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Aino Väisänen stood at the edge of Lake Paasselkä, the cold air of twilight biting at her skin, the distant trees dark silhouettes against the deepening sky. With fingers poised above the screen, she held her phone steady while the AR app loaded. Around her, the faint hum of the lake’s gentle waves offered the only sound—until the app stirred to life.
As the map flickered to life, a faint blue light washed over her face. In swift succession, the app traced the water’s surface with glowing lines, layering a virtual grid atop the quiet stillness of reality. Aino felt the familiar thrill of excitement whenever tech clicked into place. It’s working, she thought, a tight smile pulling at the corners of her lips.
Across the lake, a shimmer rippled, making Aino’s heart skip a beat. Two small orbs appeared, floating above the surface, glowing with an unnatural light. Though she blinked and rubbed her eyes, the figures remained. Suspended in perfect stillness, one glowed a soft blue, the other pulsed with an eerie red.
“Okay, that’s… definitely not part of the app,” Aino muttered, her voice caught between fascination and growing unease. With trembling fingers, she leaned closer and adjusted the settings on her phone, attempting to recalibrate the AR overlay. The orbs remained.
Her breath caught. This isn’t possible. Designed to map the environment, the app wasn’t meant to manifest objects from thin air. This couldn’t possibly be a trick of the light—or just a glitch. The orbs seemed... too real. Too aware.
Just as her fingers twitched toward the phone’s power button, a sudden chill crept into the air. A soft gust swept across the lake, sending ripples skimming over its surface. The orbs flickered, briefly dimming before flaring brighter.
Aino stepped back, her pulse quickening. She hadn’t programmed anything to respond like this. “What are you?” she whispered, her voice barely audible against the low rumble of the distant trees.
The orbs moved again, slowly but with intent, as if they heard her. To her left, they glided, shifting subtly as though circling—studying—her. Frozen in place, she felt her breath catch in her throat. They’re responding.
From her phone, the light flickered—once, then twice. Without warning, a burst of static crackled through the app, its sharp, high-pitched whine sending a chill across Aino’s skin. She looked down at the phone. Now blank, the screen displayed only the ghostly outline of the lake—and the orbs, still hovering, faintly thrumming, their pulses eerily aligned with the rhythm of her heartbeat.
“What’s going on?” she whispered, her voice shaky. Her hand shook as she reached for the screen again, tapping it to reboot the app. But when the phone buzzed in her hand, it wasn’t the familiar feeling of restarting—it was a jolt, a cold, electric shock that made her flinch.
Aino’s gaze snapped back to the lake, and her stomach churned. Moments ago still, the orbs now swirled around her, closing the distance in a strange, deliberate dance. Across the water, their glow shimmered, casting flickering lights onto the trees and rocks that ringed the shore.
Her breath came faster, panic rising in her chest. The lights weren’t just there anymore. They were aware. They were alive.
What have I done?
She turned, but before she could react, a chill swept over the shore, sharp and biting. Midair, the orbs halted—then, in a sudden flash, shot toward the water, fusing into a single, radiant sphere that hovered just above the lake’s surface. All around her, the air grew heavy and oppressive, as though the lake itself had awakened.
Aino stumbled back, her phone falling to the ground with a crack, its screen dark—silent. Her body froze as the orb pulsed one last time, then dissipated into nothingness, leaving a ripple in the water.
She stood, heart racing, the lake silent once more. But something had changed. Deeper now, darker, the stillness pressed in around her. What had once been a quiet expanse, the lake now seemed to hold its breath—waiting for her to grasp something she wasn’t yet ready to face.
Aino’s breath came in sharp puffs, visible against the evening chill. Thick and fast, the mist had rolled in, curling around her boots and creeping up her legs like fog-born fingers. On a summer night this warm, so far from winter’s reach, it wasn’t supposed to be this cold. She shivered, pulling her jacket tighter. The app had gone quiet, the screen flickering with strange, stuttering glitches, and she held her phone tighter, as if it could somehow steady her.
Don’t freak out, she thought, willing her heart to slow. But it wasn’t easy. Across the water’s surface, the app’s glowing interface flickered, mirroring the orbs she had seen moments before. Without warning, the screen shifted.
At first, it was a glitch—a flash of static, the kind that happens when a device loses its signal. But then the images began to form. Aino squinted at the phone, trying to make sense of the shapes. It wasn’t the lake her screen was mapping anymore.
A village.
Distant, burned-out buildings, their timbers blackened and crumbling, shrouded in the same mist swirling around her. Through the shifting haze, she saw figures—faces hidden in shadow—stumbling through the wreckage, half-submerged in the shallow, muddy water that lapped around their ankles. Aino’s fingers twitched against the phone, but the screen remained unresponsive.
She tried to swipe it, tried to clear the glitch, but the images stayed.
This can’t be real.
The church came next. Tall, steepled, and aflame, its bell tower engulfed in red-orange light, sending flickers of shadow across the ruins of the village. With her throat dry and pulse quickening, Aino took a step back, gravel crunching beneath her boots. Yet the images refused to fade; instead, they sharpened—growing clearer, more vivid with each passing second.
A woman appeared in the corner of the screen, her face twisted in agony. A tightening gripped Aino’s chest—a flicker of recognition she couldn’t name. As unease swept through her, her body tensed, locked in place by something she didn’t yet understand. The woman’s eyes seemed to burn through the screen, staring directly at her, and then—
Wait.
The woman looked disturbingly familiar. Too familiar.
Aino’s heart skipped a beat. “No,” she whispered, her voice shaking. “No, no, no…” Stumbling backward, she fumbled the phone in her trembling hands, her feet skidding on the slick stones along the shoreline. Her breath hitched as the cold air pressed against her chest, the atmosphere thickening around her—heavy, suffocating.
It’s her… it’s me. The realization hit her like a blow to the stomach. The woman—she looked like her. But that couldn’t be possible, could it?
Before she could process further, the wind picked up. As the mist thickened around her, the phone screen blinked, crackling with static. A low, unnatural hum rose in the air, vibrating through the soles of her shoes and reverberating up her spine. Her heart raced. Her breath, visible in the air, came faster. This isn’t part of the app. This isn’t just a glitch.
Desperately, Aino swiped at the screen again, but the app resisted her touch. With fumbling fingers, she reached for the power button, yet the app refused to shut down—as if it had a will of its own. Instead, it pulled—as if something on the other side of the phone was holding her in place.
“Stop,” she gasped, her voice cracking with desperation. She tried again, pushing her thumb harder against the screen. “Stop! I didn’t—this isn’t… what the hell is this?”
Around her legs, the mist curled tighter, its tendrils almost alive as they twisted upward. From across the lake, a gust of wind howled, and on the screen, the woman appeared to reach out—her hand shifting, pressing against the digital surface as though pleading for release.
No.
The air felt colder. Too cold.
Though Aino’s fingers trembled, it was no longer just from the cold. The phone had become more than a device—it was connected to something. These images weren’t random, weren’t glitches; they were deliberate, intentional. They were a message. And the lake... the lake was using her.
“Please… stop,” Aino whispered, her voice small, swallowed by the growing storm. On the screen, the figures—villagers drowned in the depths, their faces contorted in agony—turned their gaze toward her, eyes pleading. This was a warning.
Terror pulsing through her veins, Aino’s heart raced as the mist churned relentlessly around her feet. She faced the truth she had been avoiding—she had opened the door. And it wasn’t just the app anymore. Something from the depths of the lake had awoken, and it wanted her—wanted all of them—to know its pain.
Aino tried once more to turn off the phone. Her thumb brushed the screen.
But the app flickered again, and the woman’s face—her face—was there, clear as day, staring back at her.
“You can’t escape,” the woman’s lips seemed to say, though no sound escaped them.
Aino stumbled backward, the phone slipping from her hands. The app shut down in a violent flash of static, and the lake, as if in response, fell deathly still.
Thicker now, the mist clung to her skin, and the air hung heavy with the scent of water and decay. At the lake’s edge, Aino stood frozen, feet rooted in the gravel—though she couldn’t remember moving forward. She quickly picked up her phone, cold and dark in her hands, but it felt like an anchor she couldn’t release.
The lake stretched before her, its surface flat and dark as ink, reflecting nothing but the ghostly fog. But as Aino watched, something began to take shape, rising from the depths of the mist. At first, it was a blur, shifting in and out of focus, but then it sharpened. A figure. Tall, thin, translucent, barely solid in the dim light. A woman.
Aino’s heart skipped. She took a step back, her body urging her to run, but she couldn’t move. I know her, she thought, her stomach twisting. Out of the haze, the woman’s features sharpened—pale, sunken eyes, limp gray hair, and clothes so faded they seemed like fragments of a memory dredged from the depths of time.
Her. It’s her. It’s Grandma.
The realization struck with the force of a physical blow. Standing before her was the ghostly figure of her great-grandmother, long lost to the lake—her tragic death shrouded in silence, the family's deepest, most guarded secret. It was the reason her father had never spoken of his past, why they had abandoned the old house by the lake when she was still a child. Aino had heard the stories whispered in fragments, half-believed—but nothing had ever felt real. Not until now.
With slow, deliberate motion, the figure raised its hand, fingers curling in the air. Instinctively, Aino stepped forward, her feet moving on their own—as if compelled by the spirit’s silent command. Her breath came fast and shallow, the cold biting at her skin, but her hands felt warm, the phone still clutched tightly.
When the figure’s mouth opened, no words emerged—only static, a burst of warped, grating noise that sent a sharp ring through Aino’s ears.
“You must...”
Aino’s chest tightened, her heart hammering as the distorted words came through, barely coherent.
“The curse... binds us... sever the link...”
Aino’s knees trembled, and she staggered back, the mist swirling around her like a living thing. The voice, now unmistakably familiar—so real—sent a shiver down Aino’s spine. It was her great-grandmother’s, fractured and distorted by the phone’s interference. As if straining against the boundary between worlds, the spirit seemed to fight to speak, her words mangled by the very force that carried them.
Aino’s throat tightened. “What... what do you want from me?” she choked out, though she already knew the answer. It wasn’t just the app. It wasn’t just curiosity anymore. The lake wanted her.
Through the shifting fog, the spirit’s form flickered, its edges dissolving and reappearing like a wavering flame. For a fleeting moment, Aino caught the faintest glimmer of a smile—one etched with sorrow and heavy with regret. Slowly, the figure extended its hand, bony fingers stretching toward her.
“Your blood...”
Glancing down at the phone in her hands, Aino felt a jolt of unease. The app—her app—once dark and dead, was now alive, charged with an unnatural energy. An eerie light bled from the screen, pulsing in sync with the ghostly woman’s every movement. The voice crackled again, the static rising.
“Destroy it... or we... all... drown.”
Aino blinked rapidly, her mind reeling. Drown. The word echoed through her mind, each repetition tightening the pressure in her chest. Beneath the surface, the lake—this cursed, silent witness—seemed to call to her, aching to draw her down into its depths. It wanted to claim her as it had claimed her great-grandmother, her family’s dark history woven into the water’s very soul.
When she opened her mouth to speak, no sound emerged. Breath shallow and strained, she stood frozen beneath the crushing weight of the choice before her—a pressure as real as any touch. The lake didn’t want her. It wanted the phone. The app. Her creation.
“Sacrifice it...” the spirit whispered through the static. Its hand reached farther, flickering, as if the very act of speaking was tearing it apart. “End the cycle... before it’s too late...”
In her hand, the phone grew warm, pulsing with a strange, incomprehensible energy. It felt alive, thrumming with purpose—as if the lake were speaking through the screen, its voice silent but insistent, tugging at her will, pleading to be released.
Her fingers twitched, and for the briefest of moments, she considered throwing it into the lake, ending it all. But her mind raced. What if I don’t? What if her family’s secret ran deeper than this? What if breaking the link wasn’t enough?
The woman’s image flickered violently. “It will consume you...” the voice rasped, the static growing louder, more violent. The mist churned faster, as if the lake was angry at being denied.
Aino’s hands shook violently, her breath ragged. There was no choice. The app, the phone, the digital connection—it had to go. It was never meant to exist.
With a cry that echoed across the empty shore, Aino raised the phone above her head, her fingers white-knuckling the device, and in a single, desperate motion, she hurled it into the lake.
With a sharp splash, the phone struck the water and vanished beneath the surface. Instantly, the static fell silent, and the mist froze in place, suspended in an unnatural, breathless stillness.
For a moment, everything was quiet. The figure of her great-grandmother wavered, flickering like a candle in the wind. Then, with one final, sorrowful look, the spirit vanished into the mist.
Aino stood, trembling, as the lake returned to its deathly stillness, the weight of the curse lifting from her shoulders. But as she stared into the dark water, she couldn’t shake the feeling it wasn’t truly over—that something, somewhere, still waited in the depths.
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