Bella Bare -- Richard Mann Split Open By Monster C... -

He kissed her forehead. “Where’s your sense of adventure, Bare?”

Bella felt the cold knot in her stomach that she’d learned to call intuition. “Richard, let the university send a drone.” Bella Bare -- Richard Mann Split Open by Monster C...

The official report called it a “drowning accident.” The sinkhole was filled with concrete. Richard Mann’s body was never recovered—only his dive light, found two miles downstream, still flashing a desperate SOS. He kissed her forehead

And she swears she can feel something watching her from the shower drain. Richard Mann’s body was never recovered—only his dive

She swam. She swam until her lungs burned, until the rope tangled around her leg, until she clawed herself out of the sinkhole and collapsed onto the leaf litter, coughing up creek water and bits of Richard’s wetsuit that had floated to the surface.

She pulled the rope. It came up easily. Too easily. The end was frayed, cut clean through—not by rock, but by what looked like serrated teeth.