Voices from the Deep End of Darkness

Once upon a midnight dreary, by a poolside, damp and eerie,

I wandered, drawn by whispers, ‘neath the moonlight’s pallid gleam.

Through the mist, a shadow shifted, murky waters darkly lifted,

Rippling as if cursed and gifted, hiding things from which I’d scream.

Pools are for delight and play, but not here in night’s decay—

This one held a dreadful sway, a shimmering haunted dream.

In the stillness, depths unmoving, yet my senses felt unnerving

Racked by the dread that pulled me closer to its seething steam.

There I saw, through waters swirling, ghostly faces, bodies twirling—

Dancing as if caught and curling in the pool’s forbidden gleam.

“Leave,” it whispered, cold and hollow, but my feet would only follow,

Drawn by dread that fed my sorrow, nearer to that haunted dream.

“Tell me why you’re trapped,” I muttered, voice so weak, my courage shuttered—

Eyes fixed on that depth unuttered, on that cursed and hollow scream.

Then, from out the darkness creeping, came a chill and echo seeping,

And I heard those lost souls weeping, locked within that shadowed seam.

“We were swimmers, fast and free, till one night—eternally

Bound here by a misery that steals light’s blessed gleam.”

Frozen still, I watched, despairing, at the figures shifting, staring,

Gripping coldly to the glaring edges of the poolside beam.

Water churned in endless fashion, stirred by ghostly wrath and passion,

Calling for a soul to ration, to feed the pool’s eternal theme.

As I felt my senses blurring, feet no longer felt like stirring—

Some dark magic in me spurring toward the depths’ consuming scheme.

Still that whisper, “Join us, mortal—step into our liquid portal.”

And I knew my fate was chortled by that haunted, hollow dream.

And now here I stand, ungiving, neither dead yet barely living,

Trapped where light is unforgiving, in that cursed pool’s depths unseen.

~ author unknown

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