The whorling sound of the cage’s chains releasing was safely buffeted by the water’s surface. It wasn’t until the sudden impact of stone and metal displacing the calm waters in jarring waves did interest from below peak. Like a Pavlovian urge, things from the shadows began to stir, cutting a path through the algae-caked bottoms with a hunger that hadn’t been satiated in a long while. Most fled the open waters for safety. One, long and deadly, glided through its domain without trouble.

The surface shifted ever so gently in the distance behind the pitiable girl that found itself stuck within the monster’s cage. The creature had laid dormant for years with no one to give sacrifice; the world around it had shifted and grown decrepit while it slept. Stone had crumbled and broken off into its territory as it tried to find its way back to the familiar sound of new prey. Its wide girth squeezed between two structures, leaving a delicate column to collapse into the water, alerting the newfound visitors that everything was not well within the lake.