Rusalka

So, the craziest thing just happened to me. I was almost burned to death by some weird death cult. That’s not even the weirdest part; I think I was saved by whatever they called forth into our world.

Some backstory; I went back to my birth country, to Russia, to visit some family. During my stay with the family, I decided to go hunting. It’s a common practice where I come from, and if you know the area well enough like I do. You can go as a one-person team. It’s perfectly fine and acceptable with the locals. Obviously, as long as you take provisions and a means of communication with you. Yeah, even people in the furthest reaches of Mother Russia now have cellphones and the internet. While there’s no real way of communicating via phone in the depths of the taiga, at the edges of the Russian forests, there is plenty of reception.

So, I go out after dawn. My plan was to hunt for hares. Sadly, I didn’t get to hunt much. I mean just when I took aim one of those little buggers. I felt a sharp pain at the back of my head, and everything went black as I collapsed.

When I came to, I found myself tied up to a tree facing a lake. Mind you Tuva isn’t exactly small. So, I had no idea where I was. When I regained some of my senses, I tried to get free from the ropes that bound me to the tree but I couldn’t. I saw no one at first, so I screamed; demanding to be released.

I didn’t really expect what came next, a naked man dressed in some animal hide came up to me from behind and began growling and barking at me like a rabid animal. I was expecting some crime syndicate, not this.

At this point I have to mention that sometimes people do “just disappear” in Russia, sadly, we haven’t gone over the whole perestroika crime surge completely.

Anyhow, as this creature is barking at me, more like him appear from all over. At this point, I was beginning to wish for some mafia-style criminal to have abducted me. I screamed and thrashed against the ropes that bound me to the tree. I was panicking like crazy, but at that moment I think I was trying to scare these creatures. I don’t know what they were, but I suppose a death cult won’t suffice; I mean all but one of them seemed like feral children that had reached adulthood.

One of those animals had gotten enough of my tantrum and scratched my abdomen. I froze when he did, not because I was surprised by him doing so but because I felt liquid rolling down underneath my shirt and jacket. That thing sliced through my clothes and skin with human nails. I didn’t know you could cut so deep with human nails.

At that moment, I just stared at those things that were all around me, trying to process what I’m dealing with. I was unable to think straight. The pain in my abdomen finally reached my brain a few seconds later. It hurt like hell; it still hurts like hell and doesn’t look any better. It’s like an actual Snow Leopard cut my belly.

I was frozen there, trying to think of how to react to being sliced up like a piece of meat when some old man dressed in a bear’s pelt comes out of the lake and screams at the things around me to stop. At least that’s what I assume he was screaming because he screamed something in some sort of East Slavic dialect that made them stop and back away from me.

I began screaming at him to let me go; I was getting really angry at my captors and so a flurry of vulgar terms flew all over the place. The creatures just stood and glared at me with puzzled looks in their eyes.

The old man began laughing.

“What’s so funny, you old fuck?” I screamed at him.

The old man stopped laughing, eerily suddenly, so much so that I felt a chill crawl down my spine.

He then said in a gleeful tone, in perfect modern Russian; “The goddess is hungry, and you are her snack.”

My heart sunk, thoughts swirling in my mind. The realization came quickly; I was about to be killed, sacrificed to some twisted entity these death cultists conjured in their demented minds.

I was once again thrashing against the ropes; screaming profanities at my captors.

The animals around me scattered, and before I could react, the lake in front of me exploded into the sky. A rain of water droplets sprayed all over. I blinked for just a moment and when I opened my eyes again. The creatures and the old man were all on their knees with their heads pressed against the soil.

I didn’t even get the time to be confused before I noticed a figure crawling out of the lake.

“Blyat!” I yelled out before trying to break free from the ropes harder than before.

The figure was definitely human, that much I could see from the distance, but it was crawling on all fours towards me. Long dark wet hair covered its face. Whatever that thing was, I wanted to be nowhere near it. I swear I felt like I’m dealing with Samara from the ring. That thing even appeared to be wrapped in a white cloth. I kept on thrashing and yanking myself as hard as I could and the creatures around me didn’t seem to even care at that point. I mean, that would seem like the perfect opportunity to escape but their lack of attention toward me just made me feel even more endangered; as if they were letting me know that the thing that was crawling from the lake would get me, anyway.

Chanting filled my ears as the creature crawled closer to me. At this point, I could completely make out the form. It was definitely feminine and wearing something of a long white dress and some sort of matching garments on her arms.

The ropes finally broke, I was free, I wanted to run, I was about to.

Then I caught a glimpse of her eyes; those green - deep eyes and I froze.

My body completely froze in place but wasn’t frozen with fear. It was like I was frozen in ecstasy. I was completely calm. Almost numb with calm. A part of me wanted to run, but another part wanted to stay there and get lost in the moment.

Before I could notice this thing, it was right in front of me. In all of her ungodly glory. I have to admit here, though; she was one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen. If that was, in fact, a woman. She dragged herself to an upright position. Her body produced disgusting crackling noises as she dragged herself upwards.

Once she was standing as close as she could to upright, she grabbed a hold of my face with her two hands, her touch was frigid, but I couldn’t move, hell I didn’t even want to. At least, not wholly. Some part of me still wanted to run away.

She kissed me.

As if to reassure me that everything will be fine.

She let go of me and smiled at me.

Two rows of jagged, shark-like teeth shone at me from behind her water-soaked lips.

I was snapped out of my trance, and my heart sank to my heels.

She giggled at my mortified form and bridged her upper body backward, before awkwardly spinning her body in impossible ways to stand on her four limbs again.

The creatures around us were still kneeling and chanting as she turned her attention to one of them. The one that scratched me. She moved towards him and in a display of sheer monstrous strength grabbed him by the throat before lifting him into the air.

She bit his face off and chucked the rest of his body to the ground before spitting his face out.

The animals around us noticed this and rose in shock, visibly as terrified as I am.

The old man tried reasoning with the woman, but she was having none of it. To put it lightly, she turned him into a literal human pretzel before pulling out his eyes and shoving them down his throat.

And she also snapped his neck by wrapping her leg around it.

The creatures around us tried to run, but boy, nobody was escaping this lady of the lake.

I won’t go into too many details, but I’ll say this; she tore the legs off one of them and used them like battering sticks on another until he was nothing but a pile of red colored organic waste.

I could hardly handle the carnage, but I held out without throwing up all over myself until she decided to feed one of those animals its own internal organs… Guts and something else. That’s when I broke down and threw up all over the place.

As I stood there, on my knees, consumed by the acidic stinging at the back of my throat and the cramping of my stomach, the agonal screams were beginning to fade. Not that I had the time or energy to care, the pain in my torso was almost paralyzing due to the injury of my abdominal muscles. I was beginning to run out of breath when I felt a cold hand touch my shoulder; that’s when I saw her. She was on her knees, staring directly at me with those soothing green eyes.

She smiled her shark-like smile at me again and another wave of relief washed over me, that’s when I noticed her previously white clothing was primarily red. I’ve to admit, it suited her.

I was mesmerized by this being, there was something so calming about her even though she was a walking weapon of mass destruction.

I took a deep breath of relief and then she was gone, and I was home. With a few dead hares in my sack.

I honestly have no clue what was that, but I’m going to assume that was some, not so violent Rusalka, those are, by the way, not mermaids. They’re vengeful spirits of women who were killed or driven to suicide by their husbands and whose final resting place was bodies of water.

I mean, the old man referred to her as a goddess, but I don’t know, he came off like some crazy cult leader. So, he could’ve been just exaggerating whatever she is. Then again, I might be crazy for thinking she’s some old vengeful spirit.

I don’t know.

What I know for sure is that I’m alright, well mostly, I got hare meat in my stove and that whoever this lady of the lake was, she never intended me to be the sacrifice.