Chapter 7
Chapter 7: The Lake
Jacob emerged from the jungle’s oppressive green twilight into a light so vast and open it made his eyes ache. The lake stretched before him like a sheet of hammered silver, its far shore invisible, the horizon a blur of water and sky that seemed to merge into a single, seamless membrane. The air was cool and still, carrying the faint scent of algae and damp stone. For a long moment, he simply stood at the edge of the reeds, exhausted, his boots caked with mud from a thousand small streams that bled into the lake’s shoreline. The compass in his pocket pulled east, unwavering, and the water lay directly in that direction.
He walked along the shore for what felt like an hour, the soft lapping of waves the only sound. Then he saw it—a boat, half-hidden in a bed of tall grasses, its wood weathered to a pale gray. It was a simple rowboat, perhaps eight feet long, with oars still shipped in their locks. There was no name on the hull, no sign of ownership, but a small metal plate near the bow had been engraved with a single word: Carry. Jacob tested the boat’s weight with his foot; it seemed sound, but the wood groaned in a way that made him think of old bones. He had no choice. The way east was across the water.
He dragged the boat into the shallows, the cold water soaking through his worn boots, and climbed in. The moment he sat down, the lake seemed to change. The gentle lapping became a deeper, more rhythmic pulse, as though the water itself was breathing. He took up the oars and began to row, the boat cutting a slow, uneven path across the mirrored surface. The shore behind him shrank, then disappeared into the haze, and the shore ahead remained a phantom, a line of doubt.
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