The Well

The temperature had dipped below zero that night. The grass was white with frost and brown leaves on birches were coated with white fuzz.
I was walking to my car unusually early, before the sun had risen above rooftops.
The night before had been especially difficult one. My insomnia was getting worse. I had given up trying to sleep when darkness gave in to dawn. If I had slept any longer, the sun would have melted the frost and I wouldn't have seen the footprints.
The lawn in front of the old stable was dotted with darker spots. When I went closer I realised they were wet spots that looked like they had been made by large, strangely shaped feet. They formed a clear trail that disappeared around the stable's corner. My own feet left a similar trail behind them as I followed the wet dots between the farm buildings.
The spots led me around another corner. My heart missed a beat when I realised where they were headed. I took a deep breath before I leaned against the wooden wall to see around the corner. Sure enough those weird, huge feet had walked toward the well. The trail ended just centimetres from the well’s stone wall.
Do you know how childhood memories sometimes fade and get warped so that you can't be sure if they are real or just a dream that you're mistaking for a real memory? When I was about six years old something happened to me at that well. I had come to the conclusion a long time ago that the memory of that day had morphed into a false memory or a dream. There are no such things as monsters in a well any more than there are trolls under bridges, so it had to be a dream. Maybe I had seen a strange animal of some sort that had scared me by the well and the memory had changed into a monster in my imaginative little head. Whatever the truth, I had dreaded that place ever since.
And now there were footprints of a monster leading inside that very same well.
I stood there for a moment not knowing what to do. Sun reached the grass around me and melted away the frost in moments. The footprints were gone and I started to wonder if I had just imagined things. I probably would have just left and tried to forget the whole thing if I hadn't noticed something hanging from the edge of the well. It was a red ribbon, torn from something. Either the monsters were unexpectedly fashionable or they had taken someone with them.
I knew I had to do something and quickly. I ran to the shed as fast as I could, grabbed some rope and an axe, and was back at the well in a few short seconds. But when I got back the ribbon was gone.
My mind started to race. Had I imagined the ribbon as well? Had the monsters taken the ribbon while I was gone? Maybe something was closer than I thought, watching me every second, so it knew when I was gone and could come back to erase the evidence. The only way to find out was to go down into the well and see what was down there.
I tried to see further into the well but it was too dark in the depths. I decided to fetch a flashlight. The closest one was in my car. My heart was racing as I ran across the wet lawn. I wasn't sure what I should expect to find in the well once I got down there, but I was sure I wouldn't like it. With shaky hands I dug a small flashlight from the glove compartment before running back to the well again.
The rope was old but sturdy. I tied it securely, one end to the metal structure of the well and the other end around my waist. Years ago I had tried rock climbing when I got a lesson as a birthday present. Some of the teachings had stuck in my head so I thought I had some idea what I was doing, but the wet, slippery wall of the well was quite different from the rugged surface of the wall we had climbed back then. I lowered myself as slowly and carefully as I could. I didn't get very far before my foot slipped, I lost my grip of the rope, and I started to plummet down towards the cold, shallow water.
I was sure I was going to die. Sometimes when you are in mortal danger time seems to go really slowly. I had time to contemplate what the monsters would do to my body, and how quickly anyone would notice I was missing. Then the image of the ribbon flashed in front of my eyes and I realised something unsettling. It was my ribbon. It must have gotten loose from the dress I had put out to dry last evening.
The ribbon didn't belong to a monster's victim. There wasn't anyone but me in need of rescuing. I was going to die in vain.
Right when my shoes touched the water, the rope went tight and stopped me abruptly. I slammed against the slimy wall and lost consciousness for a moment.
When I woke up I was hanging in an uncomfortable position and I could feel several nasty bruises. At least there didn't seem to be any broken bones and I was, indeed, alive. The axe was gone, probably somewhere in the icy depths of the well.
I grabbed the rope with both hands and started to pull myself back up. As I got closer to the surface and my surroundings got brighter, I felt increasingly foolish. There was absolutely no sign of any monster. I was an adult, I knew monsters didn't exist. It was clear now that the footprints had some natural explanation. The lack of sleep the night before must have affected my judgment.
I finally got all the way up. It took me a while to untie the rope. I must have made mistakes with the knot in my hurry to rescue the assumed damsel in distress because it wasn't the knot I had meant to use. By the time I was free I was also freezing. I dragged myself back to the house and into a hot, refreshing shower.
I didn't go anywhere that day. I spent the afternoon completing all kinds of mundane tasks, trying to convince myself that I was not going crazy even if I had acted rather strangely in the morning. I decided to never tell anyone about what happened. If someone asked about the bruises, I'd explain that I had knocked over a bookshelf. There was no reason to get others worried about my mental health.
In the evening I suddenly remembered the laundry that was still hanging outside. I grabbed a laundry basket and strode across the yard to get it while it was dry. When I took down the clothes I noticed that one of my dresses was indeed missing a ribbon. Funnily there was something stuck right in the place where the ribbon used to be. It was a piece of cobweb, that held a string of some kind of sticky liquid. It was rather pretty, like a string of perfectly clear beads. I regretted I didn't have my camera with me so I could have taken a picture of it before swiping it away. The dress had to be washed again to get rid of the sticky mess the natural decoration had made.
I never saw those mysterious footprints again, but I still avoid the well. It gives me the creeps. Luckily my insomnia was cured that day. Now my dreams have a regular guest: a slimy green monster with a really pretty red ribbon tied around its neck.