Emerald: Hallucinations From The Beyond

Emerald: Hallucinations From The Beyond

Discalimer: The characters, the species, and the scene set up is entirely ficitional. Any resemblace to the real life is purely coincidental.

Lake Emerald sat on the outskirts of this beautiful town famously known as Typhon. The inhabitants of this town were old fashioned and in general agreeable people. Natalia, born to a native of this town named Mr. Terry Sage, grew up in this town for a brief period of time around when she was in her prime teen years, that is, when she was 16 to 19. And then she moved back to the city, where she originally grew up, with her mother. You see, in her prime teen years, her parents decided to give their marriage one last chance which didn’t work. However, things soon ended amiably when Natalia’s mother Carrie decided that she wanted more from life and Terry was content where he was. 

At the age of 25, her mother died due to cancer. Natalia was livid at God for taking her mother sooner than she expected. You see, Carrie had always supported her endeavours and had inherited her mother’s free spiritedness. She was currently studying to become a travel journalist but had to give up so she could take care of her mother. After she passed away, she decided to go back and live with her dad and try to restart her career by forming a youtube channel on her endeavours. Somehow, this felt like a tribute to her mom, although she was no longer here, but putting it out into the world felt like her mom would listen no matter what energy she transformed into. 

Terry was quite unfazed by the news of Carrie’s passing away and that seemed to anger Natalia a little bit. Nevertheless, Terry had moved on in his life and so did Carrie when she was alive, so she could not blame her father for being indifferent. 

The town mayor upon hearing that Natalia was studying to be a travel journalist asked Natalia to shoot the town so that tourism could be supported in exchange for money she could put into resuming her education. Natalia, although still depressed, agreed so that she could distract herself from the downward spiral life was putting her in.

Her house was located in the heart of the town, surrounded by a park on one side, and a market place on the other. 

She laid down the town plans, checkout nearby attractions so she could decide what to put in her final video. As she surveyed the map, she saw 3 lakes and decided to visit all of them to check out their scenery and to possibly shoot if it was captivating enough. She told her plans to the town’s mayor. Dan became a little worrisome and enquired more. As Natalia gave an in detailed plan to Dan, he warned her to not go to Lake Emerald as there was an urban legend that the lake was haunted. It was believed that any living being who went near that lake became crazy and then died a tragic death. It was said that a really dark entity resides in that lake and whenever someone visits, it possesses them. 

Well of course, Natalia believed that it was all just a lie because Lake Emerald could only be reached through a difficult trek and they did not want to go with her. She decided to check out Lake Emerald the next day as it would take up her entire time and visit the remaining lakes by that day itself. 

The visit to the other lakes were successful as both of them were beautiful but differed from each other by the scenery. One could see the city’s skyscrapers from the other side and the other was surrounded by little hills. The lakes would have been suitable for promiting it as pitstops she thought to herself.

The next day she trekked and reached the Emerald at 9 AM. The view she experienced was breathtaking as the lake was a really serene green just like emeralds. Lush green trees blanketed the area and it was surreal. Little streams of water flowed through the ground. No wonder why it was named that way. She thought to herself what a shame that townspeople are scared by imbecile stories of poltergeists and how the whole town missed out on this beautiful lake. She wondered to herself that this could be a great hotspot for tourists who would love to see such a beautiful green in it. 

After shooting that lake for about 1 hour, Natalia felt a bit dizzy and decided to return to the town. As she trekked her way back, those thoughts surrounding her mother’s death came back. She was never going to see her mother again. With this heavy realisation, she went back home and forced herself to sleep to escape these thoughts. 

She was awakened by a loud thud possibly made by somebody opening the door really loudly. The house was empty and yet the thuds were heard periodically. When Terry finally came back home at 4 PM, he saw his daughter laid down on the floor, her body clenched, cupping her ears with her hands and a strange painful crying emotion consuming her face. Terry ran to his daughter’s aid and all she muttered was “Make the thuds stop”. To his dismay, he couldn’t understand his daughter so he took her to the doctor worried that she was suffering from tinnitus. The doctor proved to be of no help as he declared Natalia’s ear to be perfectly healthy. The sound stopped after 5 hours. Terry and Natalia figured that it was just stress and some kind of psychological mechanism to cope up with it until she told him how her day was. 

He listened to her vivid description of lake emerald and saw photographs but to Natalia’s dismay, Terry wasn’t excited, he was scared for her. She wanted to ask why he had this worrisome look again but by then she saw strange visions of red tints, blue fire, and suddenly a really scary looking creature popped and ran toward her. She screamed and protected herself by covering her face with hands only to realise it was just her and her father. 

Terry, at this point felt like he had no option left and dragged his unwilling daughter to the church. He demanded to see the exorcist and begged him to perform an exorcism on Natalia as he told the priest that she visited the lake and now she reeks of the devil. The priest began the exorcism as he recited a Latin mantra and painted a cross on her forehead with what seemed like blood. Natalia, although fully aware of her surroundings, felt too weak to fight anything and too scared of her own senses. As the priest completed his ritual, behaviour of Natalia became more erratic and she chose to spit on the priest. The priest went into shock and declared the devil is too powerful to be exercised as it came straight from the satan’s closest circle. Then, as he said that, he proceeded to run out of the town, scared for his life because apparently the devil had seen his face and the devil would come for him too if he didn’t leave. The whole town soon got word of it and gathered around the church with their own rituals, objects and mantras that would potentially ward off evil. 

Terry, who froze the moment he saw his daughter on the priest, suddenly came back to life and saw his daughter in his arms lying dead. His daughter had turned a peculiar green and just liked the lake. He cursed the mayor, he cursed his ex-wife, he cursed her passion, he cursed the lake and the devil for taking away his beautiful daughter who had done nothing bad in life. He cried and he cried and he cried until he could no longer express his emotions through tears. While Terry was deep in his grief, he was suddenly surrounded by medical staff, who were informed by the townspeople, the hospital called for a post mortem and the ambulance took his daughter away. 

A few days later, Terry was called by the doctors as it was found that his daughter’s body was found to be peculiar green which was possibly a result of some poisoning. They wanted his permission to do some bloodwork and some scientific mumbo jumbo which he didn't understand. Terry, still in shock, agreed to their curiosity because he knew if he didn’t, they would pester him until he gave in but this way he kept his peace. 

After a month, the body was returned to him and he was suggested to burn the body so her soul can rest in peace and the devil does not contaminate the place where she will be buried. So that is what he did, burnt her body instead of the standard funeral that anybody else was given. After a year of research by those medical practitioners, Terry received a call which informed him his daughter didn’t die of a possession but of poisoning by a species of plant Anthocyanin feroxin. The species is apparently toxic in nature and causes grave hallucinations, and also releases green pigments. Those pigments explained the peculiar yet beautiful colour of the lake and the body. 

Listening to him, Terry had only one question, whether it was treatable. The caller further informed him that the condition could have been treated if a blood work was done on time as an antidote to this poisoning is rare but available. Natalia’s body gave them a reason to do an extensive survey of Lake Emerald and it was found that the lake was full of these species and some of it washed up on the surface. The species looked harmless and that is why it had gone unrecognised. 

All of this news baffled Terry because if he had taken Natalia to the hospital, this would have been avoided, he would not have lost her. He started to blame himself for her death because he was a victim to a century old prejudice that still exists today. The townspeople still argue that it was a possession and all of this scientific data is just a cover up. To Terry, it did not matter because either way, he lost his only daughter and that is a pain no logic, no rationale, and no paranormal explanation can take it away. 

Years later- it was finally publicly announced that the lake was full of plant Anthocyanin feroxin and being in 2 mile radius of it is dangerous to any living being. The path to the lake was closed down and a cleanup was ordered to begin. 

Years later and it was realized that she could have been alive had a trip to the hospital was made. Well, that’s a lesson for you, to believe in the paranormal is to exhibit true open mindedness or validate yourself but to have faith in science will save your life.

-Gayatri Aggarwal