CHAPTER 10
Michael wasn’t sure why he’d returned to the lake after all of the shitty things that had happened. Hadn’t his stretch of bad luck begun with his discovery of the thing in the water? Yet he’d come. What that said about his state of mind probably didn’t bear exploring.
He dropped his clothes and shoes into a pile on the shore and then looked at them, trappings of an unremarkable life.
The touch of the water against his naked skin was inhospitably cold, but then a swirl of warmth spread over him like an outpouring of sunshine from behind dark clouds: the exosuit, responding to his presence. He slid beneath the surface almost without hesitation, and the suit carried him smoothly into the depths, where a calmness came over him such as he hadn’t felt in a very long time.
The outp
