I went ice fishing at Drifting Lake. I was the only one…
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I went ice fishing at Drifting Lake. I was the only one who came back.
I need advice, and I need it fast. But first, let me explain what happened today.
My name is Noah, and I just survived something I can't explain. I'm sitting in my truck right now, heater blasting, hands still shaking as I type this out on my phone. I should be calling someone. The police, maybe. But who's going to believe what I'm about to tell you?
It started as a simple weekend trip to decompress after a brutal week at work. I've been ice fishing since I was a kid, and there's something meditative about sitting in a tent on a frozen lake, waiting for a bite. No phone service, no emails, just you and the ice.
I drove out to Drifting Lake around 7 AM. It's a pain in the ass to even find - I only knew about it because my friend's dad told me about it a while ago, and even then I had to search for it on satellite maps.
The access point requires a solid thirty-minute drive down a maintenance road that's barely maintained at all. Today it was worse than usual, patches of ice making the whole drive feel like playing Russian roulette with my truck's alignment.
I saw tire tracks from other vehicles, so at least I knew I wasn't completely crazy for attempting it, but every time my wheels slipped I questioned my life choices.
But that's exactly why I like Drifting Lake. The terrible access keeps most people away.
Except today, there were more people than I expected. I counted maybe fifteen other fishermen spread across the lake, their pop-up tents dotting the ice like colorful mushrooms. A couple of guys near the shore were unloading their gear from a sled, and one of them gave me a friendly wave as I passed.
"Any luck out here before?" I called over.
"First time at Drifting Lake," he shouted back. "Buddy said it's worth the drive though!"
"It usually is," I replied, giving him a thumbs up.
Further out, I passed an older guy who was already set up, sitting on his bucket outside his tent with a thermos of coffee. He nodded at me as I walked by.
"Hell of a drive to get here," I said.
"Always is," he agreed with a chuckle. "But beats sitting in traffic on the regular lakes."
I found a spot about seventy yards from the nearest tent and started setting up.
That's when things started going wrong.
First, I stepped into a fishing hole that hadn't completely frozen over. The shock of icy water soaking through my boot nearly made me slip, and I spent five minutes trying to wring out my sock in the freezing wind. Then the wind itself became a problem.
I've set up this tent a hundred times, but today the gusts were relentless, whipping the fabric around and nearly yanking the poles from my hands.
At one point, I lost my grip and the tent pole swung back, the metal end missing my temple by maybe an inch. I felt it whoosh past my face and actually heard it whistle. If it had connected, I'd probably be unconscious on the ice right now.
Finally, after twenty minutes of fighting with the damn thing, I got the tent secured. I was sweating despite the cold, frustrated and already wondering if this trip was a mistake.
But I was here now. Might as well fish.
I drilled my main hole, watching the augur chew through eight inches of solid ice. Then I drilled a second hole about three feet away for my underwater camera.
It's a nice setup I'd invested in last season - lets me see what's happening below the ice, check if fish are actually down there or if I'm wasting my time.
I dropped the camera down and watched the monitor as it descended. Murky greenish water, some vegetation, the occasional flash of something small darting past. Normal lake stuff. I didn't see any decent-sized fish, but I'd give it time.
The first hour passed quietly. Too quietly, actually. I kept expecting to hear the usual sounds of other fishermen - people calling to their buddies, the whine of augurs drilling new holes, maybe some laughter or complaints about the cold.
But I heard nothing except wind and the occasional creak of ice settling beneath me.
Around 9:30 AM, I heard the first splash.
It came from somewhere to my left, maybe fifty or sixty meters away. I figured someone had caught something and was hauling it up through their hole. A few minutes later, another splash from a different direction. Then another.
I checked my own line. Nothing. Not even a nibble. The camera showed the same empty water.
Another splash, closer this time. Then what sounded like someone shouting, but the wind made it hard to tell. It could have been excitement over a catch, or someone calling to a friend. Ice fishing lakes can be weird with sound. Sometimes voices carry perfectly, sometimes they get swallowed by the wind.
I went back to watching my line, adjusting my jig, trying to stay patient. The splashing continued intermittently, always from different directions. I started to find it annoying. If everyone else was catching fish, why wasn't I getting any action?
Then I heard the scream.
It was unmistakable this time - a genuine, terror-filled scream that cut through the wind. Close. Very close. Maybe from the tent nearest to mine.
I scrambled out of my shelter, nearly tripping over my bucket in my haste. The screaming had stopped as abruptly as it started, but I ran toward where I'd heard it, my boots slipping on the ice.
The tent was maybe seventy meters away, bright orange fabric flapping in the wind. As I got closer, I could see the entrance was unzipped and hanging open.
"Hey!" I shouted. "You okay in there?"
No response.
I reached the tent and looked inside. Empty. The guy's gear was scattered around - his rod was lying on the ice, his bucket tipped over. But what made my stomach drop was the fishing hole.
It was huge. Not the standard eight-inch diameter you'd drill with an augur, but easily three feet across. The edges looked chewed or broken outward, chunks of ice scattered around it. And leading to that hole were drag marks - two parallel lines scraped across the ice, like someone had been pulled.
I stared at that hole, my brain refusing to process what I was seeing. Then I heard it - a wet, sucking sound, like something large moving through water just below the surface.
I backed away slowly, my eyes locked on that too-large hole. That's when I noticed something that made my blood freeze colder than the air around me.
All the other tents were collapsed.
Every single one. Fifteen brightly colored shelters that had been standing when I'd set up were now just deflated piles of fabric on the ice. And near each one, I could make out dark circles - enlarged fishing holes, just like the one in front of me.
The splashing sounds I'd been hearing all morning suddenly made horrible sense.
I was alone on the ice.
I ran back to my tent, my mind racing. I needed to pack up and get off this lake immediately. My hands shook as I started throwing gear into my bag - forget organizing, forget being careful, just grab what I could and go.
That's when I glanced at the camera monitor.
The screen showed murky water, but something was different. The camera was panning - no, being pushed by a current. And as it turned, I saw it.
A person in the water, maybe twenty feet from the camera.
My first thought was horror - someone had fallen through the ice, someone was drowning right now and I was watching it happen on a screen. But that thought lasted maybe half a second before my brain started screaming that something was wrong.
The person was just... floating there. Not struggling, not thrashing, not doing anything a drowning person would do. Just suspended in the water, completely still except for the gentle drift of the current.
And they were staring directly at the camera.
The skin was pale, almost luminescent in the murky water, visibility bloated that made me think of bodies pulled from rivers on the news. But this wasn't a corpse. It was moving with purpose, with intelligence, even though it hadn't been struggling a moment before.
The face was human: eyes, nose, mouth, all in the right places. But the eyes were too wide, unblinking, and they caught what little light filtered down in a way that made them reflect like an animal's. The skin had a strange sheen to it, almost waxy.
That's when I noticed the neck.
There were slits along the sides, three or four on each side, opening and closing rhythmically. Like gills. Like it was breathing underwater.
My brain tried to rationalize it. Weird lighting, murky water, maybe shadows playing tricks. But then the person started swimming toward the camera, and any hope of rational explanation died.
No human moves like that underwater. It didn't kick its legs or pull with its arms the way a swimmer would. It glided, moving with a fluid grace that was completely wrong. Its arms extended in front of it, and as it got closer I could see the hands clearly.
The fingers were too long, and there was webbing stretched between them. Translucent webbing, like a frog's feet, connecting each digit.
"Oh god," I whispered, and that broke my paralysis.
I grabbed my phone, wallet, and keys, shoving them into my pockets. Everything else - the expensive rod, the tackle box, the heater; I left it all. The monitor showed the thing getting closer, its pale face growing larger on the screen.
I was halfway out of the tent when I heard the ice crack behind me.
I didn't look back. I couldn't. But I heard the sound of ice breaking, of something forcing its way through a space too small for it, widening the hole with terrible strength. I heard water sloshing onto the ice, heard something that might have been breathing but sounded too wet, too wrong.
I ran.
The ice was slippery and I nearly fell twice, but terror kept me upright and moving. I could hear the wind and my own ragged breathing and my boots slipping on the ice, but I didn't hear anything behind me. That somehow made it worse.
I made it to shore, to my truck, fumbling with the keys before finally getting the door open. I threw myself inside and locked the doors, my hands shaking so badly I could barely get the key in the ignition.
Only then did I look back at the lake.
My tent was collapsed, just like all the others. And my fishing hole... I could see even from this distance that it was larger than it should be. Much larger.
The camera setup was gone. The mount, the cable, everything. Just gone, like it had never been there.
I sat in my truck for maybe five minutes, maybe longer, just staring at that lake. At the collapsed tents. At the enlarged holes in the ice. At the evidence of something I couldn't explain.
Then I drove home, following that same rough maintenance road, my wet sock squelching in my boot with every press of the gas pedal.
Now I'm home, and I don't know what to do.
Those people are gone. Fifteen fishermen who were on that lake this morning. I talked to some of them. The guy with the coffee thermos. The two buddies unloading their sled. They seemed like good people, just out for a day of fishing like me.
They had vehicles - I passed them at the access point on my way out. Someone is going to be looking for them. Families, friends, coworkers. People are going to notice they're missing.
But what do I tell the police? That something in the lake dragged them all under? That I saw a pale, bloated thing swimming toward my camera with webbed hands and gill slits on its neck? That it was intelligent enough to take my camera, to eliminate evidence?
They'll think I'm insane. Or worse, they'll think I did something to those people.
I have no proof. No camera footage, no witnesses, nothing. Just my story about a creature in Drifting Lake that hunts ice fishermen.
I keep checking the local news, but there's nothing yet about missing persons. Maybe no one's noticed yet. Maybe their families think they're still out fishing, that they'll be home for dinner.
But they won't be.
I know what I saw. I know what's in that lake. But knowing and proving are two different things.
And honestly? Part of me wants to go back. Not to Drifting Lake, never there again. But to other lakes, other ice fishing spots. I've been doing this for fifteen years. It's one of the only things that helps me decompress, that gives me peace.
But how can I? How can I sit on the ice now, knowing what might be underneath? Every fishing hole I drill from now on, I'll be wondering if something is down there watching me. Every sound on the ice will make me jump. Every splash in the distance will send me into a panic.
Maybe that's the worst part of all this. That thing didn't just take those people. It took something from me too - the one hobby that made me feel grounded, that gave me an escape from the stress of everyday life.
So I'm asking you - what should I do? Should I report this? Should I go to the police and tell them what happened, even though they won't believe me? Or should I stay silent and hope that someone else, someone with more credibility, finds evidence of what's out there?
Those people are dead or worse. And I got away. But I can't shake the feeling that it let me go. That it knew it had taken my camera, eliminated my proof, and decided one witness with an insane story was better than no survivors at all.
Has anyone else experienced something like this? Has anyone heard stories about Drifting Lake?
I need to know I'm not crazy. I need to know what to do.
Because right now, all I can think about is that pale face staring at the camera, those gill slits opening and closing, and those too-long fingers with webbing stretched between them. And the sound of ice breaking as it forced its way through to get to me.
I don't know if I can ever go ice fishing again. But god, I don't want to give it up.
#entertainment
source
I need advice, and I need it fast. But first, let me explain what happened today.
My name is Noah, and I just survived something I can't explain. I'm sitting in my truck right now, heater blasting, hands still shaking as I type this out on my phone. I should be calling someone. The police, maybe. But who's going to believe what I'm about to tell you?
It started as a simple weekend trip to decompress after a brutal week at work. I've been ice fishing since I was a kid, and there's something meditative about sitting in a tent on a frozen lake, waiting for a bite. No phone service, no emails, just you and the ice.
I drove out to Drifting Lake around 7 AM. It's a pain in the ass to even find - I only knew about it because my friend's dad told me about it a while ago, and even then I had to search for it on satellite maps.
The access point requires a solid thirty-minute drive down a maintenance road that's barely maintained at all. Today it was worse than usual, patches of ice making the whole drive feel like playing Russian roulette with my truck's alignment.
I saw tire tracks from other vehicles, so at least I knew I wasn't completely crazy for attempting it, but every time my wheels slipped I questioned my life choices.
But that's exactly why I like Drifting Lake. The terrible access keeps most people away.
Except today, there were more people than I expected. I counted maybe fifteen other fishermen spread across the lake, their pop-up tents dotting the ice like colorful mushrooms. A couple of guys near the shore were unloading their gear from a sled, and one of them gave me a friendly wave as I passed.
"Any luck out here before?" I called over.
"First time at Drifting Lake," he shouted back. "Buddy said it's worth the drive though!"
"It usually is," I replied, giving him a thumbs up.
Further out, I passed an older guy who was already set up, sitting on his bucket outside his tent with a thermos of coffee. He nodded at me as I walked by.
"Hell of a drive to get here," I said.
"Always is," he agreed with a chuckle. "But beats sitting in traffic on the regular lakes."
I found a spot about seventy yards from the nearest tent and started setting up.
That's when things started going wrong.
First, I stepped into a fishing hole that hadn't completely frozen over. The shock of icy water soaking through my boot nearly made me slip, and I spent five minutes trying to wring out my sock in the freezing wind. Then the wind itself became a problem.
I've set up this tent a hundred times, but today the gusts were relentless, whipping the fabric around and nearly yanking the poles from my hands.
At one point, I lost my grip and the tent pole swung back, the metal end missing my temple by maybe an inch. I felt it whoosh past my face and actually heard it whistle. If it had connected, I'd probably be unconscious on the ice right now.
Finally, after twenty minutes of fighting with the damn thing, I got the tent secured. I was sweating despite the cold, frustrated and already wondering if this trip was a mistake.
But I was here now. Might as well fish.
I drilled my main hole, watching the augur chew through eight inches of solid ice. Then I drilled a second hole about three feet away for my underwater camera.
It's a nice setup I'd invested in last season - lets me see what's happening below the ice, check if fish are actually down there or if I'm wasting my time.
I dropped the camera down and watched the monitor as it descended. Murky greenish water, some vegetation, the occasional flash of something small darting past. Normal lake stuff. I didn't see any decent-sized fish, but I'd give it time.
The first hour passed quietly. Too quietly, actually. I kept expecting to hear the usual sounds of other fishermen - people calling to their buddies, the whine of augurs drilling new holes, maybe some laughter or complaints about the cold.
But I heard nothing except wind and the occasional creak of ice settling beneath me.
Around 9:30 AM, I heard the first splash.
It came from somewhere to my left, maybe fifty or sixty meters away. I figured someone had caught something and was hauling it up through their hole. A few minutes later, another splash from a different direction. Then another.
I checked my own line. Nothing. Not even a nibble. The camera showed the same empty water.
Another splash, closer this time. Then what sounded like someone shouting, but the wind made it hard to tell. It could have been excitement over a catch, or someone calling to a friend. Ice fishing lakes can be weird with sound. Sometimes voices carry perfectly, sometimes they get swallowed by the wind.
I went back to watching my line, adjusting my jig, trying to stay patient. The splashing continued intermittently, always from different directions. I started to find it annoying. If everyone else was catching fish, why wasn't I getting any action?
Then I heard the scream.
It was unmistakable this time - a genuine, terror-filled scream that cut through the wind. Close. Very close. Maybe from the tent nearest to mine.
I scrambled out of my shelter, nearly tripping over my bucket in my haste. The screaming had stopped as abruptly as it started, but I ran toward where I'd heard it, my boots slipping on the ice.
The tent was maybe seventy meters away, bright orange fabric flapping in the wind. As I got closer, I could see the entrance was unzipped and hanging open.
"Hey!" I shouted. "You okay in there?"
No response.
I reached the tent and looked inside. Empty. The guy's gear was scattered around - his rod was lying on the ice, his bucket tipped over. But what made my stomach drop was the fishing hole.
It was huge. Not the standard eight-inch diameter you'd drill with an augur, but easily three feet across. The edges looked chewed or broken outward, chunks of ice scattered around it. And leading to that hole were drag marks - two parallel lines scraped across the ice, like someone had been pulled.
I stared at that hole, my brain refusing to process what I was seeing. Then I heard it - a wet, sucking sound, like something large moving through water just below the surface.
I backed away slowly, my eyes locked on that too-large hole. That's when I noticed something that made my blood freeze colder than the air around me.
All the other tents were collapsed.
Every single one. Fifteen brightly colored shelters that had been standing when I'd set up were now just deflated piles of fabric on the ice. And near each one, I could make out dark circles - enlarged fishing holes, just like the one in front of me.
The splashing sounds I'd been hearing all morning suddenly made horrible sense.
I was alone on the ice.
I ran back to my tent, my mind racing. I needed to pack up and get off this lake immediately. My hands shook as I started throwing gear into my bag - forget organizing, forget being careful, just grab what I could and go.
That's when I glanced at the camera monitor.
The screen showed murky water, but something was different. The camera was panning - no, being pushed by a current. And as it turned, I saw it.
A person in the water, maybe twenty feet from the camera.
My first thought was horror - someone had fallen through the ice, someone was drowning right now and I was watching it happen on a screen. But that thought lasted maybe half a second before my brain started screaming that something was wrong.
The person was just... floating there. Not struggling, not thrashing, not doing anything a drowning person would do. Just suspended in the water, completely still except for the gentle drift of the current.
And they were staring directly at the camera.
The skin was pale, almost luminescent in the murky water, visibility bloated that made me think of bodies pulled from rivers on the news. But this wasn't a corpse. It was moving with purpose, with intelligence, even though it hadn't been struggling a moment before.
The face was human: eyes, nose, mouth, all in the right places. But the eyes were too wide, unblinking, and they caught what little light filtered down in a way that made them reflect like an animal's. The skin had a strange sheen to it, almost waxy.
That's when I noticed the neck.
There were slits along the sides, three or four on each side, opening and closing rhythmically. Like gills. Like it was breathing underwater.
My brain tried to rationalize it. Weird lighting, murky water, maybe shadows playing tricks. But then the person started swimming toward the camera, and any hope of rational explanation died.
No human moves like that underwater. It didn't kick its legs or pull with its arms the way a swimmer would. It glided, moving with a fluid grace that was completely wrong. Its arms extended in front of it, and as it got closer I could see the hands clearly.
The fingers were too long, and there was webbing stretched between them. Translucent webbing, like a frog's feet, connecting each digit.
"Oh god," I whispered, and that broke my paralysis.
I grabbed my phone, wallet, and keys, shoving them into my pockets. Everything else - the expensive rod, the tackle box, the heater; I left it all. The monitor showed the thing getting closer, its pale face growing larger on the screen.
I was halfway out of the tent when I heard the ice crack behind me.
I didn't look back. I couldn't. But I heard the sound of ice breaking, of something forcing its way through a space too small for it, widening the hole with terrible strength. I heard water sloshing onto the ice, heard something that might have been breathing but sounded too wet, too wrong.
I ran.
The ice was slippery and I nearly fell twice, but terror kept me upright and moving. I could hear the wind and my own ragged breathing and my boots slipping on the ice, but I didn't hear anything behind me. That somehow made it worse.
I made it to shore, to my truck, fumbling with the keys before finally getting the door open. I threw myself inside and locked the doors, my hands shaking so badly I could barely get the key in the ignition.
Only then did I look back at the lake.
My tent was collapsed, just like all the others. And my fishing hole... I could see even from this distance that it was larger than it should be. Much larger.
The camera setup was gone. The mount, the cable, everything. Just gone, like it had never been there.
I sat in my truck for maybe five minutes, maybe longer, just staring at that lake. At the collapsed tents. At the enlarged holes in the ice. At the evidence of something I couldn't explain.
Then I drove home, following that same rough maintenance road, my wet sock squelching in my boot with every press of the gas pedal.
Now I'm home, and I don't know what to do.
Those people are gone. Fifteen fishermen who were on that lake this morning. I talked to some of them. The guy with the coffee thermos. The two buddies unloading their sled. They seemed like good people, just out for a day of fishing like me.
They had vehicles - I passed them at the access point on my way out. Someone is going to be looking for them. Families, friends, coworkers. People are going to notice they're missing.
But what do I tell the police? That something in the lake dragged them all under? That I saw a pale, bloated thing swimming toward my camera with webbed hands and gill slits on its neck? That it was intelligent enough to take my camera, to eliminate evidence?
They'll think I'm insane. Or worse, they'll think I did something to those people.
I have no proof. No camera footage, no witnesses, nothing. Just my story about a creature in Drifting Lake that hunts ice fishermen.
I keep checking the local news, but there's nothing yet about missing persons. Maybe no one's noticed yet. Maybe their families think they're still out fishing, that they'll be home for dinner.
But they won't be.
I know what I saw. I know what's in that lake. But knowing and proving are two different things.
And honestly? Part of me wants to go back. Not to Drifting Lake, never there again. But to other lakes, other ice fishing spots. I've been doing this for fifteen years. It's one of the only things that helps me decompress, that gives me peace.
But how can I? How can I sit on the ice now, knowing what might be underneath? Every fishing hole I drill from now on, I'll be wondering if something is down there watching me. Every sound on the ice will make me jump. Every splash in the distance will send me into a panic.
Maybe that's the worst part of all this. That thing didn't just take those people. It took something from me too - the one hobby that made me feel grounded, that gave me an escape from the stress of everyday life.
So I'm asking you - what should I do? Should I report this? Should I go to the police and tell them what happened, even though they won't believe me? Or should I stay silent and hope that someone else, someone with more credibility, finds evidence of what's out there?
Those people are dead or worse. And I got away. But I can't shake the feeling that it let me go. That it knew it had taken my camera, eliminated my proof, and decided one witness with an insane story was better than no survivors at all.
Has anyone else experienced something like this? Has anyone heard stories about Drifting Lake?
I need to know I'm not crazy. I need to know what to do.
Because right now, all I can think about is that pale face staring at the camera, those gill slits opening and closing, and those too-long fingers with webbing stretched between them. And the sound of ice breaking as it forced its way through to get to me.
I don't know if I can ever go ice fishing again. But god, I don't want to give it up.
#entertainment
source
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