Recently my grandmother died. Me and my siblings have been going through a bunch of her stuff, donating furniture, archiving pictures, selling some things. It’s been tough, giving away things that remind us of her, having to remove these memory-filled objects from our lives.
She rented her apartment, but she was the owner of our family cabin, and in her will she gave it to us, her grandchildren, to do with as we pleased. The cabin was a few hours’ ride away, and even though we all had lovely memories of summers spent there, we collectively decided it’s overall the best decision to sell the place and split the money. I volunteered to go there to clean up the place a bit and take pictures for the realtor.
Once I arrived at the cabin, it seemed exactly as I remembered, even though I hadn’t been there in years. Childhood memories flooded my senses as I stepped in and smelled the aging wood logs and the musty carpets.
As I started to clean and organize some things, I found a stack of journals written by my grandmother in the 80’s. Seeing as I was in no rush, I started to go through them. She wrote about all of these lovely summer days of the whole family spending time at the cabin, about how happy she was and how proud us kids made her. I teared up a bit, just reading how she always saw the best in everyone and every situation.The pages were full of love, and of gratefulness. After some time I picked up the last journal in the stack, and started to go through it.
It mostly contained similar, loving approaches to ordinary days; how she picked blueberries with her husband, how we all played board games inside on rainy days, each page a memory of her approach to ordinary life as a blessing. Most pages had the date scribbled in the top right corner of the page, and then a block of text until the next date. As I approached the final pages, there was a title, scribbled in huge, jagged letters, alongside the date - the last entry in th journal.
12.7.1982
GÅ INTE ENSAM i SJÖN
Translated, it means “don’t go into the lake alone”. Below this she had written something… different, spanning multiple pages, which seemed to end her journaling altogether. There were only blank pages after that, and I couldn’t find a more recent journal anywhere. The text is written in rikssvenska (National Swedish), using a very specific dialect, and it’s all a bit jumbled, making it somewhat difficult to read through. Some words, and even whole sentences, were scribbled out, some circled, and footnotes were added all around the pages. I’ve translated and compiled the texts into a somewhat sensible story of what happened that day. It’d be weird for me to write this from her perspective, and even weirder to call her ‘grandma’ throughout this text, so I decided to go with a third-person outlook. What follows is what happened to my grandmother, Freja, on that day.
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Waking up at the family summer cabin, Freja decided to go for a swim at the lake. On hot summer days like this, it was by far her favorite way to start her day. Usually she went with her husband, but he decided to sleep in on this particular day.
The lake wasn’t far off, and Freja knew the path by heart. She changed into her swimming gear, and left the cabin with a towel resting on her shoulders. The sun was fresh for the day but already burning hot, and as Freja reached the lake, she was more than eager to cool off in the water.
Freja got into the water, feeling her warm skin relax as the cool water enveloped her. Not many people visited the lake, especially in the early morning, so she had the whole place to herself.
After cooling off and idly floating near the shoreline, she decided to swim to the other end and back. The lake wasn’t huge, but to swim from one end to the other and back wasn’t an easy task, so this would constitute a fine morning workout. She started off briskly, the clear water becoming deeper as she swam further. Soon she no longer saw the bottom of the lake. At its centerpoint, the lake was known to be quite deep. Freja felt the mass of water elongating downwards, burrowing a hole into the earth.
Fish started to swim near her. Tiny ones, in small groupings, jutting about in unison, like a hive mind controlled by a single brain. As she continued to swim, some larger fish appeared. The kind that fishermen told tales of how long and heavy and hard to catch the fish were. The large fish moved near and through the schools of small fish, seemingly searching for something on their own accord. Freja had never seen so many of the lake’s fish at the same time, but then again, maybe they just weren’t afraid of anything yet, seeing as Freja was the first lake visitor of the day. Or maybe they just liked the morning sun as much as she did.
As she approached the center of the lake, Freja saw something shift to her right. It looked as if some of the small fish grew in size in an instant, becoming larger than any of the others. Then, a huge fish swam quickly straight at her from her left side, but once it reached Freja, the fish was the size of a pencil, pricking her on the ankle. It must be a trick of the light, she thought; bundles of fish in water shone one by the sun - that can really make things look weird. In any case, the fish were uncomfortably close, so she took up in speed, hoping to lose them.
After she reached the center of the lake, she no longer looked at the water. She kept her gaze at the shoreline in front of her as best she could, but in her peripheral vision she saw fish - tens, hundreds of them around her, bloating and shrinking in size. For some, their scales would enlarge into a thick hide, and for others, they’d reduce into small palm-sized creatures, wriggling as they tried to keep up with Freja in the water. The water produced odd waves as the fish swam and grew and lessened in great succession. Freja swam faster, keeping her gaze locked in front of her.
With only about a quarter of a way to the shore, Freja spotted something round, deep below in front of her, slowly increasing in size. As she swam, the round thing got bigger and bigger, and Freja could feel a myriad of small creatures and muscly fish with large, rough scales bump and squirm at her legs and feet. As Freja overtook the large round thing, she popped her head into the water to get a clear look at what it was.
Freja saw the face of a huge creature, with an eye span of multiple feet, slowly ascending at her from the pitch black lake. It curved in great lines as its massive body slowly twisted from side to side as it swam. Freja could not see where the creature ended, its prolonged body shrouded by the dark water. It was swimming up. Its massive, pitch black eyes stared at her. The schools of small and big fish seemed to sway along with the leviathans movements. It’s as if they were all commanded by the beast, waiting for orders. The lake’s depth no longer seemed to trail off toward the shoreline. Instead, it was pitch black everywhere, seeming to hold a depth far greater than it should.
She closed her eyes and swam as fast as she could. Freja could feel a rift pulling her body under just as she reached the shore. Gasping for breath, she ran up and away, just to get as far away from the water as she could. Turning back, there was no movement in the lake. The water was clear, but no longer dark from sheer depth, but she could see nothing, as if all the fish vanished into the depths. The surface was calm, and only the smallest of waves were produced by a lazy wind.
On the other side of the lake, she saw a fisherman come into view, putting down his equipment and small camping chair. He must’ve gotten here right before she reached the shore. She wasn’t alone at the lake anymore, and the lake quieted itself accordingly.
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That was the story of what happened to my grandmother, or at least what she thinks happened. I can’t imagine her making something like this up, though I really don’t know what to make of it. I won’t disclose the location of the lake or the cabin, as the cabin is still for sale, and I’d rather not have potential buyers hearing about this creepy story. In any case, I’d love to hear if any of you guys have heard of similar things, or had such experiences. When we were kids, we obviously always went to the lake together, accompanied by adults and having other kids to play with, so I haven’t personally experienced anything weird - but obviously whatever happened shook my grandma enough to make her stop journaling. I wonder why that is? I mean, even if all she wrote is true, I don’t know why she’d stop writing.
Anyway, there’s a showing of the cabin coming up soon, and I thought I’d tag along with the realtor and maybe pay a visit to the lake. I’ll update you guys if I decide to go, and if there’s something going on.