounded by the soft grass. It was adorned with aromatic flowers that lulled her into relaxation, and as tired as she was from rowing, walking and swimming, she fell instantly into a profound void of sleep. She dreamed as the moon made its ceaseless journey across the night sky.

~~~

When sleep released her it was dawn. Early sunlight reflected off the underbellies of the clouds, turning the sky into a sweeping panorama of warm, pink light. She was still floating in tranquillity.

So it was a bone-jarring shock when, upon setting foot inside the shadowy area behind the silvered falls the vague sensation she had felt yesterday hardened into an unmistakable tendril of unease that sank its roots in to her stomach. But tragedy had toughened uncertainty into determination, and she continued, setting aside the edgy premonition as she proceeded further into the gloom.

As she walked the feeling grew more and more pronounced. Water seemed to bleed from the roughened walls in slow, almost stagnant trickles, and the floor underfoot was wet and slimy, forcing her to grab onto outcroppings of rock to keep her dubious balance, making her fingers red and raw. She began to sweat as unease turned to fright and a disturbing image suddenly came to mind: she was walking unknowingly down the gullet of a giant, bestial organism, with no idea of what lay at the end.

Then she reached its stomach.

She had intruded upon an egg-shaped chamber half-filled with water, which glowed with a disturbing lime-green luminescence that reflected off the walls in dripping gleams. The cavern exuded a womb-like feeling, just like the sea and the pond, but it held no feelings of safety. Instead it gave off a terrible peace, a promise that if she stayed here any longer she would be sucked into oblivion, never to be recovered.

Inexplicable panic exploded behind her eyes and her mind was suddenly paralyzed. Her body looked to her brain for instructions, found it hiding under the sheets, and took over, filling with one primal instinct: to flee from the hair-raising aura exuded by the cavern.

She turned tail and ran, and a howling wind sprang up behind her and gave chase, some malignant presence banishing her from its dark abode. She burst out from behind the waterfall and was off towards the beach like a shot. Her mind woke up and began shrieking at her body to run faster! Faster! FASTER!

She cursed the common sense that had made her move the boat so far above the tideline, out of reach of the waves. She hurriedly pushed the vessel into deeper water, gasping with exertion and fear, and almost fell in, desperate to escape from the deceptively placid clearing and beach.

As she sailed away from the familiar bay her mind tried to find a logical explanation for the cavern, for the fear. It didn't succeed, and as it failed to deal with her shattered nerves she sank almost irretrievably into a childhood mindset where every delightful fairytale was true, and where monsters lurked just around the corner, or in your very house.

Fortunately, unlike some of the more unlucky characters in the fairytales, she had escaped. The boat rocked gently, the sun moved across the sky, and she slowly calmed down, her thoughts returning to a normal state of rationality.

It was all in my head, she told herself. A dark cave, a strange reflection, too much imagination...

Somewhere deep in the recesses of her head, she knew she was lying to herself. That the cave and the island were home to something real, something tangible...something strange. Something that promised madness or death if she dared to delve any deeper into the mystery.

All in my head.

As she sailed away, she fancied she heard faint howl of frustration...