It lay in a hollow, the limbs of dead trees that surrounded it resembled petrified sentries. Clouds of mosquitoes rose and fell over the pool’s stagnant water. The sun, a large orange orb, began to sink, its heat lessening as a humid evening approached.

Sonia holding Tim’s hand, stopped to gaze into the pool’s murky water. ‘It looks like black oil,’ she said as they sat down on large boulder, white against the dark water behind them. Blackbirds, drowsy from the heat of the day, began to sing. Bats swooped above their heads like small erratic shadows.

Sonia, resting her head against Tim’s shoulder, reminisced about their recent weekend at Glastonbury Festival. They laughed, reminding each other about the night their tent collapsed under the weight of heavy rain. The flooded toilets. They spoke with excitement about their plans to take a gap year off, in October, travelling around Australia, finding jobs as they went.

Across the field, they could see their blue tent pitched on common ground. Tim’s motor bike lay beside it. Further on, a church spire peeked through trees and, in the near distance, they could hear a tractor. Both were glad that they’d stopped off at this quiet place on their journey home from Glastonbury. Sonia had called her mother and told her that they’d be a day or two late. Tim had phoned his parents and said they’d be home in a couple of days.

Now they were heading for a pub that sold decent but cheap meals. Sonia’s stomach rumbled with hunger and Tim said they’d better head for The Llyn Ddu Inn and, as he spoke, the boulder seemed to shift beneath them. The pool appeared to stir its unctuous waters. Then a swarm of mosquitoes rose in one solid mass and descended upon the couple. Screaming in panic, as a million tiny injections pierced their skin, they plunged into the pool in the vain hope of ridding their miniature tormentors.

As if disturbed, the boulder rolled over the edge into the pool. As it rolled, a black hiatus opened up at its upturned base, and a thick, warty tongue shot out to curl around the couple’s floundering bodies. In an instant, Sonia and Tim were dragged into that gaping hole, their bodies instantly dissolving in a thick and grey stinking mucus.

Five minutes later, the boulder rolled back onto solid ground, belching.