I hopped up from my bed to hear the shrieks of my alarm clock. I quickly slammed down the buttons on the eyes of the panel in hopes the ringing would stop. It was 4 am. I really had to go. I told my friend, Elounour that I would meet her at the lake at 4:45 am as usual. We always went to swim in the lake on Saturday mornings. I had a long walk to get to the lake, so I quickly changed into my plain, blue bathing suit, threw my hair into a very messy bun with a baby blue hair tie and slipped on my white raincoat and its matching, platform boots. Before I left, I made a quick lettuce sandwich and watered the soft, green plants whose arms hung eerily on the blank walls of my small bedroom. Then, as I put on my round, reflective sunglasses, out the door I went.
Of course it was raining. It always rained where I lived. The light, damp rain was soothing as I walked down the small, muddy path to the lake. The path was lined with alien green ferns and skinny, chocolate brown trees. It was a pretty view. I stopped in the middle of walking and took a snapshot of the scenery with my black, high quality camera.
It seemed like ages went by when I finally reached the calm lake. Lake Lochness. It seemed to be calling me in to swim. The rain was quietly bouncing on the pretty, silver waves. Elounour wasn’t there. She probably wasn’t even close to reaching the lake yet, so I walked down to a damp patch of bright green grass near the quiet shore and laid out my picnic blanket. Before I sat down, I looked around.
“I wonder where she is,” I thought as I sat down on the blanket. It was already beginning to moisten. The drizzly rain seemed to spit on it in harassment, so I held up my small umbrella and stared out at the foggy rain hopping around on the water.
Before I could doze off into a rain hypnosis, I saw a big fin flapping on the surface of the wrangly water. Before I could pick up my camera and snap a photo, it disappeared.
“I’m imagining things,” I whispered to myself. Ignoring the feeling of uneasiness, I continued waiting, now impatiently, for Elounour.
It seemed as if days went by when she finally got the nerve to show up. I looked up from my camera and saw her. She was skipping down towards the shore in her small black boots and matching raincoat. Her long, straight, black hair was tightly pulled back into a high ponytail and danced around as she waved.
“Hey! Where were you? You’re late,” I called out.
“Oh sorry. I had to go to the bakery and pick up some food!” she said in a cheery tone.
“It’s alright,” I said with an almost nice tone, “thanks.” She handed me a blueberry muffin.
I took a bite. It was delicious. The hot blueberries melted in my mouth and the bread was very sugary.
  “Wanna go swimming now?” Elounour asked me as she looked out at the grumpy water impatiently. She tapped her foot.
“Sure,” I said reluctantly, envisioning the fin I had seen earlier.
We slipped off our shoes and raced down the sandy shore to the water that glared angrily at us. Then, we plopped our feet in the shallow water.
“It’s freezing,” Elounour shivered.
“Yes, it is,” I sighed and peered out among the gray waves as Elounour headed back to the picnic blanket.
“I dare you to go swimming,” I called out as Elounour looked about. “Alright. Later,” Elounour grumbled as she sat down.
I walked back to the blanket and sat down. We finished up the muffins and then, seeing a clump of sad ducks waddling on the shore, we approached them and threw them some small pieces of my flavorless sandwich, which they ate hungrily.
“Okay, time to go swimming,” I ordered.
“But it’s freezing,” Elounour said stormily.
“But I dared you,” I replied, “and you agreed!”
“Fine,” she said and laughed.
She quickly took off her raincoat, threw it on the sand, and dove into the water.
“Ah! Cold!” she yelped, “I dare you to swim too!”
“Okay. Hold on. I want to take a picture,” I said.
I jogged up the hill and into the squishy grass and plopped down on my picnic blanket, not turning back to see if Elounour was still swimming in the lake. I took my time as I opened up my black, Nike bag and pulled out my camera. I held it up to my face and gazed through the cloudy lense. Elounour was gone.
I set my camera down and looked about. No one was on the shore. The drizzly rain covered the dark water like a blanket.
“Elounour?” I called, “Where are you?”
There was no answer. It was like she was never there. I stood up and cautiously walked over to the lake. When I looked down, I saw a black hair tie floating about in the water, telling me something was wrong. I waded out to retrieve it, ignoring the waves that warned me not to go in.
All of a sudden, I heard splashing sounds not far from where I stood and I froze, gripping the hair tie tightly. The dark water moved about and the waves got higher and pushed me around. A monstrous fin appeared and I realized I hadn’t been imagining things when I saw it before.
Out of nowhere a huge, gray face emerged from the water. The creature had giant, yellow eyes, a long snout, and very sharp teeth. It looked enraged and was swimming my way.
I screamed for help in hopes someone was on the shore. I started to kick the water quickly behind me. I swung my arms about, lashing the black water and swam as fast as I could towards land. I could feel the monster’s force in the water behind and it was creeping closer and closer. I continued swimming as fast as I could, in a panic, and when my feet could touch the sand, I sprinted out of the water, almost tripping over the sharp rocks, to grab my bag.
When I turned around the monster was still in the water. Realizing it wouldn’t go onto the land I calmed down a little. In frustration, the monster gave a huge roar and I nearly fainted.
I knew I had to tell somebody what happened here, so I picked up my camera and took a picture of the creature as I sprinted away, bag and blanket in hand, leaving my umbrella behind.
I didn’t stop running to look back until I reached the middle of the path. Sitting down on a clump of spongy moss I noticed I wasn’t wearing my shoes. I didn’t care. I had to get away from the lake. I turned my camera back on and stared at the picture I took of the monster. It wasn’t clear. It showed only the blurred silhouette of the vast creature, but this was enough proof. And with a face that showed sheer sadness, I trudged home.
“Cass, is that you?” called out my brother as I opened the squeaky screen door and stepped into the house.
“Yeah,” I called back as I crept up the tile stairs to my room.
“How was the lake?” he said across the hallway.
I didn’t answer.
I tiptoed into my room and silently closed the door. I sat down on the white chair at my desk, opened up my Apple Laptop, and waited for it to wake up from its long hibernation. After a few minutes of waiting, the laptop opened up its glowing, white eyes. I downloaded the blurry picture of the creature in the lake from my camera and, opening up my email, sent it to the local news and wrote a story about what had happened at the now very dangerous lake.
I titled it, The Lochness Monster.