He shot toward the surface, lungs screaming. When he finally broke the water, the sun was setting. He scrambled onto the shore, gasping, and looked back at the lake.
Luca didn’t believe in ghost stories. He was a diver, a man of cold facts and oxygen tanks. He had heard the legend of —the house at the bottom of the lake—since he was a boy. Locals claimed it belonged to a clockmaker who refused to leave when the valley was flooded for the dam in the 1950s. One humid August afternoon, Luca dove. La casa in fondo al lago
Luca swam through the open front door. His flashlight beam cut through the dark, resting on a wooden table where a porcelain cup sat, still upright. He moved toward the back room, his flints echoing strangely in the pressurized silence. He shot toward the surface, lungs screaming
As Luca reached out to touch the glass, a sound vibrated through his chest—a heavy, metallic thump . Then another. The clock was ticking. Luca didn’t believe in ghost stories
Luca kicked hard against the glass, the sound of the ticking growing deafening, drowning out the bubbles of his own breath. Just as his vision began to grey at the edges, the glass shattered.
On the wall hung a massive grandfather clock. Its hands were frozen at 12:06.