The Bridge Over the Drowned City
There are nights I still wonder if it truly happened.
Or if it was only something I carried back from sleep.
The clouds hung low and heavy, thin veils sliding across a swollen moon so that its light came and went in slow breaths. Where the moonlight found a gap, it spilled down in pale ribbons, shimmering on the water below the bridge. The surface glittered faintly, sometimes breaking into restless ripples that revealed the slow, silvery glide of fish or something more elusive beneath the stone arch. A faint chill came off the water as if it carried the breath of the deep.
The air smelled of wet stone and deep water. The night mist clung to my hands where they rested on the cold, damp wall. Now and then I could hear the soft slap of water against the bridge’s arches, a hollow, patient sound that had been there longer than memory.
The bridge itself was ancient and wide, its weathered stones worn smooth by countless footsteps. The waist-high walls of dressed stone were cold and slick with night mist. Beyond them, the water lay deep in the drowned valley, a mirror that caught every stray shred of moonlight, as if the bridge had stood watch over the valley for centuries.
We stood together in a silent company, dozens of us. I knew only one.
She stood close enough that her shoulder brushed mine. I can still recall the way her presence steadied me, even as her face stayed half in shadow. The brief brush of her fingers against mine reminded me I was not entirely alone. I cannot say what bound us together, only that it felt as if I had known her far longer than I could explain.
Below us the water hid a city. I could see the roofs and dark windows of the taller buildings breaching the surface, their peaked gables and stone arches catching faint moonlight like the remnants of an old European town, their walls worn and softened by years beneath the current. The rest lay buried in the depths, unseen but not forgotten. We had come to search for someone among those ruins. No one ever said who.
The night carried a hush like held breath. There was no sense of rescue, only of entering a place that was not meant for us.
At the midpoint of the bridge, a wide stairway of stone plunged straight into the water. There was no railing, only the timeworn stone walls that flanked the steps down. I do not remember anyone explaining how we would manage below, yet it never occurred to us that we could not.
One by one the others began to descend. Each carried a flashlight, some called them torches, and when the first stepped into the water, the beam of light cut across the surface like a blade. Others followed, their lights flaring bright for a moment before dimming as they sank deeper, the beams twisting and paling until they vanished into the depths.
When at last it was our turn, she turned to me briefly. I felt her presence more than I saw her expression, a calm assurance that steadied my nerves. Together we stepped down into the moonlit ripples and then beneath the surface.
The world below was muted and green, the city’s streets wavering in the moonlight filtered through water. Far ahead the glow of other torches shimmered and drifted like a constellation breaking apart. Around us the drowned towers and arches rose, their black windows watching.
We moved forward, keeping close to each other. I remember her hand brushing mine, an anchor against the vast, weightless dark. Somewhere beyond sight the others’ lights kept sinking, fading as they went deeper.
I cannot recall what came next, only the sense of being watched, as though the city itself resented our presence. That memory stays with me: standing at the edge of a submerged street, holding my breath without needing to, staring into the deeper dark.
I woke, or returned, with the feeling that something from that place lingered, just behind me.