Rain all day — steady at first, then driving in sheets that turned the river into a roiling, brown current. The banks swelled until they swallowed the narrow strip of gravel where I’d been keeping my gear, forcing me to drag everything higher up the slope. The water churned and slapped against the pilings of the old bridge, its voice louder than the wind.
By midnight, the storm had slowed to a thin, cold drizzle. That’s when I saw it — a faint light pulsing under the bridge near camp. Not the sharp beam of a flashlight or the warm flicker of a lantern. This was different. Greenish-yellow, diffuse, like the sickly glow of a chemical stick cracked open underwater.
It moved against the current, gliding between the bridge pilings in a slow, weaving pattern — not drifting, but steering. Every so often, the light dimmed to almost nothing, then flared again, just eNough to catch the reflection of the rain-slick wood above it.
I snapped photos, fumbling with the camera in the wet, but within seconds the lens fogged over from the damp air. I wiped it clean, and the light was still there — a little closer now.
The moment I stepped toward the bank for a better angle, it winked out. No fade, no shimmer — just gone, like a switch thrown in the dark. A heartbeat later, the surface erupted with a splash deep enough to make the bridge tremble, sending rings racing outward until the current tore them apart.
The water closed over whatever it was, leaving nothing but the rain and the sound of my own breath.
The Hidden Ones 
Drop Your Cryptid Clues