Random Story Time!

It's that time again! I have a new random story to share with you all. This time I was playing around with 3rd Person Limited POV (if that means anything to you, good. If not, don't worry about it) as well as some fun dialect writing.

Enjoy!

(ps - note that the pictures are more to give you a feel for the setting than anything else - they're not direct inspiration this time. Really the story stands alone but I figured pictures are pretty and stuff...)

They weren’t s’posed to be on the lake. He didn’t know about Yuri, but if Meemaw caught him out here she’d skin his hide. He could just imagine her voice, shrill with worry, “Sekai Jorgenson! How many times I gots to tell you to mind ya Elders!? You daft, bloody whelp of a boy…” Best she didn’t find out. Asides, he knew the ice-berry bushes on the far side of Deep Lake would be burstin-full and they had to get ‘em afore dark. Meemaw’d want a good batch for her feast pies. He just realized, with some chagrin, that they’d spent too much time girlie-flirting in the snowy meadow with Ghara and Pili. Now he regretted it. Well, just the loss of time. Not the flirtin’ part. Sekai rubbed his mittened hands together to make a little heat and scuffled along after Yuri, praying no one’s looking out to the lake-side today. 
         

It made sense to cut across the frozen lake, he told himself. Like Yuri’d said, what was the point of going around if they could save a couple hours skimmin’ cross the ice-top instead? With how cold this winter’d been, the ice musta been deeper than a full-growed snowbear standing on its tiptoes. Then again, each step they took Sekai could hear the ice groan and crackle deep b’neath his thick fur-wrapped boots.
          

“Yuri, ya’sure we shouldn’t just cut along the edge-like?”
                  

Yuri looked back at him with that defiant scowl, “Lawd, Kai, you in’t scared, are ya?”
                 

“A’course not!” Sekai puffed up his chest. “It’s just that I don’t care much fer a swim if ya catch my drift.” Yuri didn’t bother to respond, instead scoffing and trudging along once more.

Sekai couldn’t help but look back the way they’d come, the dim orange glow of the town-fire in the distance. Little wisps of smoke rising from the round huts. His mouth watered thinking of the juicy haunch of meat roasting over Meemaw’s cook-fire at home. It’d still be there cookin’ up when they got back. He took a deep breath, feeling the dry frigid air crackle around his nose hairs as they froze. His face-skin felt tight as tanned leather. The icy air steeled his nerves a bit and he slugged along in Yuri’s wake.
                    

“Da hell?” Yuri stopped of a sudden, craning his head to a spot over’t the middle of the lake, “Wassat?”
            

“What’chu talkin?” Sekai hurried over to his friend to get a better eyeful. Yuri pointed to the shadow just over a stone-throw away. Was it a dip in the ice? It couldn’t be a hole, could it? No one’s ever out on Deep Lake. Well, except for the two them today. But in’t no one s’posed to be on the lake. Ever. Not for fish, not for ice, not for nothin’, not so long’s the Tribe Elders preachin’ forbade ‘em all. Deep Lake’s avoided at all costs cuz the Evil Ones, erryone knows. Nobody be cuttin’ holes out in the middle the lake. It just wasn’t done. But, then again, maybe it was just a shadow and nothin’ to worry ‘bout. “I dunno Yuri. Let’s just give it a wide berth. Don’t want no thin ice under my moccasins, d’you?”
        

“May not be a hole… Let’s find out.” There was that familiar gleam in Yuri’s eye. The same gleam before the grand honey-fishin’ sceme in the big greenhouse. Before they’d ran starkers through Old Winnoa’s garden patch and out into the fresh snow fleein’ the bee swarm, hands full of drippin’ honeycombs. Before they’d got the whoopin’s on top of the mass of swelling stings. This was a bad idea. And Sekai knew it. But then again, when could he ever say no to Yuri?
           

The air all round them was still and quiet. How strange. He shivered down to his spine. But it wasn’t cuz the cold. He didn’t feel right. Maybe the Elders were right to warn them away. Sekai almost turned around right then. But something nagged at him. He felt the curiosity fightin’ with his better senses. Then it won. Slowly, cautiously, he and Yuri struck out toward the spot. The ice didn’t seem any weaker here than where they’s at before. Sekai felt a little thrill as curiosity scared away the fear.
             

As they got closer, Sekai could see it was ‘nfact a hole. A splatter of ice-rubble littered all sides of the hole’s jagged edges. Looked like the frozen lake’d finally cracked open after all these frigid years. But it wasn’t that fact that startled him and turned his blood cold as the ice they stood on. Rather, it was the single trail of footsteps that led out. 

Thanks again for reading! I hope you enjoyed the story today! Feel free to comment below any parts you especially liked (or didn't). I'd love to hear your thoughts! (Unless you didn't like it - in which case, I'll read your comment but I don't promise to love it.)