Part 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/16261g0/lake_laniers_airbnb_has_a_set_of_rules/
I stood there for a while, contemplating my bedroom’s wall while deciding inside my head if there was even a point to trying now. What would even happen if I kept breaking the rules?
I put the radio back the way it was initially and slid it under the bed. Then, I did as she told me and searched for the lake’s name. I read everything I found for as long as I could before it started turning dark, and you can search for it too if you like.
I checked my phone again. All my messages out to my friends showed up as read, but none ever responded. All the messages I sent out through my laptop were also ignored, and all I could do was wait for my last night.
Outside, the sun set behind the trees and the lady was back crouching on the water, my half defeated heart jumping in my chest once more. Now I didn’t only see the lady and three other people. There were hundreds of them walking around the lake before all stopping once the sun was gone and the water was covering my cabin’s bottom. Now, all of them were fixated on my windows, a quiet dread settling in.
“Pray that you survive the night”. Martha’s last words.
My heart started beating faster as I looked at the hundreds of people outside. I was going to try.
A light knock echoed through the house coming from the front door.
I immediately grabbed my phone and laptop, turned off all the lights and closed myself off in the bathroom, sitting in the same corner as before. This time, though, the knocks persisted, and I stayed in the same place until they stopped. Once they did, scratches started at the bottom of the house, coming up the tree slowly. I left the bathroom, making sure there was no one inside the house, and covered myself with the dirty covers on the bed, re-reading all the rules as I went along, a new sense of focus settling over me.
The closer the scratches came, the more chills I felt up my spine, forcing me to close my eyes until it finally stopped. When I uncovered myself, on the other side of the glass wall there wasn’t one silhouette. Instead, the whole wall was covered in them, all side by side and standing still.
I stumbled off of the bed and turned the bedroom lights on, then all the other ones in the house and left them on.
Just stay focused, I told myself.
After all the silhouettes were gone, there were hundreds of muddy handprints on the glass walls, but no sign of anyone anymore. I left the lights on and stayed in the living room, sitting in the centre of it, ready for anything. For the rest of the night, there was the occasional scratch and knock, but I turned off all the lights and hid in the bathroom and in bed respectively, my heart feeling more and more anxious the closer I got to the morning. I could taste my freedom.
There were more shadows outside, so I turned the lights back on and off as the night went, when suddenly, far on the other end of the lake, to my left, the sun peeked over the treeline, its golden light invading the room and warming up my face.
I sighed in relief, finally feeling my muscles relax and my chest decompress as I put everything back into my suitcase. It had been the most humbling experience I had ever gone through and I hated every second of it, but they weren’t wrong. I had loads to write about.
There was a knock at the door. My whole body froze in place again, until I heard a recognizable voice calling through the door.
“Hello? Anyone in here?” - Martha called out.
I rushed out of the bedroom and into the living room.
“Martha?” - I called through the door.
“Oh, you’re there!” - her muffled voice sounded surprised on the other side of the door.
I smiled. I was ready to hug her hard as soon as I opened the door.
When I did, everything stopped. My heart, my blood, my insides all froze and panic set, my breathing feeling harder and harder to keep, like I was drowning.
On the other side of the door, the lady I met on the first day, the lady that kept showing up around the house every time it was about to be night and that would fixate on my windows just before it went dark, stood still, watching me with disappointed eyes.
“You forgot” - Martha’s voice sounded out of her.
“No, I did everything!” - I countered.
She shook her head, her face starting to look strange. “What time is it?”
I stumbled backward as she walked towards me.
“It’s 08:30, it’s morning! That was my last night and I did everything!”
She stopped in place and her expression turned robotic. She opened her mouth slowly, as it seemed to rot, and the robotic rules voice came out, her mouth keeping open and still.
“In the event that you fail to follow one or any of the rules and someone comes inside the house, hide in the bathroom and wait for them to leave.”
She closed her mouth with a look of disapproval as she now stood inside the house, the sun’s light starting to turn darker.
“But my stay is over, I followed all the rules and survived until my stay was over!” - I begged.
She took one more step into the house, her clothes starting to look heavier and darker with water damage coming through.
“You say until your stay has ended.” - she said in her voice devoid of feeling. - “ Your stay has not ended”
“It has, it was my last night, please!”
Then a thought of my assistant’s last words when he dropped me off hit me. He was to pick me up at 12:30PM at the end of the road where he had dropped me off. Four hours from now. My stay finished at 12:00.
She opened her mouth again, the sun going watery green behind me as her expression fell darker and darker and the room filled up with water. The rules were blasting out of her mouth over and over and over, faster and faster as all the people from the lake started showing up behind her, more and more of them, looking drowned. Some had limbs missing, some had algae, clams and fish attached to them, crossing through holes in different parts of their body.
I could feel my heart stopping and breath abandoning me as the rules were blasted out of Martha’s mouth louder and louder the closer she got, until she cornered me against the living room’s glass wall and leaned over me, her open, growing mouth blasting the rules until she swallowed me whole.
This is the last thing I remember. Everything else is darkness until I came to.
I was on Lake Lanier’s Tree House’s bed. This is now my house, at the bottom of the lake. I live with all the other people who haven’t followed the rules and drowned. Our job is to drown the new ones, if they fail. After all this, somehow, my laptop still works. I can’t contact anyone, but I seem to be able to post things online. I don’t know if they feed through to anything, but apart from drowning people who don’t follow the rules, my other hobby is to write my scripts.
If this can get through and anyone is watching, I hope this stops you from coming around Lake Lanier. If you decide to come anyway… well, don’t be like me and listen to the rules before your stay starts at Lake Lanier’s Tree House Air BnB.